For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793388
This weekend, dozens of local radio stations are being shutdown to create a new national network. This includes the one we normally listen to nowadays as background in the kitchen and for the daily commutes in the car, which is once again prompting me to look at how I consume music (last reviewed when Simon Mayo left R2).

Despite generally being at the forefront of tech adoption, streaming such as Spotify has never really taken off for me. It's not yet a solution for the car, and I liked radio in the mornings in particular for the news/traffic information/what's happening bit.

I've got over 20,000 tracks in my mp3 collection anyway, so I've not had the need for streaming to access variety, but tend to find I end up listening to a small number of albums and playlists. Particularly in the car, where it's hard to browse and pick a playlist, even with voice activation.

Some of our hifis will play internet radio, but I find the choice and navigation somewhat bewildering - so just tend to use it as a way to listen to stations I know at a better quality.

I feel like I'm missing a trick with streaming, and possibly internet radio. What are others doing nowadays?
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By Miscellaneous
#1793394
rikur_ wrote:This includes the one we normally listen to nowadays as background in the kitchen...

May be worth considering the need for background noise? Since moving house a few years back my routine of switching the radio on before doing anything else in the morning has changed. I now wonder why I previously had a habit of always requiring external 'interference'.

Tomorrow night when SWMBO is away overnight I shall dig out some old vinyl, which the pleasure of will be heightened by not having background noise every waken hour.

Just a thought. :wink:

EDIT: on considering the thread title, I think the word consume speaks volumes. Tomorrow night I will listen and savour. Although others may consider my choice of music torture. :D
Last edited by Miscellaneous on Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By Propwash
#1793396
My wife and I had a similar discussion last week. She enjoys having the radio on in the kitchen throughout the day as background, but I find that whichever station is the current favourite they tend to all have a limited playlist with the same songs being repeated day after day, and with commercial stations the same old adverts droning on every 10 minutes or so. I find I am increasingly using my iPhone to play music through a bluetooth speaker in my study, although I have dabbled with using the PC to play my library of songs.

I still have a collection of around 250 vinyl LPs, but apart from converting some of their tracks recently to MP3, they rarely get an outing anymore, mainly because of the irritation of having to keep getting up to change them when they finish one side. I do play CDs sometimes on the music system because I have loads of them as well and I can load 3 at a time. :wink:

I now only use the car radio to listen to TMS if there is cricket on while I am driving, although on longer journeys I again use bluetooth to play from my iPhone.

Can't seem to raise any enthusiasm for streaming from the likes of Amazon Music. Perhaps that's my age. :oops:

PW
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By lobstaboy
#1793401
Good Lord, I've just liked a post by Misc ;)
But I feel the same. Radio is one thing, listening to music properly is something else entirely.
I love radio, always have, but my choice of station depends very much on what I need at the time and where I am. R4 in the car, various eclectic DAB and internet stations at home..
Music is vinyl or CD. Somehow I need to own a physical object with the music on it.
One thing that happens with streaming etc is that people dont listen to albums anymore - they just skim off their favourite tracks, or the ones they know best. The art of producing a good album has been totally lost to the music industry; they are now just a bunch of tracks (obvs I'm talking about "popular" music, not classical) lumped together.
And who makes mix tapes any more?....
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793404
At the beginning of Covid I consciously stopped watching BBC breakfast telly in favour of the radio.

I must admit to liking the radio in the background and initially started with Classic FM who, though they only play 'the good bits' which fits with my philistine tastes, after a couple of days I realised that they repeated stuff even more frequently than Radio 2 playlists.

So I gave Simon Mayo on Scala radio a bash, even put an outdoor DAB aerial up outside kitchen as indoor one was interfered with by fridge alongside and reception on certain DAB channels in my bit of Suffolk can be sketchy.

As for music, I have an apple music sub and bluetooth anything I want from my iPhone to whichever room I'm in or via Alexa in my study; and at night when 'er indoors has gone to bed I wallow in youtube nostalgia via Amazon Firestick by virtue of my Prime sub.

Haven't shoved a CD in the 'slot' for ages.(In the house that is, use them all the time in the car).

And every so often I listen to my early 60s Beatles etc vinyls on my 50+ year old Hacker GP15 mono record player which is set up in my study/mancave.

So I've pretty much got it covered: Shame my car radio isn't DAB, though, neither does it have bluetooth to unlock the goodies in my iPhone.

Peter :wink:
Last edited by PeteSpencer on Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
By johnm
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#1793407
Radio 3 in the car and on bedside radio in the mornings.
Occasionally switch on the 40 year old tuner and amp for radio 3 or vinyl or CD

Mrsjohnm listens to 60s or 70s pop music on CDs while ironing.

Go to concerts at the Albert Hall (when its open :pale: )

Recently started to watch some material streamed on the Internet, sound quality isn't great but better than nothing :(
By Colonel Panic
#1793412
Being a hater of subscriptions, I avoided the likes of Spotify for years. But when I bought a "proper" hi-fi system 18 months ago I signed up for TIDAL and absolutely love it. More expensive than Spotify, but the (bit rate) quality of TIDAL is vastly superior to Spotify.

I use Roon as a front end / controller, and most of my listening in several rooms is now TIDAL, my own high bitrate ripped CDs (stored on a NAS), or internet radio through Roon. Sometimes I even get the old vinyl out too.

