How Much Music do you own?Music
- Thread starter NissanSkylineN1
- 87 comments
- 5,842 views
- 19,707
- Alabamamania
That's the rub, ain't it? Spend more money to hear what you probably aren't missing?
Never understood audiophiles, to be honest; I know too many of them. I mean, I acknowledge there's a totally garbage end of the audio market ($3 headphones? $10 music player...no thanks!), but in my opinion, that cliff isn't really as steep; spending a few dozen bucks on a semi-quality product, compared to spending a few hundred dollars more on one that has a very marginal improvement (even perhaps imperceptible) is quite silly.
I guess this is a case where I really prefer to be ignorant...
(And no, I don't think Beats by Dre are the coolest thing to happen to audio since the phonograph needle.)
- 963
- Toronto, Canada
- times_fade
I'm quite an audiophile myself and love a nice loud wholesome sound where the high frequencies don't hurt your ears and the mid-range actually has range. There's definitely that point at where spending over $1200+ on a stereo floorstanding speakers get's you very minute additional listening pleasure and is indeed absurd. But I'd go as far as saying if you can't hear the difference between $300 and $1000+ speakers your hearing HAS to be pretty poor, you can literally hear "more". Whether you're interested in good listening pleasure and spending money on it is up to each individual.
Anyway I own 300+ CD's, bout 100 Vinyls (wanting to grow an extensive collection) and many 100's of gigs of mp3 albums & singles.
Anyway I own 300+ CD's, bout 100 Vinyls (wanting to grow an extensive collection) and many 100's of gigs of mp3 albums & singles.
- 19,707
- Alabamamania
Well, my wife says so...
- 963
- Toronto, Canada
- times_fade
^^ Oh, good thing sound waves still enter eardrums with selective hearing 
/seriousness
/seriousness
Richardrfo
Premium
- 769
- Essex, UK
- Richardrfo
- Richardrfo
Last I checked it was 56,000+ songs, 400GB+.
My Last.fm shows it contains at least 4,880 Artists, I've still yet to listen to a lot of it.
My Last.fm shows it contains at least 4,880 Artists, I've still yet to listen to a lot of it.
- 3,204
- 2.2L Camry
- NissanSkylineN1
- Xbox??? Who is this Xbox??
What's Last.Fm?
- 3,542
- Marin County, C
Social radio. In terms of information about bands in every imaginable and the number of bands it is easily the most powerful source of music in the world.
In terms of finding new bands, learning about upcoming releases, upcoming tours, biographies nothing compares. The only three other things I use outside of last.fm for music are Bandcamp, Spotify and my music forum.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
Pretty much every song in the world, I guess. A few clicks of the mouse is all it needs today.
In fact I was looking at my thousands of cassetes, and hundreds and hundreds of CDs and Records and wondering what the hell to do with them. After I have packed them all into boxes - which I finally got today. And now wondering where to put those boxes when they're all packed.
Strange new world.
My brother, the DJ, says he send his excess music off to DJs at a certain 'third world' radio station, that he talks to often. Maybe I'll do that, too.
As we become more electronic, we start to get less materialistic, more portable, more attached to some huge cloud that holds all the information we need to entertain ourselves, and less in possession of stuff.
I'm wondering when I'm going to view my precious and vast collection of hard copy books that way.
- 3,542
- Marin County, C
How having a stack of CD cases along with your virtually stored music materialistic? Its materialistic to enjoy the art they supply with us? I just understand your standpoint.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
How having a stack of CD cases along with your virtually stored music materialistic? Its materialistic to enjoy the art they supply with us? I just understand your standpoint.
I'm taking that as a typo - did you mean you don't understand my viewpoint?
If you did . . . read on. Otherwise ignore the rest of my post, my dear Prosthetic, and thank you for understanding.
I'll take a minute to arm you with better information:
By 'materialistic' I was not meaning so much about being possessive about objects, as about size of materials. I have realized, quite mournfully, that the years and years of diligently collecting all the materials I have - cassettes, CDs, Records, Books, in fact any thing that is some kind of 'hard Copy' information is being made redundant - and being made redundant exponentially.
Our lifestyles are becoming extremely portable. And less materialistic.
If I was to head out to the Space Station for a vacation - the right Tablet could hold all the Books and Music I have - including the Art - which I could possible project or print out at will.
In fact, I don't need to take a vacation - I could just carry all my Infotainment in my pocket. Just in case my home burns down.
