Yeah, I mean people have r2r copiers for the master tapes, and then are converted to high quality lossless. Some places like hdtracks do that for some of their high rez releases
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Looking through my collection in foobar2000, I now have around 24,000 tracks in my âall playlistâ, which hasnât been updated in quite some time. But say Iâve got a thousand or two extra tracks, with maybe a hundred or so un-ripped CDâs laying around. I need to get myself a USB-connected optical drive so that I can rip my tracks as I donât have one in this PC anymore since rebuilding my system.
Speaking of streaming services and such. Bandcamp really has revolutionized my music acquisition. Iâve found so many good artists and bought their albums on a whim, simply because of how easy it is to listen to either a single or their whole album and then still be able to get it in FLAC.
For anyone into weird Japanese music, I highly recommend macaroom.
Main vocalist emaru has an amazingly unique voice and their whole electro-pop style is very varied. Tracks mixed with Japanese and English lyrics, with some apparent nonsense words on a few single tracks. I just love them, it tickles my ears the right way. The fact that they released their album âswimming classroomâ in 24bit FLAC speaks volumes to me.
Another label to check out is NewRetroWave Records, theyâve got some amazing artists under their belt.
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Omg yes, bandcamp is my favorite site. Everything about it i love. Specially how you can actually buy a physical album AND download the music in any format! No need to rip the disc anymore
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I have been using Apple Music for so many years. It is hard to get out of Appleâs ecosystem when start using iPhone. But speaking of the music catalog, Spotify defenitely wins. So I sometimes use Spotify. It is easy to and merge playlists by downloading and converting Spotify to MP3, and then transfer playlists from Spotify to Apple Music.
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Right so whatâs better about like using apple music if you are in the ecosystem? I had an iPad myself and I just passed my music like usual
Apple music was one of the first streaming options with the caveat that you had to buy what you streamed. that got a lot of people hooked into their eco-system and the effort to get out and take your music with you is difficult, from what I understand.
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That would make sense if it was physical but since you stream canât you just stream in in Spotify? Iâm just genuinely curious
Iâm not sure why you would play Apple Music through SpotifyâŚas they would already have that music, so seems redundant/
No I guess I just mean whatâs the advantage of using apple music over Spotify if they have the same stuff
I largely use Amazon Music HD, itâs got most of what I listen to.
I do have a reasonably sized collection converted to FLAC, which I use for the occasional album that amazon doesnât have, or doesnât have in at least CD Quality.
I did the large collection of physical media thing several times, with LPâs, LaserDiskâs and DVDâs, they just become a pain to manage, streaming is just a lot more convenient.
I stream for access to the latest and greatest, suggestions, etc. Home set up is Tidal and Audirvana. I like the âradioâ effect- âplay something for me⌠
oh, very nice. Make-a-the sexy-timeâŚâ.
Files wise, I usually play what I make, check other peopleâs projects, and I usually get white labels from other people. I like to pay artists for their work, but I got rid of Most of my CD and Vinyl collection after conversion. I still do frequent Hard Offs and House Offs to see what used CDs and Vinyl are laying around.
nothing but a captive catalog that you canât use but through Apple Music, LoLoL!
I stream a lot. I got Amazon prime so its cheap to get amazon music HD. Its great to hear old music i forgot about and hear music i hear about so easily. Also to hear the latest albums by my favorite bands. takes me a while to get around to ordering their CDâs I usually buy CD used for a cheaper price anyway.
Its a shame how the music industry treats its artists. You have great prolific artists with big libraries of music broke and unable to pay their bills. They charge them for everything. studio time, videos. they have to pay for their own touring. I dont know why but the music indistry has never paid their artists. just the top 9% and sometimes not even then. So i wouldnt be surprised if they are getting almost nothing from the streaming. Artists need a patreon for themselves. Or to go independant and sell through the web or something. Radiohead makes good deals with companies to sell their music but again their in the top 9%
Non-streamer here, I want files of known quality in my storage, to listen to with whatever player app I want, on PC or mobile.
Mainly bought music on Bandcamp (download FLAC, convert to 300-ish kbps VBR AAC/M4As), Google Play Music (320 kbps MP3s), and a few things on Candyrat Records (320 kbps MP3s).
Play Music is now dead, replaced with YouTube Music which doesnât sell files anymore. I guess Iâm gonna have to get a debit card that Amazon will accept in one of its approved countries and buy MP3s that way, for everything I canât find on Bandcamp. 
No streaming here. Funny enough, I just saw this thread right now for the first time and last month I made a post about this topic on my blog.
I have nothing against streaming and have used most of the big platforms in the past.
Rather, I prefer to buy my music on CD and vinyl, or in FLAC from Bandcamp for those artists who donât publish on disc. For me, buying the CD or physical media is part of the experience of music. Having that physical thing to hold onto, to put into a player or to look at the album art adds to the enjoyment of the music I am about to listen to. The tangibles of music are in essence, part of the intangible and extraordinary experience. Itâs a feeling I donât have when I can stream literally anything I want at anytime. Doing it this way is deliberate and enjoyable for me.
Streaming has saved me tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars⌠
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Yeah cos the rates they pay the artists are crap. I could see the point of streaming if I could pay per minute of music actually listened to, and if I knew they were paying 80-85% to the artists, like Bandcamp, but paying a flat rate no matter how little I may listen in a month is unacceptable (I listen rarely and deliberately, I donât treat music like a background noise I have to have running all the time).
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Spotify is now doing this oof
Regardless of this money stuff, I just like collecting CDs. I will be honest here any say album art does sway my purchase a bit. Okay a lot.
Still waiting on stuff I ordered from Japan 2 months ago. Oversea shipping 
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There are some things you canât stream and you canât buy. Thankfully thereâs a gray market trade that will make high quality remasters for original source when they can get a hold of it.
Por ejemplo.
I do stream using Spotify a lot, as collecting here in my country can be difficult and I think itâs a great way for discovering new artists. That said, since the beginning of the year Iâve been trying to buy music from more artists I like, mainly in light of situations like the noticed by @Not_Daijoubu.