Streaming, or physical media?

[Saracen999]

Okay, not a new topic, exactly. It comes up, directly or tangentially, a fair bit. My view has always been 'physical media' > streaming, but this time, it's for a different reason.

Historically, my reason has largely been "I wanna own it", with the "it" being the media, and the right to (for personal use) play it when and were I want. And, not paying monthly for it.

The other side of that is the convenience of having the vast bulk of all the (recorded) music, from all time, available on-demand. And, personalisation with playlists, etc. And I get that.


But HERE is why I posted this.

Again, and again, and again, on streaming services, I find that "classics" (like, oh, Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms' album) has been "remastered" on streaming services. And, an extremely high percentage of the time, and to my tastes, butchered in the process.

Butchered how? It varies, and depends what album, track and artist. The balance of instruments has been messed with, or the balance between voice and instruments. For instance, a Sultans of Swing version with far more emphasis on drums, and much less on Knopfler's signature guitar work. The guitar on one recording has, I dunno, softened, lost it's bite. And, seems to take second place to the drum rhythm. It, again in my view, emasculates the track and ruins what made it a hit in the first place.

That's just one very specific example, but it happens over and over with "remastered" albums. There are exceptions, and I've seen a few given a more modern feel without messing up the vibe, but the bulk of the time .... yuck.

I'm forced to conclude that either the vast majority of the engineers doing the remastering are incompetent idiots, or they're targeting something different to how I typically play music (which is on pretty decent gear, even if a FLAC file on a phone is my source).

And I don't think all those engineers etc can be that stupid. Which implies they're targeting something or somebody else. Who, I don't know (or much care). Maybe an audience of a different age. Maybe a typical user with a phone and cheap IEMs/earbuds. Maybe "Beats" style headphones?

I don't know what they're aiming at, but it sure as hell isn't me.

Which brings me back to the thread title - and for me, THAT is a convincing reason for physical media, and/or making a FLAC version myself if I want to carry it around on my phone and listen on headphones/IEMs (via a Chord DAC, I might add).

If I've got the physical media (and my collection is still growing, though more slowly now), not only do I not have to pay monthly for a subscription, but the streaming services can't go around replacing the original version with significantly different (and IMHO, inferior) "remastered" versions.

If they left the original versions of the mastering up as well, I might see it a bit different. But as it is, I tend to dip into one streaming service or another, briefly, usually for a month or two while I can get a free or heavily discounted period. While there, I use it for digging out albums I haven't heard from artists I like, OR trying new artists I hadn't tried, or quite often, hadn't heard of. THEN .... tracking down physical media once I know it's worth it.

So that's it - physical media for me for the long term. Streaming services, in small doses, for trying new stuff.


If you're a "streaming" user and never physical media .... I'm genuinely curious .... why? Am I missing something?

[Ttaskmaster]

Physical media feels like owning, whereas streaming satisfies peoples' need to access something from anywhere at any time... but since internet access can be questionable, I prefer to either download or digitally copy most things from physical media. That seems to cover most bases for my needs.

[g8ina]

Physical, every time.... I agree that the engineers must be mixing for a different end user / end users kit, which is crap.

Having said that, George Martin used to mix the Beatles stuff, listening on a tiny tranny radio speaker so he could optimise it for that !

D

[Saracen999]

Physical media feels like owning, whereas streaming satisfies peoples' need to access something from anywhere at any time... but since internet access can be questionable, I prefer to either download or digitally copy most things from physical media. That seems to cover most bases for my needs.

All that, yes, and in addition, what seems to be a growing trend of companies retrospectively changing the terms of what you "bought", even when "buying" is exactly and literally how they described what you were doing.

I mean, we all know that a subscription to a streaming service is a payment for "all you can eat" from their digital buffet, for the period of their subscription. And fair enough. That's what you paid for, and what you got.

But there's a nasty trend, and it seems to be wherever what you "bought" requires an internet connection to work, for a company to decide not to "support" the device any longer. Up to a point, that's also fair enough. If I buy a ... oh, laptop or Steamdeck or whatever, I don't expect them to continuously develop drivers etc into the next century. But I also don't expect them to decide, a year later (and yes, sometimes that soon) that they no longer "support" it, and the device then bricks itself, becoming e-waste.

Louis Rossman has covered, ih his inimitable style, the changing definition of what you "owning" the product you buy legally means, if it can be remote-disabled. To be clear, I don't always entirely agree with his rants (like the recent one on car suspension as a subscription service. but that's really a different thread), but I often do.