I used to listen to Radio 4 for perhaps 12-16 hours a day, but during the run up to Brexit it did my head in & I now listen almost exclusively to music. Much more relaxing.
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By Ben K
#1793420
Apart from the occasional local radio station in the car, it's all Spotify for me; I've been a subscriber since 2015ish. Plenty to choose from, and plenty to discover (courtesy of a few algorithms that seem to do the trick). There's also a number of standup comedy backalbums I enjoy.

The subscription seems entirely reasonable for what I get out of it (choice/variety/no ads etc).

I download to an offline playlist on WiFi, and take it with me on my trusty portable device. Streaming to home sound setup, or bluetooth to headphones, or the 3.5mm jack where appropriate.
#1793422
johnm wrote:Recently started to watch some material streamed on the Internet, sound quality isn't great but better than nothing :(

Some internet radio streams have very high quality. My current favourite - Radio Paradise - has streams varying from 24k (suitable for Ipswich Airport supporters on a dial up connection only) to 320k, which is excellent.

https://radioparadise.com/listen/stream-links
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By eltonioni
#1793428
The act of putting on some music seems to have been made infinitely more complicated and time consuming now that we’ve got (nearly*) everything available with a few screen swipes via ten minutes of getting distracted with the device. As a result I’m listening to less music than ever, and to a narrower range of artists too.

We have few thousand hard copies of music from acid brass to click songs and I miss the serendipity of slipping something round out of a case/ sleeve and listening from track 1 to the end as intended and hearing something new that didn’t seem to be there the last time I heard it.

There’s nothing actually stopping me from doing it the old way but the allure of the streaming services alongside the tech seem to have done an excellent job at retiring my brain. Unfortunately, when Spotify et al say you will discover new music you’ll like, with their algorithms, they are lying. The technology just gets in the way.

It’s all very sad. This is what it must feels like to get old. :?




* happily we have YouTube and people who care enough to post music that would be forgotten if we had to rely on Spotify / Amazon to make it available. Couldn’t find this curate’s egg anywhere else the other day.

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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793446
Miscellaneous wrote:May be worth considering the need for background noise?

Indeed. But I need it in my morning routine to wake me up and in the drive home it helps to stop thinking about work. I enjoy walking without music though. Couldn't do the gym without music though.
eltonioni wrote:The act of putting on some music seems to have been made infinitely more complicated and time consuming now that we’ve got (nearly*) everything available with a few screen swipes via ten minutes of getting distracted with the device. As a result I’m listening to less music than ever, and to a narrower range of artists too.

I think it's choice overload. When I was DJ'ing, I had a box of 24 minidiscs - about 8 for the radio, and the rest for live events. I'd spend about half a day a week reviewing new stuff, and updating what was on the minidiscs (and cataloguing, measuring intro lengths, fades, etc). It was much easier to DJ live with less music to hand - despite the stereotypical approach at the time to be to turn-up with flight cases full of music.
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By Trent772
#1793447
Daily drive:

0930 - 1200 Ken Bruce - the rest of Radio 2 daily is tosh.

Sunday afternoon - Johnnie Walker

Otherwise either Absolute 80's on DAB or my Old Git selection on my iPhone via Apple Car Play in the truck - works very well.

When my older Bro comes for a build day, usually Tuesday, we have Scala on - a better blend than Classic FM. Mayo is consistently good.

When the current Mrs T goes out, I stream music to the Sonos sound bar via iPhone.

She has vinyl and CD up in her studio when she is painting - King Crimson, Nina Simone, Santana and Vaughan Williams.
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By Rob P
#1793518
Fascinating question, I hadn;'t really thought about how my music consumption has changed through the years.

Home: There are three iterations of Alexa around the house. Generally speaking the one in the kitchen, linked to a JBL speaker, is the one that most delivers music during the time I spend there when I am cooking.

The actual music can be "Play tracks by [artist]", "Play me some [genre]", "Play Deezer Flow" or "Play Aadvark Blues FM"

We have a pile of CDs that are never touched and most are available as mp3 on various devices that are never used

Since opting out of listening to news and current affairs programmes I listen to very little broadcast radio, mostly "More or Less" and then on catch-up at a time convenient to me.

Car: Time was when the car radio was never off; it might as well have been wired direct to the ignition. Now it is rarely on.

This started with the 996 that made such a lovely sound that to mask it with recorded or broadcast music or chat was not anything that appealed. The various diesels that followed led to a bit more in-car entertainment, but the advent of the V8 has seen me go back to making the most of the engine track.

Having been just about the earliest advocate of EVs from my Leaf Roadshow days I am now aware that the internal combustion engine is an endangered species and I am making the most of it before it disappears. I am sure if I had a Tesla or similar I would be searching for something from the 'infotainment' setup.

But maybe not. I sometimes travel as a passenger in Sandra's car, she has Radio 2 on permanently at a level that just about prevents you listening to it. Maybe she turns it up when I am not there? It actually irritates me enormously, but 'her car, her rules'.

On the rare occasions when I drive her car, the V6 makes acceptable enough accompanying music.

The 1.9 diesel van? The radio is so complicated, and the resulting sound so tinny that I can't honestly say I remember how to turn it on any more.

The thing I miss most: Long overnight drives with Alex Lester and his truly unique style of graveyard shift radio.

Rob P
By ArchaicRider
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1793623
PeteSpencer wrote:At the beginning of Covid I consciously stopped watching BBC breakfast telly in favour of the radio.


Why did I read that as watching the radio! :o

However, I've given up with TV news, it's too much speculation and not enough facts. Radio's only marginally better :(

AR
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