You kids and your music...

Generally I listen to music on my computer (Youtube) lol. Ill play some songs from my ipod when im mowing the grass or something. But, when Im driving I generally listen to my local talk radio station.

I store my music on my Google account, Google Play. I have some of it stored onto my device, but have access to the entire thing when my phone is connected to the internet. It works like the the iCloud.

Spotify or Pandora Radio

I listen to music on my computers, in my car, on a cheap mp3 player with good headphones, or on my home stereo. My collection has remained more-or-less evenly split between CDs and mp3s since the late nineties. Most CDs, however, are eventually converted to mp3 format so the songs can be played on my portable devices. Speaking of which, in addition to a 6 CD changer, my car came with a USB connection which enables me to keep my driving mix on a thumb drive which I update from time to time. I love this feature, as it's convenient and leaves room for other things. Curiously, although I'm a Mac guy, I rarely purchase through iTunes, and my old iPod doesn't get much use.

I download my music from iTunes and it gets stored on all my devices. I make different playlists for working out, walking my dog, playing video games & relaxing. In my car I listen to the radio or I make cd's. My car doesn't have a USB connection. I like listen to music on YouTube too.

I use youtube.

I like the pretty pictures..

I buy CDs for cheap on half.com and then rip them to iTunes. I keep the CDs in my car, and I burn copies to listen to in the house. I listen to music on my iPhone when I'm in the shower, or working on something where I don't have access to a nearby stereo.

My collection is mostly rock, hard rock, and metal, with some ska, new-wave-esque type music, a little bit of contemporary, a little dub-step, and a little rap/hip-hop. Christian bands/artists make up 100% of my collection.

Strider1002 said:

How do you listen to music?
What kind of collection do you have?
How do you store it? In what kind of format, etc?

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How - on the computer, on my stereo sometimes.

Kind - varied - Lots of classical, baroque, some impressionist, some modern instrumental. Listen still to some 80's 90's music, pop, classic rock, older classic rock, some metal.

Still have cassette tapes. Also CD's and of course on hard drives and USB sticks.

I totally read the thread title as "Your kids and your music" and assumed it would be a discussion about if we would let our kids listen to what we listen to

How do you listen to music?

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With my ears...

I listen to about six different radio stations a lot. While driving, at work, cooking, etc.

I also have my iPod hooked up to my car so that gets a lot of use. I also have two docking stations for it in my home. One in the kitchen and one in the bathroom.

I use CD's only for books on tape for road trips and whenever I have to practice a new song in preparation for singing at church.

Rarely do I sit at my laptop and listen to music as its speakers are horrible.

I use my phone sometimes at work to listen to music. Or to play music for the office. We have this thing where we takes turns picking a song and turning it up loud enough for everyone to hear- its a fun way to find new music but also to remind ourselves that we aren't just office drones

What kind of collection do you have?

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My iTunes account is about 7 years old and its very... eclectic. Lots of Disney, Christian, Broadway, country, pop, soundtrack, and Christmas stuff. I don't like specific genres or artists, I like individual songs.

How do you listen to music?
From my PC and iPhone (truly messy playlist as itunes seems to have a mind of its own)
In the car I listen to the local radio station.

What kind of collection do you have?
Worship
Christian rock and pop
Music from the 70s to present - pop, rock, alternative, folk, jazz
Classical, baroque, romantic
Anime and game OST
Musicals

How do you store it? In what kind of format, etc?
MP3 - had to upgrade my mp3 to a higher bitrate since getting my new earphones. 128 kbps stuff sound really bad.

Strider1002 said:

How do you listen to music?
What kind of collection do you have?
How do you store it? In what kind of format, etc?

I usually listen to my library in iTunes on my laptop. It's too big for my old, 20 gig iPod. Sometimes I make mix CDs for in the car. Sometimes I listen to internet radio to find new music. Pandora is good.

In the past couple years, I've realized the difference between 128 kbps MP3s and 320 kpbs... I won't go back!

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Well I used to have a few hundred illegally pirated songs but my old laptop dying destroyed all of them and so when I got a macbook I opted to do this legally now... with itunes. But I don't have a whole lot of money so I only have about 50 songs on my iphone right now but I do have about $60 in unused iTunes credits so I will have to work on that.
I am always posting youtube vids of songs... either music video or still frame of the album with the song playing, on my Facebook. I post them based on whatever either suits my mood or I learn of a new remix. My specialty is remixes... either someone's cover of someone else, like the seether version of "Careless Whisper" or a Distrix Dnb or Skrillex or Bassnectar version of something.
some of them don't even exist on iTunes.
Youtube and pandora both suggest other things I might like, and are good for entertaining people, but most of the time I get my recommendations from my friends.

Strider1002 said:

How do you listen to music?
What kind of collection do you have?
How do you store it? In what kind of format, etc?

I usually listen to my library in iTunes on my laptop. It's too big for my old, 20 gig iPod. Sometimes I make mix CDs for in the car. Sometimes I listen to internet radio to find new music. Pandora is good.

