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How do you listen to music?
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How do you listen to music? We all have our preference when listening to music. Some people find it OK to listen to MP3's on their iPods, while others have big and expensive audio gear. It would be interesting to hear about your preference in audio equipment!
Right now I'm spending time getting my vintage 70's audio gear in working order. I have a pair of bookshelf TL 1210 Tandberg speakers which have had some much needed service - the same with and TA 300m amplifier. I plan to combine these with an Philips GA 312 turntable from the same era, which could make for a good vintage sound. Will be great fun to play a few Barry-scores on vinyl on this! I also have a second 70's Tandberg amplifier, but I will need a set of speakers for that one. I might use it as a secondary audio setup in my bedroom, but until I find a suitable pair of speakers, it's only a decoration piece.
For now though, I have to settle for Spotify on my Macbook...
How do you listen to music? We all have our preference when listening to music. Some people find it OK to listen to MP3's on their iPods, while others have big and expensive audio gear. It would be interesting to hear about your preference in audio equipment!
Right now I'm spending time getting my vintage 70's audio gear in working order. I have a pair of bookshelf TL 1210 Tandberg speakers which have had some much needed service - the same with and TA 300m amplifier. I plan to combine these with an Philips GA 312 turntable from the same era, which could make for a good vintage sound. Will be great fun to play a few Barry-scores on vinyl on this! I also have a second 70's Tandberg amplifier, but I will need a set of speakers for that one. I might use it as a secondary audio setup in my bedroom, but until I find a suitable pair of speakers, it's only a decoration piece.
For now though, I have to settle for Spotify on my Macbook...
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Long time since the cassette collection have come to use. Got rid of my "main" cassette player a few years ago, as I didn't have the space for it. There's a old Pioneer boombox around here somewhere. Remember it being quite good, so will have to try it out sometime.
I stream music from Amazon music store and of course Youtube. Just downloaded Prometheus score to my PC as I type
All separate I do want a multi room set up, I could probably do that with what equipment I have though not looked into it. Though I like the fact I can just send music anywhere at any time, I can walk through the front door and play any music instantly. I have Bluetooth speakers in my living room, gym room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom (water proof). In fact I have three separate speaker set ups in my living room lol
Only have the one Bluetooth speaker, a white Marshall Stanmore, which has some punch to it. There are probably more nuanced speakers out there, but it sure does the work for some heavy rock music! No battery solution for this one, which is a bit of a downside.
Just recently got another 70's Tandberg radio/receiver, as well as a pair of Tandberg Fasett speakers. Strange/ nice looking speakers, depending on ones taste in design, and quite good sound for their small size. Will probably have to get a solution like Chromecast Audio or a DAB+ receiver for the Tandberg radio, as the FM broadcasting is now being shut down to make way for DAB+ broadcasting.
I have two fire TV boxes and a Roku and a Chromecast so I stream music through them oh and a Xbox One and two tablets as well as my PC. They are all used in different rooms I can get Amazon Prime music on the majority of them. I keep meaning to buy a decent Dab/Clock radio seen a good Sony one I'll get round to it. Most of my tech is just functional though looks ok
No worries. Since then I got a new cd player.
And I also quit listening to MP3s, even in my car, about two years ago. I want music to be lossless (though I realise that there is improvement over CD/WAV...but nothing really practical or readily available). I compared 320-kB MP3 to WMA lossless versions of the same songs when I got my most recent car (a Jeep Grand Cherokee, WMAL is the only lossless codec it'll play), and found that lossless sounds definitely better, even on the car system. With today's prices for storage, I don't see any reason to settle for less. Likewise, I changed the music on the iPod in our second car, a 2008 BMW 3-series, to Apple Lossless, from mostly MP3.
By the way, my main music outlet at home are still my 1988-vintage speakers...who I'm sure still sound better than most of the stuff available today when you restrict it to a reasonably premium price range. I hate headphones or (worse) in-ear phones and rather pass on music than using those.
So I guess I'm still stuck in the 20th century...and I'm enjoying it.
I have a good-ish sound system - complete with record player! However the speaker wires were rather on the cheap side. They kept coming lose. So, I decided to solder some decent speaker cables. Much better. Forgive the pretentiousness, but it makes the orchestral stuff - the sonic soundscape - sound so clear.
Ideally I would like to have a system such as @Fire_and_Ice_Returns.
I miss my old Panasonic floor stereo with enormous speakers and LP player. Those were the days.
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Regarding downloading songs and streaming, I've had varied experiences with both. Ten years ago, small MP3 files was the thing. Usually one would go for lack of quality to have smaller files on the iPod or other MP3-device. Just a few weeks ago I had a quick listen on the old iPod, and the quality felt horrible. I had to take a break at one point too, as the sound felt uncomfortable to listen to. To be honest, I really don't notice much difference in quality from playing Spotify or CD's. Now, my audio stuff is probably not hifi, so that is possibly the reason. I have on the other hand noticed a slight difference between streaming Spotify and playing WAV-files of a few selected albums on my Macbook, listening through a pair of headphones.
