Why do you begin to love streaming services and internet radio stations?

Bhaskar Jyoti Talapatra

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From some days I have been thinking why do we begin to love these two above mentioned options despite being traditionalists? I have found some reasons behind this so let me write about it.
1. Accessibility --- Yes , first of all, now we can access thousands of radio stations and many songs for the streaming services like Spotify or Gana.
2. The chance of getting new cassette players , atleast in India seems to be an absurd one. Those have become too hefty( for me atleast). The CDs are also not easily available. Though TTS make a come back yet those can't be easily maintained. Collecting vinyls in pristine condition is an ordeal .
3. It is not possible for one to buy vinyls /CDs of all the songs that one likes. ButStreaming services give one the chance of listening to various kinds of songs. I had never listened to Marathi or Malayalam songs but for Spotify ,Gana and internet radio stations now I can listen to those. Though I can't understand the meaning of the songs , I begin to like most of them for their melody. I think it helps to bind us in one common unity.
4. Before starting Spotify or Gana I was unaware of the treasure that we have in various provinces in India. The streaming services open a new avenue for the audiophiles.
5. For the bad condition of our economy and prolonged covid situation I think in near future a middle class man like me will not even dream of buying CDs or vinyls spending money. For some years we have to avoid unnecessary expenditure for our own benefit and in that case streaming services and internet radios triumph for being pocket friendly. Before covid I did not bother much about the price while buying vinyls even if those were insanely priced. But now I shall concentrate on priority and for me those two options are better.
6. Undoubtedly physical media by far surpasses streaming media in so far as the SQ is concerned yet we can't ignore the presence of the alternative options available.
So these are the reasons that I have thought.
Regards
 
@Bhaskar Jyoti Talapatra , you've enumerated most of the reasons. I started using streaming (now on Spotify/YT, cancelled Tidal) when the CD shops here started to close down and when the last man standing converted his into a gift shop. Streaming helps in:

- Access to new genre/artists, rather than being stuck with our library and what we are used to. The curated playlists on streaming services are a good place to start and we can explore further within the genre if we like what we are hearing. This also meant we now have access to obscure and Indie artists around the world. These artists are rarely discussed on forums/blogs.
- Access to alternate versions of the same album, which might sound better. Higher bit rate doesn't translate to a better quality recording, if we have a wonky source to begin with.

I liked physical media for a different reason. The buying part was a routine which I loved, and I still miss it. The chat with the friendly shop owner, the sifting through the new arrivals and friends you make along the way, followed by a visit to the library and lunch following it, was a weekend activity I looked forward to :)
 
Yes, the romance is just not there in streaming :(

I liked physical media for a different reason. The buying part was a routine which I loved, and I still miss it. The chat with the friendly shop owner, the sifting through the new arrivals and friends you make along the way, followed by a visit to the library and lunch following it, was a weekend activity I looked forward to :)
 
I had purchased a streamer (Sonos Connect) for listening to Spotify. I sold the streamer at a loss after a month or so. The reason, 1. Sound quality ifs not good, it's corrupted. 2. Since a huge amount of songs are available at our finger tips, we never listen to a whole song. We get tempted to search for and play another song before the already playing song is over. As you said, sound quality compared to the physical media is inferior. Buts since CDs, vinyls or cassettes are not available to buy, what I do is download songs from the net and burn them to blank CDRs, because even these sound much better than streaming....

I use Spotify as my primary music source though the week. During weekends at my ancestral home I listen exclusively to CDs.

On Spotify, I have disabled the autoplay option + I try to listen exclusively to albums (disabling shuffle) as a whole. I use external music dedicated websites for new music recommendations and play those albums on Spotify. Guess it is an attempt to avoid Spotify AI / algorithm determining or influencing what I listen to. Found that this works best for me, for the time being.

I must admit that my music tastes and discoveries were greatly influenced by Pandora in the mid to late 2000s. But somehow, I now seem to be uncomfortable with the dependency on AI / algorithms.
 
download songs from the net and burn them to blank CDRs, because even these sound much better than streaming....
Agree with you on this as i have tried it many times.
The recorded cd of the same songs from the same source of streaming and even different sources of streaming was much better than streaming even from good streamers like the Cambridge audio.
The only downside is you have to take the trouble to burn your cds compared to the convenience and benefits of streaming as described in this thread.
 
I use Spotify as my primary music source though the week. During weekends at my ancestral home I listen exclusively to CDs.

On Spotify, I have disabled the autoplay option + I try to listen exclusively to albums (disabling shuffle) as a whole. I use external music dedicated websites for new music recommendations and play those albums on Spotify. Guess it is an attempt to avoid Spotify AI / algorithm determining or influencing what I listen to. Found that this works best for me, for the time being.

I must admit that my music tastes and discoveries were greatly influenced by Pandora in the mid to late 2000s. But somehow, I now seem to be uncomfortable with the dependency on AI / algorithms.

Try Bandcamp. You might like it.
 
Agree with you on this as i have tried it many times.
The recorded cd of the same songs from the same source of streaming and even different sources of streaming was much better than streaming even from good streamers like the Cambridge audio.

Probably the DAC in your CD player is better than the DAC in your streamer.
 
Bandcamp is very underrated and not many mentions about it on this forum. I've found it quite exceptional to discover great music. Some of the titles published there by artists are not available on other platforms.
 
Yeah maybe, but I believe the content stored in a physical media sounds better. For eg. compare a movie in amazon prime, netflix etc to a same movie stored in a blu ray.....hear for yourself.

Please re-read @RRR’s post I replied to. It’s not about comparing physical media with streaming in general. But specifically about comparing physical media made by burning a file downloaded from the streaming site.
 
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