How do you listen to music?

Because of other humans around me not appreciating my taste in music, I primarily listen alone in the car (physical CD) or YouTube streaming in my room via my laptop. Rarely on my cell at lunchbreak at work.

I mainly use Spotify, but will buy some albums I really like, either digital or CD. Also, nice to see a fellow Linux user

I have a ridiculous bent toward physical product, LP CD etc, although
that is waning somewhat recently. coming to my senses in my
old age I think ($$$, space and what will my poor wife do with all this
when I likely go first?). I'm feeling this desire to lean more towards
digital purchases...

I say ridiculous because, in practice, I don't actually play the physical
product. I immediately rip CDs to FLAC and LPs often come with a
download. I love the physical product and the idea of it all but I guess
the convenience of it on the computer wins out...

As far as listening, I use any and everything online for determining
if I want to purchase a record. When it comes to listening to my
collection it's pretty much all foobar2000, best player going in my
opinion.

I stream and then try to buy what I like when I can. I usually buy digital.

I own a ridiculous amount of music in various formats.

I cast it on my tv, from YouTube. It's a good way to listen to music, scripture, sermons, or even just music gear reviews for stuff I'm interested in getting

YouTube

I prefer to stream it on Spotify because I like to try to sample a large number of artists.  If I find someone new and I try one or two of their most streamed, and I don't like them, I can move on.  

That said, I'll add them to my playlists if I like them.  But if I really like them, I will buy the songs from iTunes.  

The reason why is because I drive for a living, and I listen to music the whole time.  In order not to jam up my phone, I put the songs on a Sony voice recorder, running an audio jack into the stereo.  That way it can run independently from my phone.  

Over the years, I have an incredible number of songs, probably 6-7 k.  Really deep on the 80s-90s, but I have metal, Christian, jazz-fusion, classical, 2010-23 new songs.  

I bet I know almost all of these lyrics too...

I use Spotify at work and in the car. At Home it is exclusively records. I have a collection of over 900, and a decent set up.

I’ve used Spotify for years, recently I’ve been using bandcamp more though. I’ve found the sound quality is “brighter” I guess you could say. I only buy cd’s if I can’t find whatever album on one of those platforms. I’d like to get into vinyls but the initial cost and amount of albums I want is daunting.

I don't own a tape or vinyl player so I'm stuck with only CDs for now. They're my preferred format anyway though - I don't like having to stop what I'm doing just to switch sides like with tape/vinyl.

I try not to spend too much money on music to begin with because I fear collecting too much will become a door for greed in my life. So I try to only buy music that God tells me to buy, or I truly see improving my life in some way. At the same time though it's important to not withhold money if I truly appreciate someone's work, or else it'll just become greed in a different way.

I very much prefer listening to actual physical CDs, for a reason I'm having trouble putting into words. It's like... a full experience? If I listen to an audio file, it's just something sitting on a harddrive. If I stream music on a website, I'm listening through an internet connection. But with an actual disc it's like... "just me and the disc" if that makes any sense?

I don't have a preferred file format. Either my headphones aren't high enough quality to tell the difference, or I truly just don't care. If I had to pick, it'd be .wav since it's a good compromise -- good sound quality plus not totally massive file size.

People seem to think that since I run Unblack Archives, I have this gargantuan warehouse full of music. I really don't. I forget the exact number but I generally own less than 150 CDs total at any given time. Even that feels like too much sometimes. I have a lot of digital music but even then, the majority of that is stuff I downloaded from random websites and hold onto solely for archival purposes or documentation, more than actual listening.

ShotGunderson wrote:I’ve used Spotify for years, recently I’ve been using bandcamp more though. I’ve found the sound quality is “brighter” 

I've noticed that too.  I have pretty good ears for sound quality.  I have played the same song(s) switching from Bandcamp to Spotify and back, and the Bandcamp tracks have more "Oomph" to them and greater dynamic range.  

As for preferred format, I generally like streaming and making playlists, but there are times when I just want to put on a CD and listen to it play while lying down.  I no longer have that many CD's but the ones I have are a mixture of some metal, but also jazz, classical, blues, pop, classic rock, prog rock, funk, chant, bossa nova, Christian audiobooks, and other miscellaneous.

Actually, I find I use Youtube Music more than Spotify, especially since, unless you pay, Spotify's mobile function wont let you skip songs or listen to full albums, while Youtube Music's mobile app has unlimited skips and allows full albums, even on the free version (there are ads, but most are short and inobtrusive, and most can be skipped as well).