When I saw this post, I immediately thought of Spotify. I used to buy all of my CD's second hand, I almost never downloaded (for many reasons, mainly being no guarantee of audio quality, and I want to support the artists I love). Since I discovered audio streaming services, I've only purchased a small handful of CD's, and haven't even put them in my player, I just bought them to have. It's so much easier to have unlimited access to all the music I want and love, most of the new stuff on release day, in great quality, everywhere I go. I am SO happy that audio streaming services finally took off in Canada, and I've strongly recommended them to all of my friends.
I dropped my Spotify subscription a few months ago, because I just couldn't afford it anymore. I started getting my music either via pirating or by using the credit I had left on Google Play. To be honest, Spotify is the superior experience. Spotify let me save any music I wanted with a press of a button. With their playlists, this was great, because I was finding a lot of new music I liked. When I left, I lost a lot of music, because I either didn't want to spend money or bother with downloading entire albums for one or two songs.
I picked it back up for a dollar for three months, and I don't think I'll ever go back.
It is, however, true that piracy of audio in certain formats (specifically FLAC and WAV) have quite good audio fidelity. I would rather listen to pirated audio with higher fidelity than audio from a streaming service any day, mostly because my whole audio library is on my NAS and it doesn't cost me money to stream from it.
Funny you mention that; I buy CDs exclusively (almost all secondhand) due to the higher audio quality. I am in the minority who can tell the difference between CDs and top-quality MP3. I don't think I'd ever switch to a streaming service.
I couldn't tell the difference between a CD and the 320 kbps you get from Spotify Premium. And to have all my music with me in my car, on my computer, and on my phone is a convenience that I'm not willing to give up even if I could tell the slight difference. I highly recommend giving it a try if you haven't already.
Netflix, books, wifi, food, spotify, a VPN, and a ton more.
When I saw this post, I immediately thought of Spotify. I used to buy all of my CD's second hand, I almost never downloaded (for many reasons, mainly being no guarantee of audio quality, and I want to support the artists I love). Since I discovered audio streaming services, I've only purchased a small handful of CD's, and haven't even put them in my player, I just bought them to have. It's so much easier to have unlimited access to all the music I want and love, most of the new stuff on release day, in great quality, everywhere I go. I am SO happy that audio streaming services finally took off in Canada, and I've strongly recommended them to all of my friends.
I dropped my Spotify subscription a few months ago, because I just couldn't afford it anymore. I started getting my music either via pirating or by using the credit I had left on Google Play. To be honest, Spotify is the superior experience. Spotify let me save any music I wanted with a press of a button. With their playlists, this was great, because I was finding a lot of new music I liked. When I left, I lost a lot of music, because I either didn't want to spend money or bother with downloading entire albums for one or two songs.
I picked it back up for a dollar for three months, and I don't think I'll ever go back.
It is, however, true that piracy of audio in certain formats (specifically FLAC and WAV) have quite good audio fidelity. I would rather listen to pirated audio with higher fidelity than audio from a streaming service any day, mostly because my whole audio library is on my NAS and it doesn't cost me money to stream from it.
Funny you mention that; I buy CDs exclusively (almost all secondhand) due to the higher audio quality. I am in the minority who can tell the difference between CDs and top-quality MP3. I don't think I'd ever switch to a streaming service.
I couldn't tell the difference between a CD and the 320 kbps you get from Spotify Premium. And to have all my music with me in my car, on my computer, and on my phone is a convenience that I'm not willing to give up even if I could tell the slight difference. I highly recommend giving it a try if you haven't already.