Limiting it to media, as I did, then "owning" physical media to prevent it changing is very much my point.

Downloading a FLAC (or your format of choice) can get a bit trickier. As long as that download doesn't have any form of embedded DRM whereby, when you try to play it it requires online validation vefore it'll play, then yeah, download is fine IMHO, even though it's not my preferred route. But if there is DRM that might invalidate your ability to play the download you "bought", then I'd argue that what the company thinks you bought is the ability to play what you bought until they decide otherwise, whenever that may be. In which case, do you really actually "own" it? Id say, not.

[Saracen999]

...

Having said that, George Martin used to mix the Beatles stuff, listening on a tiny tranny radio speaker so he could optimise it for that !

Indeed, but even "professional" audio was very differennt in those days. A huge amount, even for massively successful bands, was recorded on what boils down to four-track analog tape. And if you had more than four sources (one or more singers, couple of guitars and drums, and you've max'ed or exceeded that four-track, so they end up mixing and overlaying, say, track one and two onto track four, to get an extra track.

Compare that to today when even a half decent home studio will have several mics on drums alone. The audio interface I use (not the cheapest by any means, but a LONG way from expensive) is pretty mch studio grade electronics, and has four inputs. A few hundred quid and some (potentially free) software gets you a "studio" of a level of sophistication that would have astonished George Martin, back then. Even that "free" software usually has a range of filters, compressors and effects that woild have staggered him.

I say "free", by the way, because yes, there are open-source options, but even my modest audio interface somes with basic, but pretty capable versions of software for which more capable "pro" editions exist. So yeah, they're a taster hoping you'll upgrade, by for my needs, even the free/Lite versions are fine.

[Saracen999]

One argument against physical media has aways been storing it, and then finding what you want.

That objection, in my opinion, evaporates if you buy the physical media, FLAC (or whatever format Apple will support, like AAC, for Apple users) the content, store it on HDD/SSD and access it via a "local" media library. Which is why I, as some may have noticed, are a bit miffed at Sonos.

In fact, them being able to "brick" my music-playing capability is really part of thos same argument, though I can, with some effort, bypass their software eosystem entirely and still use their speakers (USB input via a cheap(-ish) adapter and completely different software, like Media Monkey).

But it's the same argument - if someone, anyone, can retrospectively "brick" either your hardware or your ability to play media you "bought", did you actually "buy" it? You'll probably have to pay a solicitor to analyse and review the EULA terms to find out!

No so with physical media, subject only to avoiding that DRM-ridden type garbage that Sony tried it on with some years back. And, so far, nobody has managed to "brick" any of the FLAC files I have of my LP collection. Yay, vinyl FTW!

[AGTDenton]

I'm a mixture.
I used to have all my music files originating from CDs transferred to my phone back in Vista & 7 days. However, the day I opened up Zune when I first got Windows 10 all hell broke loose and it corrupted all of my playlists I'd built up, using backups of my playlists didn't solve the issue. It's like Zune had taken over from WMP and WMP wouldn't read them any longer either. Lists I'd made since '95. So I was miffed and fell into the Spotify trap for a number of years.
I've never found the time to redo my lists and took much time has passed, so in my car I've ended up using Spotify. At home I use a mixture of files & streaming from various sources.

I absolutely agree streaming services have messed with the originals, along with digital downloads of files, I've previously bought a few songs where the last note from the previous track plays, or the end note is cut off. I've stopped buying digital files now and will only buy the CD. But even that has it's flaws. Metallica was found to be putting highly compressed audio on their CDs when comparing the files found on Guitar Hero, or one of the others, and they would certainly not be the only band/artist doing it.

[Output]

I'm not really into music as much as other things, so streaming it has never appealed to me - especially when the chances are I'll just be listening to a number of tracks that I've already been listening to for many years.

For me, discovering new music is usually as a result of it being used in something else I have watched. If I really wanted to check a track out that I haven't heard before but somehow still know about, I would check it out on YouTube.

If I like it enough to want it, physical media (CDs) will be the first choice. If it's not released on physical media, then a digital download (DRM-Free) will be the decision (albeit with the hope that it doesn't need re-downloading in future as there is obviously no guarantee the providing service will still have it - and thus actually be re-downloadable - at that time).