That period must have been a good time for audio gear. Just last week I found the old family CD player from 1989-ish. It had been lying on the floor on the attic, in a room that can get quite cold in the winter. Plugged it in, fearing that it might not work at all – or have some problems. To my joy it worked just as fine as the last time I used it. Even found the remote it came with, which probably hadn't been used since 1989. It had some dry battery acid inside it, but a bit of kitchen paper with a bit of water on it solved that. Put some new batteries inside the remote, and it worked as new. Don't know if this was regarded as a good CD player at the time, but it's sure built to last. It's even older than me!
The Boss Solo I have was £200 though probably cheaper now, it does the job it's compact which is what I wanted...
I did the same I got rid of my surround sound system took up too much space and was no good with modern tech, I did not bother with music for years though last year or so building up a collection again. I threw away hundreds of cassettes, LP's and 7 inch singles roughly 17 years ago.
My brain attaches a memory or feeling to a lot of the music I hear, so going back thousands of songs and hearing a particular one from the past immediately attaches me to what I was doing the first time I discovered a certain song or the mood I was in that first attracted me to its sound.
I have a few play lists on Youtube mainly movie scores, though I have noticed recently Youtube in the UK at least are tightening up and blocking some tracks due to copyright.
A tightening of copyright happens stateside too, but I have found some really high quality tracks that were posted with permission from the actual record company that owns the rights, so YouTube don't take down those ones.
I usually find myself on Spotify these days, however, as you never have to worry about music being taken down on there and you have a lot more freedom to view their library of available songs to make playlists than you do on YouTube, where you have to build playlists from the ground up and can easily have all the songs taken out if an account gets deleted or suspended. On Spotify, however, I can save any playlist for any group I want and can access it in seconds without having to add the songs to my own playlist. They also have any album you could imagine possible available for listening, in a more simple and stress free fashion than YouTube could ever allow with its overseen content and copyright claims. The annoying ads with their shameless promotions are annoying on Spotify, but what you get in return forgives a lot and they have to keep the thing running somehow.
I have never used Spotify or Plex though I registered on both just never got round to setting them up, Amazon Prime music is good especially the play lists they set up based on history of music you have played they have vastly improved the app also it was a bit ropey to start with. I have bought albums on Amazon music I have wanted for years so that was a plus also
@Fire_and_Ice_Returns, I think you'd enjoy Spotify. As I said, the ads are annoying (I don't know what they'd be like in the UK region) but it's a damn well made service that gives you a massive library of unlimited music, with no caps on your playlist whether you get premium or not with the music being in great quality and variation. I could find anything on there, I feel, and have only encountered a few rare instances when I couldn't find a particular group or artist on there that I wanted. From my perspective it's the greatest thing out there currently for music lovers who want their favorite music to listen to as efficiently as possible with the ability to make comprehensive playlists and easily find new music to enjoy on top of it.
When I am back home I'll take a look at Spotify I know I have it installed on my PC, I am quite minimalist with services I have tried online if something works I usually don't try others. I do stream iTunes also though that's for podcasts, I enjoy TV and movie discussion podcasts.
If you do pursue Spotify I wouldn't bother paying anything extra for it. The only thing premium gives you is ad free music from what I understand, and that's never a big enough issue to bother with for me. You only get the ads about every 10 to 15 minutes for a short time, so it's not a massive deal.
I'll see if I can find it on google store on my tablet now, good advice I rarely pay to remove adds.
£200 seems like a decent price for a soundbar. Checking out some prices online, it seems like this is the typical price it costs for a good soundbar – and upwards if one has some cash to spend. I'll keep an eye out for the Solo and similar ones. Thanks for the tips!
I like the simplicity of Spotify. Easy to create playlists (I have about one for any genre and favourite artists), and easy to use in general. I would guess the same thing is the case for most streaming services, but there are exceptions. Like with you, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7, many of those playlists are a musical trip through the last few years. It's fun to go back and see what you added to different playlists five-six years ago. Some stuff is just as good as when you first discovered it, some is not!
Never used Youtube too much for music purposes, though. It's great for live clips, and tracks/albums that are not available on Spotify. As I'm writing this, the For Your Eyes Only score is in the background. For some reason, it has never been available on Spotify.
I agree on YouTube, a good back up to Spotify. Some of the stuff that I lament not being on Spotify is most of the Bond scores, so I have all the Bond stuff I can find on YouTube bookmarked for later listening.
This sounds very familiar. I have music on most of the time too, but struggle to find new favourites. Luckily there are genres and artists I rarely get tired of, but even those need a break sometimes. What I do, is to play music from certain albums and artists only during the weekends, just to keep things fresh. Strange, but it works.
This is probably an admission of needing more music to choose from, but at the same time it's difficult to find new music. So much bad music, and so little really good music.