As for the Cover Art - Oh, yes, I agree - I am dismayed that my collection of Enigma is redundant that way. They'll never be able to reproduce the transparent and enigmatic art from Screen Behind the Mirror, though. I'll never give up some of my CDs and Vinyls. My Vinyl of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, though, was given away to a good friend. With great reluctance.
The rest?
Cold, dead hands . . .
Then there is the issue of copyright, piracy, etc, etc . . . how do we solve all that?
Not saying that Wham should get any more royalties than they already have on Last Christmas . . .but . . . TBH - George earned it right?
- 963
- Toronto, Canada
- times_fade
^^ So no mention of the most important factor... being a music aficionado such as yourself? Called full recording audio quality? And jeez, your view of 'we are becoming less materialistic' is actually highly false. EVERYTHING revolves around materials these days and general quality of life has suffered. The sad thing, as you said, things like collections and 'feeling' personal value to them (even when in reality they may not be worth too much cash) has suffered greatly.
It's basically a buy it, (ab)use it, toss it and re-buy it culture, which is really disheartening. Having been back and forth to Europe and North America, one of the key differences I find is how wasteful Americans/Canadians are, there's key cultural difference in treating everything as something valuable and taking care of it for as long as possible, even a 1 dollar item. No, I'm not dumping all North American's into this same category, but trust me, I've been in enough peoples homes and 'overall' the differences in organization, cleanliness and general living are monumental.
So, back to the music photonrider, let's face it, the only reason you write off the materialistic portion of owning music, is because yes, every single piece of music recording is floating around on the web... for a very very very low price.. of course we're talking .mp3 format, which I agree can be of excellent and sometimes of almost indistinguishably quality to .wav, and yes, good enough for 99% of music listening... but that's not the point.
It's just sad that the majority of the newer generations are growing up staring at a screen of folders with track names. One thing that's for sure, the more people can have, the less anything is valued. Anyway... rant over and Merry Christmas to all.
It's basically a buy it, (ab)use it, toss it and re-buy it culture, which is really disheartening. Having been back and forth to Europe and North America, one of the key differences I find is how wasteful Americans/Canadians are, there's key cultural difference in treating everything as something valuable and taking care of it for as long as possible, even a 1 dollar item. No, I'm not dumping all North American's into this same category, but trust me, I've been in enough peoples homes and 'overall' the differences in organization, cleanliness and general living are monumental.
So, back to the music photonrider, let's face it, the only reason you write off the materialistic portion of owning music, is because yes, every single piece of music recording is floating around on the web... for a very very very low price.. of course we're talking .mp3 format, which I agree can be of excellent and sometimes of almost indistinguishably quality to .wav, and yes, good enough for 99% of music listening... but that's not the point.
It's just sad that the majority of the newer generations are growing up staring at a screen of folders with track names. One thing that's for sure, the more people can have, the less anything is valued. Anyway... rant over and Merry Christmas to all.
- 15,855
- QLD, Australia
- Small_Fryz
I own 3 CD's.
If I want to listen to music I watch it on youtube.
If I want to listen to music I watch it on youtube.
- 963
- Toronto, Canada
- times_fade
This makes me sad. Heavily compressed online videos is not a way to enjoy music as the artists intended. It's alright for the odd song on a whim but it baffles me why YouTube would be a primary source for music.
but I have a ton of CDs.
- 15,855
- QLD, Australia
- Small_Fryz
I guess I just don't view music in that way. I don't even own an Ipod/mp3 player. I also don't have decent enough speakers to warrant playing high quality music so when I do listen I just stream it through youtube.
Its not as if I'm not willing to pay for the CD's or I find it too costly, Its just I don't personally have a need to buy music over and above what I can find on the net through youtube and grooveshark etc.
For the record I do prefer to buy blu-ray's and watch good quality films rather than acquire them through "other" means.
Different strokes?
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
Oh! 'racer, that would be another discussion altogether - but I see the relevance - yes - portability takes away from the reproduction of reality. Agreed. For now. What do we know about the future? These are sensations we are trying to reproduce - in the brain. No doubt we are going to be hard-pressed to duplicate the pressure waves we feel, when we are standing in front of the right speakers, pumping through monster cables from a hi-fidelity amplifier the rich tones that come off a perfectly pressed vinyl (or even the high-speed master-tape they used to press it.
)But as I said - that's another discussion. There may be benefits to miniaturization of our infotainment software/hardware that will outweigh the loss of quality - except to purist audiophiles - who will no doubt always prefer hi-fidelity audio-equipment performing within studio-quality auditory chambers.