It's always my PC playing the music to my headphones though (although perhaps the odd occasion it might go through a monitor's speakers if I don't feel like wearing them), as I've got no interest in having any sort of special setup.

As for the very few tracks I have that were remastered versions, chances are I probably have the original versions too anyway and if there are any differences I can detect - and if I don't like them - then I can simply not listen to that version.

I would speculate that that possibility could also be a factor in the remastered versions being more prevalent now (especially on streaming services), as the people who have heard the original versions are likely to already own the tracks and as such the remastered are trying to target a new audience who may prefer something different (and perhaps more likely to use streaming anyway).

Obviously that doesn't mean that a fan of the original version can't like the remastered version too though.

There is of course also the chance that the remastered version is how the artist(s) wanted the original to actually sound like when first released (and say as such), but simply wasn't able to achieve at the time for whatever reason, so big fans of them might accept it that way (but that is not guaranteed as the original may still be preferred even then).

It wouldn't surprise me if most cases, particularly if the original artist is not involved in any way with the process, the main idea is just "remaster this old music to get more sales/streaming income" though (perhaps with an added hope that it will cause additional sales/streaming income from original fans being curious on top of the potential new audience) rather than there being an actual artistic vision that requires it.

[Saracen999]

...

Metallica was found to be putting highly compressed audio on their CDs when comparing the files found on Guitar Hero, or one of the others, and they would certainly not be the only band/artist doing it.

Good point. Though, whatever you get when you bought the CD is what you still get years, even decades, later. Or should be. I bought my first CDs, IIRC, in 1984, when I got my first CD player (Technics SL-P1). Those discs still work perfectly well today. I still have that player too though it's boxed up. It might need a new belt or two, and a good oiling, but it worked last time I tried it.

I also remember getting Brothers in Arms when it first came out, which was 1985. I played that disc a couple of days ago.

I think I'd argue that the Metallica thing isn't really a flaw with CDs so much as with Metallica, and anyone else doing likewise.

[Saracen999]

....

It wouldn't surprise me if most cases, particularly if the original artist is not involved in any way with the process, the main idea is just "remaster this old music to get more sales/streaming income" though (perhaps with an added hope that it will cause additional sales/streaming income from original fans being curious on top of the potential new audience) rather than there being an actual artistic vision that requires it.

I doubt very much that it's the original artist's intent, at least, in the vast majority of cases. Why? Because, sure, the original artist(s) play the music, but as I understand it, it then almost always (historically at least) disappears into the record company 'machine', and it'll the the mixing engineer, and especially the mastering engineer, that determines the final sound. THe question then is much more about what the mastering engineer on the original recording wanted .... and what they targeted. That thing about Martin listening on a transistor radio is very likely true, but that concept dominated for years and probably still does. For instance, when these classic works are "remastered", exactly what are they remastered with. Speakers? Headphones? Many people see phrases like "studio monitor" and think it means "high quality audiophile, but really, it doesn't. Engineers are looking for different things to end users because they have to address different markets and get things to sound 'good' on as many as possible.

The way so many remasterings seem to be done appears as if they are targeting dynamic range above all. That mght well work a treat if you're mastering EDM, but it's far from perfect if it's primarily a vocal track and you bury the vocalist's voice in a heavy drum beat.

That said, some remastering is briliiantly done. They manage to extract the maximum from whatever data the source material (probably tape) still has, enhancing the sound without destroying the character of the music. Sadly, it seems to be the exception not the rule. I can't help but wonder if a lot of it comes about because somewhere there's a poor mastering ingineer sitting there with a mahooosive pile of back-catalog to "remaster" and a bean-counter in a record comany that doesn't give a hoot about quality, just quantity that can be licenced to streaming services, all of whom are clamouring for quantity so they can out-claim the competitors on how many millions of songs they have. Maybe it's just a re-mastering treadmill?

[Saracen999]

...

Obviously that doesn't mean that a fan of the original version can't like the remastered version too though.

...

Well, indeed. It's not quite the same, but ever heard the Eagles "Hell Freezes Over" album? It's a "live" recording from a 1994 MTV version. I very much like Hotel California (original), and live versions nearly always vary, not least because it's not always possible to do live what can be done with studio magic. But that Hell Freezes Over version of Hotel California might even be better. It's certainly superbly mastered. Which is why it's pretty much impossible to go to a hifi show without hearing it all over the place - it's great for speaker/headphone demo's.

