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Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

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Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#291

Post by PretzelFisch »

timw4mail wrote: post #217
nickjj wrote: post #57

Instead or privacy terrors you have other terrors like wondering if the CD will even play, especially if you've listened to it a lot over 5+ years, even with good care. I'm surprised the article doesn't cover a more relevant approach like just playing local mp3s from your computer. You get the same no ads, no privacy issues, no algorithms but you have the added benefit of not having to lug around a binder of CDs to p…

My experience is that bit-rot with CDs is excessively rare. Scratches and scuffs are rare "with good care". Even then, deep scratches are the real issue. Minor scratches are often irrelevant with the error correction. So how does one need to wonder if the CD will even play?

I've had issues playing CDs on older players. I think newer models have better error correction.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#292

Post by snvzz »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #204
snvzz wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brutal, but only really affects people who should have no expectation of privacy to begin with, such as Windows users.

Everyone should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That certain groups more frequently find this expectation violated does not mean that it is not a reasonable expectation.

I have no expectation of privacy when I use windows. You shouldn't, either.

It simply got this bad.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#293

Post by Nerdfest »

icebraining wrote: post #285
m-p-3 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at some selfhosted media platform like Jellyfin[1] or mpd[2] ? Those seems to be good privacy-wise. [1]: https://jellyfin.github.io/ [2]: https://www.musicpd.org/

MPD is nice in that it has many clients. MPDroid (available on F-Droid) is quite decent.

That's what I'm using. A central machine (that has an output to main audio system), with it being controllable from anywhere using various MPD clients. I tried to go the streaming route with MPD to enable music to be played in multiple rooms, but it was very finicky and susceptible to network problems. Instead, another output of the main machine goes to an FM transmitter, and any other audio system can pick it up. The sound quality is not pristine, but it's acceptable. Music in any room, all properly synced and centrally controllable.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#294

Post by leemailll »

kstenerud wrote: post #189

I've got all my music ripped to FLAC, sitting on my file server, a little N40L microserver with 8tb mirrored storage (my music takes about 300gb total). On the server, I've got a script that uses ffmpeg to convert from flac to whatever format I want (currently aac and mp3, which my player devices support). The script also applies replaygain to keep the volume consistent. I run the script once and it processes the who…

Obligatory question: could you share your ffmpeg script? Sounds like it perfect match my need for my classical music collection

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#295

Post by classichasclass »

criddell wrote: post #250

My daughter got a record player for Christmas last year and it caused me to think about my relationship to music. After she got the record player, I've taken her to the record store a few times and it was like stepping out of a time machine. I loved everything about it (Waterloo Records in Austin is pretty fantastic). I ended up buying a CD player and pulling my collection out of the attic. I had forgotten how good m…

CDs are so cheap these days, and Amazon has AutoRip for many albums and will retroactively add it if you bought it from them and they add it to Amazon Music later.

I miss longboxes though. It was terribly wasteful packaging but I loved them, especially the ones that had unique art just on the longbox.

I always buy physical.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#296

Post by mywittyname »

rchaud wrote: post #261

I'm definitely on board with physical media. Almost all the vinyl I've bought comes with a download code anyway, and album artwork shines on a 12" x 12" canvas much more than it ever could on the tiny thumbnail you get on a music player app. That being said, indie music stores like Bandcamp are digital only, but offer one-click DRM-free MP3 downloads for purchased songs/albums. The UX is focused on buying music first…

> I honestly find Spotify and Apple Music bad for music discovery if your tastes aren't really adjacent to Top 40 (is that even a thing today?) style pop music.

I strongly disagree. Spotify has dramatically increased the variety of music that I listen to and introduced me to lost of tiny artists with great music.

I'm looking at the official chart top 40 online and have to go down to 7th place to find an artist I know (Taylor Swift). Only one song on my "Release Radar" is in the Top 40 list (Sixteen by Ellie Goulding).

I think you get what you look for with Spotify. If you listen to a bunch of Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, you'll be recommended a things like Aria Grande and AVICII. But if you listen to An Horse and Houndsmouth then you'll aparently get recommendations for The Mountain Goats and Me Not You.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#297

Post by jmngomes »

cnasc wrote: post #87
cageface wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Music has a whole bunch of Henry Cow. No King Crimson though.

I just looked and there are 13 King Crimson albums on Apple Music

There are 10 on Spotify. One "funny" thing is that they're all labelled "2017" or "2018" instead of the actual year of release.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#298

Post by criddell »

mirrorlake wrote: post #264
criddell wrote: post #250

My daughter got a record player for Christmas last year and it caused me to think about my relationship to music. After she got the record player, I've taken her to the record store a few times and it was like stepping out of a time machine. I loved everything about it (Waterloo Records in Austin is pretty fantastic). I ended up buying a CD player and pulling my collection out of the attic. I had forgotten how good m…

I had a similar experience last winter when I popped a CD into my desktop. Probably the first time I had heard music with a bitrate higher than Spotify’s 320kbps in a few years. Within a day I was off buying my favorite albums on FLAC and making a CD wishlist. Made me remember why I bought nice speakers in the first place. And I’ve thought this for a while: With gigabit internet connections spreading, video streaming…

I think the bitrate stingyness comes from the fact that people tend to watch Netflix at home over wired internet and they listen to streaming music over a more expensive wireless connection, often on crappy headphones.

There are higher bitrate services out there. Deezer will stream FLAC and there are probably others.

Where are you buying FLAC files from? For now I'm still happy with physical CDs although I have ripped them to ALAC. I'm not sure what the difference is, but when I scroll through my library on iTunes there's never anything I want to listen to, but if I look through my physical discs I always find something I want to put on.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#299

Post by sosuke »

Tepix wrote: post #103
amelius wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coltrane for lovers, Miles for cooking. And programming?

Personally, Goa works for me. Try Astral Projection, Hallucinogen. https://ektoplazm.com/ is a great place to start sampling this type of music for free.

Astral Projection - Another World - Nilaya

I was passenger in a hydroplane car wreck while we listened to this song. No one was hurt though we were moving at highway speed it was just an accident. Everything moved so slowly as we went from parallel with the other cars to perpendicular at 65mph. Still love that song and album.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#300

Post by leemailll »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #44

Another reason CDs are still worth considering: classical music and, to a lesser extent, jazz CDs often feature extensive and informative liner notes that have never been posted online anywhere. I myself typically rip all my purchases to FLAC immediately and then I listen through my media centre, so I often forget that I have the original physical release there on the shelf, but when I do go back and look at that CD…

I agree. I mostly listen to classical music, although I also rip them but most of the time I still use cds. It seems current music players on computers never thought about creating classical music pieces playlist. I had to manually add pieces to create them with correct order or just add albums which is the same as just playing a cd.

In the end, I listen to music with CD players mostly, and still insist on buy a car with CD player

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