Music of that sort - and yes, I have enough of the purist still left in me - thrills me. I could die.
I read that several times to try and understand where you are coming from. Sometimes, even in black and white, the symbols connected to the words mean different things to different people.
I'm taking it to mean that you think I am stating that society is consciously becoming less materialistic (e.g. in the Buddhist way) and simplifying their lives and basically going away from possessing things.
What I meant - was that our physical lives - substance - materials - are shrinking, becoming transistorised (though now its zillions of transistors on tiny chips) in comparison to say . . . ENIAC?
Everything is becoming smaller, more portable, astronautic. (Astronauts are usually tiny people.)
Cameras become smaller, computers become smaller - everything smaller as small as our fingers will allow, and as big as we want to see. Still limited by the big size of the screen we want to see but eventually something like what Cookie in the series Pacific Coast Academy has over one eye, will become a reality and will feel like we were looking at a 70 inch LED HD screen.
We will become half robot - as it is we almost are - false eyes, fake hips, permanent teeth, hair . . . so eventually an auditory/visual implant in the brain that is connected by wi-fi to some giant Big Brother Cloud that provides everything.
Run, rabbit, run, and the impulses will be provided. At the speed of light.
Agree with this idea with some tweaking - though I can't speak for the Americans - realistically. I have some American friends over here - the most incredibly delightful people ever (or maybe it's just me) but I don't really see too much of their personal lives - what I have seen is that they are careful - but they expect to live life to the full and love luxury. What do I know about Americans else where? Not much. My friends in California sound frugal to me whenever they speak on the phone, more concerned about their mortgage and children's schooling, and still driving beat-up cars.
In fact I've heard that 'Freeganism' is quite a trend in America - though probably only in the urban areas.
As for 'Canadians' -there are so many different cultures here - that to say 'Canadian' is merely to be Nationalistic. I have covered some of that in the 'Nationalism Thread' - you'll find it in the Opinions Forum.
Are some Canadians wasteful? You bet. Conspicuous consumption abounds. People can't stop buying stuff around here. Buy, buy, buy. Then yeah - throw it away, or just let it add to the clutter in the home till the place is one big junk heap - stuff the basement, stuff the attic, stuff the balconies, stuff the garage, stuff the garden shed, and it's mounds of stuff - from dollar store stuff to credit-card financed joneses-level trinket-toys that they can't let go (as you said 'looking after the stuff') except being overly affluent and buying so much stuff, they end up with more stuff than bargained for, and they start throwing it out or having yard sales, and then it's more room to put more stuff they buy.
Cycle of economics is involved, I guess. And unconscious compulsions, media programming, social breeding.. . .
Now I'll admit that's a long way from shedding of the Self via Buddhism.
Never mind clutching at material straws to build a sense of worldly Self.
Actually somewhat of the opposite - what I'm attempting to do is concentrate all the music I have into a smaller material space.
Let me expand on it: I have always been a collector. You'll find some explanations in the 'Collector Thread'. (Look in the Rumble Strip
)I intended putting together every classic book and piece of music and movie that was made. I have hundreds and hundreds of videos. And DVDs. I intended to build this huge infortainment library for my kids - and their kids - so that they could go down to say a sprawling basement and find the walls lined with every imaginable piece of entertainment or research they wanted.
Guess what. Technology killed me. The whole idea seems redundant now. Alright - not everything may be killed. I doubt the heft, and feel, and sheer sensuality of holding Darwin's Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (printed in 1901) can be duplicated while using an eReader.
As I mentioned before I'm loath to throw certain pieces of my music on to flashdrives and forget the hardcopy. It's a case of changing the media that holds the software, right?
And as I said originally - this cuts down on the materials, space required, and possession of large artifacts - which gives us wings in return.
But when Eddie Van Halen, or Carlos Santana, or Beck or Hendrix belt out their music I want to feel it go though me. With that desire - comes the large format media that holds the software they used to express the reality they created in sound.
There is really nothing like listening to a pristine vinyl over good equipment in the right chambers. Eargasmic doesn't cover it. It's orgasmic. Physically. Period. Women audiophiles I know have told me that.
Compressing it (though good earphones - and even more importantly, 20/20 hearing - helps) miniaturizes the experience, too. But it seems that humans are infinitely adaptable.