In fact, it's a good example of why I'm miffed at tthe degree of lousy remastering - it does not have to mess up the feel of the original (though, as I said, the HC example isn't quite the same thing).

Even sitting at home, with an LP album, a turntable/cartridge, a phono pre-amp, a decent audio interface and some PC software, I can often produce a better sounding version than those "remastered" versions. From a 40-year old and used bit of vinyl.

[ik9000]

physical copy every time, and I can't stand the over-compression so many modern "remasterings" have. Give me the old versions please with a proper dynamic range.

[DanceswithUnix]

TLDR: Spofity for all it's faults fits my lifestyle better these days.

My quite large CD collection is in boxes, and hasn't been added to in some time. There's an overhead in getting an album out and sitting down to listen to it, and frankly ever since being a parent I can't find the time to dedicate. It's actually slightly stress inducing to think of sitting down to enjoy some music, because I just *know* that someone will come and interrupt me asking for something so I'll just be waiting for the interruption.

So we use Spotify these days. The quality is awful, let's get that up front. Had some friends around the other day and had a Spotify playlist running in the background being played through a reasonable AV amp and an old pair of floor-standing Mission 763 speakers which let you pick out every flaw in the music source. When one particular track came on (can't remember what it was) the bloke I was chatting to and I just stopped and stared in horror at the speakers and I said something like "well that's an over-compressed mess". But thankfully as I said that isn't a way I tend to listen to music. Interestingly, at Christmas we often have a YouTube Christmas playlist running on the same setup, and the music from YouTube seems far better quality than the Spotify dedicated music service. You've got one job Spotify...

Anyway, the flip side of that: driving down the M4 recently listening to a Dua Lipa mix. I'm sure my currrent Dua Lipa thing is a fad that will pass soon enough, so that saves me buying and finding physical space for an album. But it isn't all Dua Lipa, and Spofity mixes stuff in which means I get an interesting mix and occasional hit of the next track control on the steering wheel if it chooses a bad song for me. But it came up with a gem that I can't believe I hadn't heard before: a cover of Beggin by Måneskin and it is just musical genius.

To some degree I think radio used to nicely fill this role, but with modern DAB the stations all seem very specialist so I don't find much new on there.

[Ttaskmaster]

Can you not just stream the music, connect your audio out to the audio in, and then record it to your own DRM-free file like we used to do with radio to cassette tape?

[Saracen999]

Can you not just stream the music, connect your audio out to the audio in, and then record it to your own DRM-free file like we used to do with radio to cassette tape?

Yes, kind-of. It depends what you're starting point is (i.e. CD, or LP/cassette, or streaming service, etc), and what quality you're looking to end up with. What follows, Ttaskmaster, is a generic answer to that question, and I'm not implying you do or don't already know most or all of it. I've tried to be pretty general, to cover most situations anyone reading this might be coming from.

I'm going to be a bit careful here, because I'm not sure what current moderating views here on copyright are, but it used to be that discussing issues was one thing, but advising on how to do it was another. I'm trying to stay short of that line, even if maybe it's not still an issue.

If the source is CD, like DwU's box of CDs, then yeah, it's trivially easy. There are numerous bits of software, free (e.g, EAC) and paid-for (dBPoweramp, for instance) that will "rip" the CD and create lossless FLAC files. Insert disc, hit "go" and come back a few minutes later to find the job done. Next disc.

With an analog source (cassette, LP, headphone output from PC, etc) it's still possible, but tricker, and much slower. i.e. essentially, real-time. You can connect up such analog sources to audio inputs and record with any half-decent software, like Audacity (free) or numerous commercial packages, from chep to very expensive. The expensive ones tend to give far more control over what you do to that recorded audio, right up to the point where you essentially have the capability, and with a little hardware, pretty much the standard of a professional studio. Certainly, it's good enough for home musicians to record their home performances to CD quality .... if you can drive the software. Apple's Logic Pro would be one (paid) example but there's numerous PC (and Linux) options too, including free ones.

Oh, and if connecting a turntable to record LPs, you'll need a 'phono pre-amp' too. I have a little box, of modest quality admittedly, that combines a switchable phono stage (for LPs) on or off, and a basic ADC (analog to digital converter). So, plug a stereo analog source in, turn phono pre-amp on if it's (most) record players, and it turns your analog source into a USB input for software like Audacity. Select the source in Audacity, and record. That box cost about £15 ... but is a bit cheap and cheerful. The audio interface I actually use (not just ffor this type of thing) still isn't expensive given the "studio" quality, but was (for 4 channels, which this usage does not need) was about £240.

