When you go out to buy music, what do you prefer in terms of the format? CD, DVD, mp3/other digital, cassette, or vinyl?
If you're interested in vinyl, I suggest that you check it out. As long as you keep your records fairly clean, the sound is amazing. It's much more rich than that of a CD, and I've found with my turntable I get more bass than I do with CDs or cassettes. On the other hand, records aren't the most versitile things. I guess the main thing is, though, is that CDs oxidize and loose playability over time whereas a clean record can sound amazing 30 years later (I've found some ABBA and Heart records of that age that sound better than the CDs).
Anyway, I was curious to see what others tend to go for. I really hate mp3s that you buy because the quality is usually **** (128kbps). Thankfully, audiophiles are usually availible to share thier nice, high it rate recordings. :)
I don't mind 128kbps MP3s, in fact, a lot of my music is in that format, but I do like higher bitrate stuff when I can get it.
FLAC or 320kbps mp3. Even if I can't notice the difference (though I tell myself I can), the numbers make me happy.
In my truck I listen to CDs in whatever format that isn't mp3. I recently aquired an old record player so I dug through my parent's records and found some pretty good ones I listen to on occasion. If I had the space to keep them, I'd probably start a collection. I really want to get some old black metal records, but they're impossible to find around here.
A while ago I found this superthin record-like thing that has something like 45 min of whale noises on it. :cool:
128kbps MP3 is what I prefer. 320 is unnecessary. I can hear the difference, but it's just not big enough for me to really care. Besides that, if I can actually find it, I also like getting tapes. A lot of my music ends up on limited edition tapes which is always fun to collect.
Wow, I'm glad someone else agrees about the bitrates. Things like iPods are designed to play bitrates of 128kbps. Anything higher than that I find unnecessary. Unless you're one of those audiophile perfectionists, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, then 128kpbs should be just fine.
And if you are an audiophile perfectionist, chances are you won't be using an iPod. But yeah, for the amount of extra space it takes up, the tiny bump in quality just isn't worth it.
I like CD's when I have money, but pretty much all of my music files are mp4a, I think.
I <3 vinyl myself! As it has been stated before, it provides a deeper and richer quality of sound that digital media just can't seem to provide. I will take a good clean record any day. Alas, I do not have a turntable in my room yet. I have some records my mom's boyfriend was just going to throw out, but I saved them. Stuff like REO Speedwagon, and Chicago. I plan on getting a turntable soon though!
Anyways, we don't use physical media anymore. We pretty much ripped all our music to MP3's and got rid of all our CD's. We don't buy CD's anymore, we just download MP3's. All our music is on our computers, and we all have MP3 players. My mom and brother have iRivers, and my mom's boyfriend and I have iPods. For digital media, I prefer MP3's. Most of them are either 128, or even 192 for bit rate.
That's at my mom's house though. My dad has records, cassette tapes, and CD's.
I very much dislike cassettes, I had bad experiences with them as a child. My tape player kept eating my tapes, I went through about half a dozen players. :( Plus the older the tapes get, they get warped, and sound quality greatly deteriorates.
128s are fine with me. When you have a computer with limited space in addition to a slow internet service, I can't find it in me to ask for more.
Flac formats are a nightmare.