And so I look at my vast collection . . . and realise it's going to mean nothing to my kid's kids. Just grandpa's junk. Something about Queen and Orbital and Bob James, and Black Sabbath and the Beastie Boys. Something about some guys called Clapton, and Hendrix and Lennon. WTF? Who is this Bob Marley? What the hell is Lady Gaga and Enigma and Floyd?
And they'll probably be listening to some form of quintitones.
Life is moving exponentially.
'racer - I was born into the age of telephones and TV, flower power, and the Vietnam war. I was basically a child of the hippie generation. And in that time of growing up with the Stones, and Yuppies, and everything changing so fast the cars, the planes, the landing on the moon, and Alan Turing and Steve Jobs taking us by storm - and 1984 turning out to be nothing like the book - instead we got a desktop computer called an Apple Macintosh. (I still have one - look in the Old Electronic Equipment Thread in the Electronics Forum
- I'm making you browse, eh?)From ENIAC - in next to no time at all to the iPhone 5G (Probably 5GS by the time I finish typing all this out!)
The generation I grew up in saw a burst of movement where the OLD World died in techno-spasms - giving birth to the one I am used to now - and still adapting to everyday - as it changes.
Can I fight this change?
Why would I? The only Constant is Change.
Well, we built Paradise . . . and put up a Parking Lot . . . you know the song.
What if the so-called First World Countries are actually now redundant, behemoths of technology that will evolve a species half-human half-techno, eating the strangest of foods, living almost like a head in a jar? This may happen.
Should we have really become a Nature-loving agricultural-based species instead; would that have been more evolved - to fit in with this Plantworld we live in and are so dependent on? We wouldn't have gone to the Moon. We wouldn't have let Gibson touch a humbucker. We'd be blowing reeds and probably living longer in a cleaner fresher world - with a lot less people.
But would that have been a better present? What future would it have? Only Nature knows for sure.
Anyway... rant over and Merry Christmas to all.
Didn't see it really as a rant - maybe venting a little because of your frustration at the situation - and I can understand that. I saw it as wanting to pick my brains - and you were polite - so I took the time to explain.
Hope that gave you more insight to the post you addressed.
Guess I'll see you on the track one day, and let you run me over, if it makes you feel better
And no, I'm not giving up My Vangelis vinyl. Or my copy of Clockwork Orange.And a very Merry Christmas to you, too, my dear[B] occasionalracer[/B].
👍I can totally understand this. Not everybody has to be a 'music-freak'. (Read audiotone-addict) Some people are more into sight. Or smell. Or the taste of a fine rum. Or the touch of a fine woman. Different strokes.
This way we develop technologies across the board that'll satisfy all our senses. Even our sense of balance. And Humour.
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In the end it's the sense of Self that is the hardest material to let go of. That is the ultimate miniaturization - and the one we of which we most must preserve the quality.
Cheers.
- 332
- Babylon
probably something around 65-80 GB with DJ mixes and my project files and samples, i have stuff burned on craploads of CDs/DVDs so i can't tell you exactly. Plus a stack of CDs and few records Grows everyday though
- 3,204
- 2.2L Camry
- NissanSkylineN1
- Xbox??? Who is this Xbox??
Samples get pretty space consuming.. I remember FL Studio, VSTs and the samples took up about 18GB.
I am now at 95GB in terms of my iTunes library.
I am now at 95GB in terms of my iTunes library.
- 1,600
- ON, Canada
- AMCNUT
- AMCNUT
A quick check tells me I have 94GB of music in my iTunes folder, but that's going to get bigger because I'm currently in the middle of ripping my LPs to my computer. But, the 94GB might not be completely representative of the number of albums because I re-ripped all of my CDs after Christmas as Apple Lossless instead of 320 AAC files... so yeah! 
Ripped most of my CDs to FLAC over the last week or two, I now have 80.9GB of varied music, 205 albums/EPs in total which actually surprised me because the music I listen to is actually pretty limited.
A complete list if anyone is interested - http://pastebin.com/5PAZwQY1
A complete list if anyone is interested - http://pastebin.com/5PAZwQY1
- 3,204
- 2.2L Camry
- NissanSkylineN1
- Xbox??? Who is this Xbox??
100GB!
- 24,644
- Anoka, MN
I'm now sitting at 336, will probably stay there for awhile as my Amazon Prime subscription is up so the ones I just ordered will be the last for a couple months(don't feel like paying for shipping).
As a side note, I have made a spreadsheet with a wishlist of sorts with all the albums I would like, it's at 2,508 and growing, curse my wide range of musical taste!