But again, it's real-time, so an hour long source recordng takes an hour to record. Then, you might have to remove pops and clicks, and rumble, (from lps, etc) or hiss (from cassettes). Then, once 'processed', label up the tracks and write the individual files to HD/SSD/NAS, etc. That process can be pretty time-consuming.

Once you have all your CDs, LPs, cassettes, whatever, all converted to computer files, THEN, you can point any one of a number of 'player' software to them, to create your own, local version of Spotify, Tidal, whatever, with your locally stored content on it. One such player is Media Monkey, which gives a pretty atractive streamer-alike graphical interface with album art, cover notes etc, and playlists. Similarly, Plex and/or Plex-Amp will do it, as will the apps provided by Bluesound, WiiM and, yeah, Sonos (when it works, grrr!) and so on. Or at the Rolls Royce end, Roon, which is not free. Very much not free. Extremely good, but not even cheap, let alone free.

So yeah, whatever form the music is in, you can do a version of connecting audio-out of one device to audio-in on a PC and record it. The "how" varies, but the "if" doesn't.

As for using streaming as a source .... yes? But that's a bit dodgier, copyright-wise. In fact, very dodgy, IMHO. I can make at least a moral argument, and depending on jurisdiction and local copyright law, maybe a legal one, for "fair use" of material you own, in CD, cassette (original, not home-recorded form) and so on, but applying that to a streaming services output? Not so much.

Can it be done? Yes. The legal atgument, though....

As for doing it, technically, not hard .... IF you have suitable hardware. One way is via an audio interface with a "loopback" option. You can connect via a single USB cable, and audio comes from a streamer, to the PC, but the audio interface's driver diverts it BEFORE it hits the computer's DAC and amp circuitry, out to the audio interface, where it 'loops back' (because USB is bi-directional) and into your recording software (like the afore-mentioned Audacity, etc). It's still a real-time process though, and you still have to do at least some editing, by labelling, if you want track-by-track files.

Quality of that process? It depends on the audio interface, audio software settings, AND on the output quality of the streaming service, but generally, pretty good I'd think. But it's a time-consuming process, again.

For anyone time-challenged, converting CDs to FLAC files, for instance, isn't hard or time-demanding. Each CD takes, oh, maybe 5 minutes or so, IIRC. So start one, do something else, come back, eject that and insert another. And repeat. If you have a lot, it'll take quite a while in elapsed time but the vast bulk of it doesn't need your presence. You can even get (buy, or build) "ripping stations" with multiple CD/DVD drives, and rip multiple disks at a time, with the right software. But you'd need to be doing a hell of a lot, IMHO, to do that. I've never seen one personally, but there's interesting articles on such systems.


NOTE on legality

None of the hardware or software I'm referring to here is illegal. All of it has perfecty legal and genuine uses. Just like an old VHS recorder. But, what you do with it, like a VHS recorder, might be illegal. and that will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. You, dear reader, need to work out what might or might not be legal where you are. Because it certainly varies.

[DanceswithUnix]

For anyone time-challenged, converting CDs to FLAC files, for instance, isn't hard or time-demanding. Each CD takes, oh, maybe 5 minutes or so, IIRC. So start one, do something else, come back, eject that and insert another. And repeat.

Yeah, I was doing that more years ago than I care to remember and was even why I bought an expensive SCSI CD drive to handle some of the iffier CDs. At the time I converted to high (-ish) bitrate mp3 or ogg as that was the only game in town. That allowed quite a few albums to be burned onto an MP3 CD which I could put in the 12 disc autochanger of the car to hold a sizable collection for those long journeys. I sold that car 20 years ago, eek. OFC these days you put all the files on one of those USB sticks that barely sticks out the USB port and that can store even more.

The problem I have is navigating around all that music. The stick in the car is largely empty, there are a fewf directories where what is in those directories acts like a playlist because I haven't even bothered working out how the car does playlists. Probably only an hour or two of music total.

So how do people navigate their stored/ripped music?

On spotify I can tap the mic icon and say "music from the 80's" or whatever I feel like at the time and off it goes with an interesting mix. The car has bluetooth, the phone can stay in my pocket on short journeys where I'm not using it for waze anyway and I'll just carry on with whatever last playlist it was on.