Where does everyone get their music?

I converted all my CDs back in early 2000s. I copy a small portion of them to a USB drive and use that in my stereo.

 

I use XM...will probably add spotify premium. Ditched Amazon

 

Spotify. I have thousands of CD's, but since I enjoy a wide range of music and podcasts, streaming music is easier for me to use.

 

I've got ~7000 songs ripped from my old CD collection, but the folder browser for USB sticks in my 2021 is extremely useless when trying to navigate a lot of subfolders, so I put like 20 albums on the stick at a time, like CTundraForMe above. I refuse to pay $1200/decade or whatever Spotify and similar is for music I already paid for, especially since there is no cell service for most of the area around me anyway.

 

Apple Music family plan. In my case it was just as much a financial decision as anything else - I realized that on average, I was spending $50/month on music I wanted. So I actually SAVE money with the family plan.

 

Basic Radio, commercials don’t seem to bother me as they do everyone else.

 

I have Apple Music with my Verizon unlimited in my plan. So I go between that and my XM. I keep the XM so the wife can use it in her Acura without having a plan.

 

Spotify. I did pandora for a while. I liked XM also but the monthly fees are more than I wanted to pay.

 

With all the streaming the quality isn’t as good as it is on a usb or cd, correct?

 

Tidal offers hi-res lossless audio that has a higher sampling rate than cd.

 

Apple Music.

 

All of my cds were put on iTunes back when I was cool and cared about finding new music. iPhone / Apple Music doesn't like keeping those on the phone whenever you update or switch phones etc - only the albums/songs you downloaded from iTunes. So every once in a while, I'll connect the phone to the old computer and re-select some music I hadn't heard in a while and wanted to put on the phone.

Otherwise now it's Spotify, and just kind of let them DJ if it's less than 30 min of driving at the time. Sometimes Apple Music (iTunes) cuts on when I turn on the truck, sometimes it's Spotify. I'm good either way. If it's a long trip, then I use "Re-listen" where I have access to every Grateful Dead show ever recorded. And that's big fun. (hundreds of other band's live performances on there too)

 

over the years I've ripped all my cd's to mp3. ~8900.

but...

I always end up using Pandora Premium. it has the best algorithm of all the services I tried.

I have about 4 channels built that are primo.

Just made one for the boat.

 

I use Apple Music for most of my music.

 

They did it is now apple music on the imac i dont know if they continued on the pc though.

 

Ohh. Yeah it’s just Apple Music. They must have made the change when you could back up and restore an iPhone through the cloud without iTunes.

 

Amazon music or basic radio

 

Apple has lossless options. Its pretty much all I use in my SQ system. Still the quality depends upon the original mastering as well and a lot of stuff is lackluster.

 

I'm pretty much all-in on Apple Music and XM. I do have Amazon as well, but only use it for the small number of albums I have that are not available in the iTunes Store.

 

what do you use to listen to Apple Music in lossless format? It doesn’t work with Bluetooth and that’s what I’d use in my truck. At home, in the office, that is a different story

 

Mp3juices.cc it's free 90 free and downloads the music from YouTube without subscription .

 

Either my iTunes library or Pandora.

 

Spotify. Apple Music included with Verizon and YouTube Music

 

I will say one thing (and someone chime in if I'm mistaken).

I'm all in on Apple Music and don't regret any part of it. With that said, there are two things I wish Apple would implement:

1. User-generated playlists. Spotify has no problem allowing this, and while some of them suck (lol) a lot of them are pretty good. It wouldn't take much work at all for someone to simply look over those playlists and approve or edit them - and in fact it'd probably save Apple some money.
2. IMHO, Spotify's algorithms are a bit better than Apple's when creating those 'radio stations' for a certain genre/artist.

 

Lightning to usb connector to HU to dsp to amp to speakers. I have tried bypassing the HU and going from lightning to usb to digital coax to my dsp but I didnt notice a huge change in quality.
Bluetooth is known to compress audio files a good deal.

 

iPad lightning connector -> DAC(thru USB) -> AUX IN -> OEM HU. BT cut off at 20,000 hz I believe. From AUX in, I can still hear better sound quality but inconvenient a little music operation-wise.

 

Pandora

 

#2 is why I prefer Spotify to Apple Music. Other than that, I'm selecting a specific Grateful Dead show on "ReListen" and listening to that. Im not really a hifi audio guy just mostly because I don't have the time anymore. Music is typically an accompaniment to another activity (driving, cutting grass, snowboarding, etc) vs something I'll just sit and do (like read a book). Name of the game for me is convenience at this point and bluetooth and bluetooth speakers are sufficient for my needs. My only real "hifi equipment" now is my own guitar rig(s) and "studio" mixer/amp/monitors set up.

 

Well, that's actually why I'm with Apple Music.

1. Family owns iPhones; and we pay for a bit of extra storage.
2. Given that, it used to cost us $16.99 for Apple Music family. Now we do the "Apple One" or whatever the heck they call it, which is Apple Music Family + Apple TV + 200GB Storage, for $6 more.
3. The music shows up *IN* Apple Music app so is a bit more easy for us to use.

If it wasn't for probably #2 and #3 above, I'd use Spotify. When I'm at home and goofing around and searching for new music I'll usually look up Spotify, then use Apple Music to actually d/l and add to my collection.