Digital music library vs. Steaming radio.

[Quiet Things]

This thread is a product of some research I was doing on sound systems. I was looking at the Sonos wifi hifi system, and was actually pretty keen on the idea of picking one up somewhere down the line -- I live in a pretty big house, my computer and 5.1 system is in the basement, and I often wish I could have access to all my music upstairs. I was pretty stoked, to be honest, about the Sonos system, until I did some further digging on it and realized that the app it uses to organize and play the music you have kept on your hard drive has a hard file limit of 65,000 mp3s/ogg/etc.

This is probably not a problem for most people, as most peoples' collections tend to come in well under that. My collection is sitting at about 200,000 mp3s, and counting as we speak.

I started downloading music when I was about thirteen -- I'm 24 now. As time has gone on, particularly over the last three years or so, there's been a pretty sharp turn away from keeping digital files on your own computer in favor of streaming services like Pandora, Last.fm, Spotify, etc. While I appreciate all these applications for what they are, I prefer to keep my own collection. It allows me access to things that those programs can't provide me, particularly in certain subgenres such as noise. Furthermore, I take great pride and joy in spending time organizing my collection, fixing tags, finding album art, etc.

I understand the push towards streaming audio, but due to that push, I have found myself stymied multiple times when it comes to things such as the Sonos system -- all these sorts of streaming and storage services have limits on file counts that I far exceed. It's endlessly frustrating.

What are your guys' opinions? Personal library or streaming? Both? Why? I'm mostly just venting steam here, but I figured I'd see what you guys had to say on the topic.

[snipelfritz]

Fuck streaming. I want to play my music when I want it.

[Quiet Things]

Fuck streaming. I want to play my music when I want it.

That's pretty much my thought exactly, haha. I shouldn't have to be constrained by what a service has permission to play or only be able to choose a certain genre or style to stream a radio station from.

[Grrface]

Fuck streaming. I want to play my music when I want it.

Agreed. Plus, I'm one of those people who actually sits down and listens to one album at a time. The jumping from single to single thing doesn't quite work for me. My music library just keeps getting larger and larger, and I couldn't be happier.

[theavondon]

Personal libraries, all the way. I wanna listen to music in places where I don't have internet, mostly. I don't wanna have to be on a computer so I can blast some tunes while cooking. C'mon.

[D.o.S.]

I still use CDs.

[Achtane]

I like streaming when it's a genre I very rarely listen to otherwise, or like when it's a thing where you enter a band name and it'll play stuff that sounds similar. Generally, though, I like listening to entire albums. Streaming is more of a tool for discovery, I guess. And, you know, sometimes I'm just so fucking bored with the music I have that I desperately need to hear something else.

[Fuzzy Fred]

Spotify is pretty sweet. If you pay 10 bucks a month, you can download all of the songs and not have to have an internet connection. That being said, I just canceled my subscription because I wasn't using it that much.

I pay for all of my music, I know, I'm weird and my collection on iTunes is at about 4,000 songs

[MEC]

I still use CDs.

You are not alone.

[kbit]

I still use CDs.

You are not alone.

[Holy Schnikes]

Fuck streaming. I want to play my music when I want it.

Agreed. Plus, I'm one of those people who actually sits down and listens to one album at a time. The jumping from single to single thing doesn't quite work for me. My music library just keeps getting larger and larger, and I couldn't be happier.

Agreed gents!

[Quiet Things]

I pay for all of my music, I know, I'm weird and my collection on iTunes is at about 4,000 songs

I don't think it's that weird. A lot of people still pay for music. Nothing wrong with that at all, really.

[snipelfritz]

I still use CDs.

I do too, only they're burned CDs that I only use in my car.

[Holy Schnikes]

I still use CDs.

I do too, only they're burned CDs that I only use in my car.

Same here although I've recently started using an iPod in my car pretty regularly, finally.

[Rygot]

I still use CDs.

You are not alone.