Just out of interest, as the music industry seems to be developing so fast these days, what's everyone's favourite music format? The one you tend to listen to most often, or hold a nostalgic fondness for.

I will always have a soft spot for CDs, but would be perfectly happy if everything went back to the days of vinyl! I'm becoming something of a technophobe. Digital/MP3 etc doesn't really do it for me, but they're useful to an extent. Thought I'd include cassette too...

Also, this poll's geeky enough without anyone asking about minidiscs or stereo cartridges- just going for the main popular formats...

Question:
What's your preferred music format?

Choices:
Digital (MP3, WMA etc.)
CD
Cassette
Vinyl

 

Err I hate to be a pedant, but CDs are digital audio, so I wouldn't have worded the categories quite that way.

I voted for CDs anyway, just cos that what I buy most of my music on for convenience. I guess it works as a compromise for me, in that it still comes in a physical package (which is important), but is a lot more manageable than vinyl (gorgeous as LP sleeves can be.)

I know CDs are digital as well- I just labelled them this way for clarity...

CDs, you can rip them to any digital format you want really easily. Plus you have a backup. Plus artwork et cetera.

I can deal with digital stuff. Especially with single formats, I often like to just cherry pick the tracks I want (I'd only be burning them to a CD-R compilation anyway)...

But CD generally. Vinyl way too fiddly, I can't afford the kit that would be required to notice the difference, and also being a contact media, will detriorate over time with playing no matter how much care you take. (unless you have one of these, that is..).

i was exicted into get one just then.
then i realized its like £3000...

Cds. Although I do have a soft spot for cassettes. It happens when I have stuff on MC that's odler than me... and all the silly and wonderful stuff people sent me on tapes before the digital age fully arrived and it's all uploaded anyways.

mp3s..... going to sound slightyl schyzophrenic but they don't have any sotr of personality. They're jsut there. No artwork, no song orger, no silly typoes (cough, Goldern Avatar, cough).... just there.Much easier, smaller and less likely to die a horrible, horrible death than any other media... btu they have no personality.

(As for vinyl, I have a turn table and recorsd out of geekiness, I s'pose.I migth have appreciated it more ahd my turntable was actually worth something. Need to get a new one. Sigh.)

I've known about those laser turntables for a while; I could seriously imagine me buying one if they came down to affordable prices. Something like that is never going to be cheap, obviously, but maybe one day the prices won't be quite so silly. It sucks that they won't play coloured vinyl though, by all accounts, as I have loads of coloured vinyl 7"s...

cd's for me too.

people who go on about vinyl just get on your nerves. yeah yeah yeah, we're sure it's like nothing else on earth, and that we've 'not lived until we've touched the vinyl, experienced its sweet fragrance and cradled it lovingly in our arms' but stop telling us about it.

hah my one vote just went to vinyl!!

i spend half my life on the computer, and it's simply convenient to listen to most of the music on it. ideally, i like FLAC (lossless audio), but honestly, i can't tell CDs from mp3s north of 256kbits. i rip CDs to 320kbit MP3s nonetheless

HOWEVER

- i still buy CDs, and while i rip them, i still pull them out a few times a month for some stereo time. the computer splits my attenion 37 different ways, and for something like autechre, you are meant to focus on the music and not IMing 12 people.

- in my basement workshop, i usually listen to radio, but i also listen to my ipod there, as well as my turntable with my limited vinyl collection. vinyl is simply fun.

- I do not use itunes or any of that shit. the only music i buy via download is FLAC-encoded. FLAC is essentially an exact copy of the CD, while mp3s are by definition lower quality (think of what happens to jpegs when you turn up the compression). More importantly, FLACs have no DRM shit. So far, I've only been able to get a limited selection of FLACs from bleep.com - happy with those though!

With you all the way in singing the praises of flac - but I wish someone would bring out a portable flac player - it would blow all mp3 players out of the water with its no deterioration in sound format. And now Hitachi are talking about terrabyte hard drives, there is no excuse not to release one.

Still, I like to buy CDs as you can rip them to whatever format or bitrate you want. Also, it's nice to get the notes and artwork etc. However, you won't find me getting rid of my vinyl, much of which has not been released on CD, but which holds too many memories anyway.

mp3 at a decent bitrate, works with everything.

I've posted this on 4 forums. The results so far, after a week, are:

Digital (MP3, WMA etc.)- 9
CD- 42
Cassette- 1
Vinyl- 11

Total votes: 63. Now I'm determined to get it to 100 votes!

CDs can be beautiful, the artwork on the disc, the case, the cover everything, it's part of the album. Take PPA for example, have you ever noticed hidden away it says Kula ordinates K108 - you don't get that on an itunes download!

It has the whole track skipping, shuffle, and program functions (depending on the player) and you have the choice of ripping to MP3 if needs be.

quote:

Originally posted by antimaterial:
CDs can be beautiful, the artwork on the disc, the case, the cover everything, it's part of the album. Take PPA for example, have you ever noticed hidden away it says Kula ordinates K108 - you don't get that on an itunes download!

It has the whole track skipping, shuffle, and program functions (depending on the player) and you have the choice of ripping to MP3 if needs be.

*cough* liek when you pklayed that album waaaay too many times and now have it automatically skips Great Hosannah....