In the past couple years, I've realized the difference between 128 kbps MP3s and 320 kpbs... I won't go back!

Click to expand...

On my laptop or phone (either with headphones or without). Sometimes we'll burn a CD of a particular song and listen to it in her car.
A variety.
Digital files.

I store my digital music collection across the three hard drives I have, plus some data DVDs (only one of those drives is dedicated to storing music, the other two have music stores on a fluctuating basis that ties into my archiving habits). It's in a variety of formats, but for the last few years it's been more of an even mix of MP3 (Amazon, Triple J) and AAC (iTunes, stuff I rip myself from CDs). There's even a small handful of Vorbis files, and one or two WMA files. The digital collection is about 13 years old.

My CD collection is 16 years old by comparison, as is the collection of home-taped cassettes (which stopped accruing in 2004); the few store-bought cassettes I own are pushing the 20-year mark, although those earliest ones I really would rather forget.

I've mostly struck a balance that iTunes acts as the replacement for buying singles, but if I like a band or find that I like the contents of the album enough to want the album in its entirety, I buy it on CD for the better quality. I'll end up ripping it myself to AAC files and also pack it away in FLAC to cut down on the wear on the original disc. I'm debating on whether to actually use Opus instead of AAC for any new stuff I rip on my own, except for the problem of the version of Winamp I use not handling it (and I doubt that I'll see a plugin show up for it, either). I mean, there's no doubt that Audacious, foobar2000, and mpv can play them back (as would Songbird, which makes it *somewhat* easier, but not really), but that's a fairly big shift in player usage.

Portable CD player covers the actual CDs, and that's usually for when I'm riding in the car. The iPod Shuffle I got as a hand-me-down gets very little use. If I'm working on the computer or playing video games, I'll usually have Winamp (or Audacious, when under Linux) up and playing from some part of the music collection on Random - despite this computer's age (it's from 2001) and the fact it's an eMachines, it actually came with a quality set of speakers (and a subwoofer). It was probably an optional upgrade my grandfather took when he bought it.

I find new music through the free promotions on iTunes and Amazon (Amazon used to be a huge resource of this, but it's slowed down to a trickle over the last year or so), or through AMVs or incidental music in TV shows or ads.

It's a massive range of genres (Industrial, Gothic Rock, various forms of Metal, Grunge, 80s, 90s, etc.). Nebulously 'rock', but plenty of other categories for variety.

I buy cds off Amazon or use youtube. I don't like to buy mp3 downloads because they seem so unsecured and I'm afraid I could lose them and waste my money.

JohnyPoppacapolis said:

I buy cds off Amazon or use youtube. I don't like to buy mp3 downloads because they seem so unsecured and I'm afraid I could lose them and waste my money.

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Solution: burn them to data DVDs. For the ultra-paranoid, Millenniata developed a technology using inorganic dye - basically, engraving the data in stone - so that the discs (marketed as 'M-Disc') won't degrade.

The only downside is that they're currently a lot more expensive than normal DVDs, so it's probably a better investment if you look at the Blu-ray variant they're rolling out to mass production in August. Or not, if you don't have a need to burn 25GB at a time.

Strider1002 said:

I prefer not to download songs from iTunes because A) the quality is 256 and I prefer 320 and B) they only let you play them on authorized devices. I'd much rather get a cheap used CD on Amazon and burn the tracks.

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A1) Judging quality purely on bitrate without accounting for compression format isn't accurate (and technically, judging 'quality' based only on bitrate when talking about a single format is only of worth when assuming the source was close to master and therefore not affected by generational decay). iTunes doesn't use MP3¹, it uses AAC². AAC is a superior format to MP3 by technical virtue alone (and it also helps that Apple's implementation is basically tied for - or in - first place in the tests judging comparative quality amongst AAC encoding software).

¹MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, originally introduced in 1991

²Advanced Audio Coding, originally introduced in 1997 as MPEG-2 Part 7, or in 1999 as MPEG-4 Part 3 with some minor changes. The MPEG-4 form is the one that everything uses.

A2) The issue is something called transparency, which is the point where the encoded file is audibly indistinguishable from the original source. When encoded with a high quality encoder (i.e., LAME), MP3 reaches transparency anywhere between ~160kbps and ~224kbps, depending on content. AAC reaches it between ~128kbps and ~192kbps, again depending on content and the encoder used.


B) That's not true at all. It was true back before iTunes Plus was introduced in 2007, but that was the whole point behind why iTunes Plus happened: higher bitrate (the DRM-encrusted files they used to sell were 128kbps, not 256kbps), and no DRM. The files can be played anywhere, so long as the player supports AAC. Apple switched the entire Music Store to the Plus format in April 2009. Music Videos were switched over to the Plus format some time after that. The only things that iTunes sells that are restricted by DRM are the TV Shows, Movies, Audiobooks, Books, and probably the Apps (although it wouldn't really matter since you'd have to have an iDevice for them anyway).