The main challenge for me is recommendations. 99% of the value I get from Spotify is the auto-generated playlists and "song radio" feature. It's easy enough to fill a NAS with flacs but I don't know how to replicate "the algorithm" in a self-hosted setup.
Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
31–40 of 64 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#32[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#33I self-host a music library on Plex and use Plexamp on my phone. I have liberated music I bought on iTunes, ripped my old CDs and added more from BandCamp (and for official purposes that's the extent of my library).
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#34I believe Amazon still offers MP3 downloads. Or you could use one of the many existing sites that offer dubious downloads.
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#35The main challenge for me is recommendations. 99% of the value I get from Spotify is the auto-generated playlists and "song radio" feature. It's easy enough to fill a NAS with flacs but I don't know how to replicate "the algorithm" in a self-hosted setup.
I wish there were some self-hosted setup that would replicate this based on either tags, bpm matching, or other similarity indicators snooped from online sites like lastfm.
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#36I'm another who never stopped. I still use matchbox-sized MP3 players, replacing them when they die. Wifi is sparse in my area, and even cellular signals are unreliable (and expensive), so I stayed local-only. The little players also have discrete "stop" and "volume" buttons or rockers, which means I can pause or adjust volume without having to see the player. Much better than hauling a phone out and spend time navig…
Starlink
Are you suggesting they carry around a Starlink dish in a backpack and deploy it on the go whenever they want to stream some music?
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#37The main challenge for me is recommendations. 99% of the value I get from Spotify is the auto-generated playlists and "song radio" feature. It's easy enough to fill a NAS with flacs but I don't know how to replicate "the algorithm" in a self-hosted setup.
What drives me away from Spotify is recommendations: Starting with my preferred, it drifts into unknown artists; Suggested playlists are unfortunately for people my age (New! Last album from Pink Floyd! probably because I’m 45). And it’s not so hard to map the world’s music, the list of genres is manageable by a human who’s experienced in music, what people will like is also predictable by a human with experience. If my friends can do it, why can’t Spotify?
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#38Don't overcomplicate or overthink, is my advice. You listen to a generally fixed sweet of tracks? Grab them, put them in a folder on your desktop, and open the folder in any old music player (Audacious is just fine, foobar2000 is also fine, use whatever). Optimize with things like Plex only after you notice patterns in your usage
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#39foobar2000 at android. I have 40 gigabytes of flac/mp3 files on sd-card. It just works.
Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?
#40An abandoned Java App called aTunes and foobar2000 on iOS.
For day-to-day I use a non-android hardware music DAC (Lotoo PAW 6000) which allows me to stream bluetooth to it.
I can playback songs from my iPhone or use the inbuilt SD card slot.