When you listen to music, do you listen to CDs?

[Manakin Skywalker 4,889]

Circa ~1990:

 

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I'm so glad the computer CD-ROM drive was just invented! I think it's liberating to be able to listen to music without involving a bulky stereo or my walkman. I use enough time on those as it is.

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

Actually, I used a discman, similar to this one. I think it might have been the exact same model!

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-D-131-Discman-with-Headphones/dp/B00005QT65

 

Hm... perhaps I should re-aquire it...

 

 

[Thor 7,451]

I still have my discman in the basement. I seem to have lost my walkman, though.

[Jay 37,249]

2 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Instead, I've got my collection ripped to FLACs (800 GBs of them) that I keep on my NAS. A Raspberry PI [...] runs mpd to play the music. I can control it via Cantata (on my desktop) or M.A.L.P. (on my phone).

 

This intrigues me.  I have all my music on a home server, but not a linux one, it is running Windows Server 2012.  Looking at that MPD page it seems it can run on Windows but might be a bit clunky.  Is that MALP app completely free and ad free?

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

I still have my discman in the basement. I seem to have lost my walkman, though.

 

Mine stopped working, probably after playing Crimson Tide...

[Marian Schedenig 8,153]

3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I think it's liberating to be able to listen to music without involving a PC or my phone. I use enough time on those as it is.

 

Well, I don't have to be at the computer/phone once I've put stuff in the playlist and started the playback. On the other hand, I spend most of the time at the computer anyway, so it's convenient.

47 minutes ago, Jay said:

This intrigues me.  I have all my music on a home server, but not a linux one, it is running Windows Server 2012.  Looking at that MPD page it seems it can run on Windows but might be a bit clunky.  Is that MALP app completely free and ad free?

 

MALP is free without ads, yes. I don't use it much because I prefer using the computer to the phone whenever possible (I even write text messages in the browser unless I'm out and they're urgent). It's convenient for play/pause when having guests.

 

Cantata is also crossplatform, and MPD can be fiddly to setup if you have unorthodox hardware and want bit-perfect playback, but it has lots of output and config options, including HTTP streaming. Unfortunately, last time I checked, Cantata had HTTP stream playback only on Linux, so when at work, I *can* stream music from home, but it involves using Cantata to manage the playlist and using a browser or VLC to play the actual stream from an HTTP URL. I've stopped doing that though, because buffering takes a few seconds, and there's a 90% chance that someone wants to talk to me once those seconds are over, making the whole thing too much of a hassle (actually, I mostly use Linux at work, but in a VirtualBox session on my Windows work laptop, and VirtualBox can't seem to manage audio playback without dropouts).

 

(MALP can do streaming too, I think, but I've never used that. I'd probably have to set up transcoding in mpd to keep the bandwith down if I wanted to play music extensively via my mobile network)

 

But as a simple client (Cantata)/server (mpd) combo with output to an amp I love the setup, because it's one of the few players I've found that conveniently lets me put everything (single tracks or whole albums) in a long playlist and rearrange that freely. It also has priority and shuffle options (and intelligent playlists) for parties and stuff.

 

The playlist is kept on the server (obviously), so is persistent. I've gotten used to keeping my main playlist going the whole year and starting a new one on 1 January. So far, I'm at 9671 tracks/23 hours 11 minutes for 2020. (Working at home a lot during the pandemic has also boosted my music listening)

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

Yes, but if you do log onto the computer, suddenly the evening is gone.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Anyone else like to surf the net?

[Bespin 8,472]

Time to encode these last CDs, then all my JW collection will be backed up as FLACS. As I never listen to physical CD!

[Jay 37,249]

On 10/29/2020 at 6:19 PM, Marian Schedenig said:

 

How many years is that going to take you?

 

A few, probably. I actually started this project a while back, 2014 I think. At some point into it we bought a house and moved and I didn't have a working CD player set up anywhere, plus always had so many podcasts to catch up on I never had time to listen to music in the car unless it was something new I needed to check out.... So there was a huge pause on the whole plan, basically. 

 

This summer thanks to covid I completely reorganized my home office and ended up setting up a cd player radio thingy on my desk that I inherited from my father in law who also passed away in the intervening years. This summer I got though a huge portion of my collection using that, over a hundred CDs easily.

 

But than waned away right around when I started listening to all the Philips Boston Pops Williams CDs as I just kept having other things I needed or wanted to listen to. This is a good reminder that I should resume that project! 

[1977 1,743]

On 10/30/2020 at 2:13 PM, Jurassic Shark said:

Actually, I used a discman, similar to this one. I think it might have been the exact same model!

 

 

I actually had this exact model, bought at an electronics store in Tottenham Court Road during my only trip abroad in the mid-90's 

 

I sold it about 15 years ago, actually wish I hadn't.

[csista 13]

For most music I've basically been all digital since about 2005. When I'm working from home, though, I prefer to listen to film scores through my blu-ray player and sound system. 

[A24 4,323]

I don't own any zimmer CDs. Where can I collect my reward?

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

Here it is.

 

[Jay 37,249]

On 10/30/2020 at 9:57 AM, Marian Schedenig said:

MALP is free without ads, yes. I don't use it much because I prefer using the computer to the phone whenever possible (I even write text messages in the browser unless I'm out and they're urgent). It's convenient for play/pause when having guests.

 

Cantata is also crossplatform, and MPD can be fiddly to setup if you have unorthodox hardware and want bit-perfect playback, but it has lots of output and config options, including HTTP streaming. Unfortunately, last time I checked, Cantata had HTTP stream playback only on Linux, so when at work, I *can* stream music from home, but it involves using Cantata to manage the playlist and using a browser or VLC to play the actual stream from an HTTP URL. I've stopped doing that though, because buffering takes a few seconds, and there's a 90% chance that someone wants to talk to me once those seconds are over, making the whole thing too much of a hassle (actually, I mostly use Linux at work, but in a VirtualBox session on my Windows work laptop, and VirtualBox can't seem to manage audio playback without dropouts).

 

(MALP can do streaming too, I think, but I've never used that. I'd probably have to set up transcoding in mpd to keep the bandwith down if I wanted to play music extensively via my mobile network)

 

But as a simple client (Cantata)/server (mpd) combo with output to an amp I love the setup, because it's one of the few players I've found that conveniently lets me put everything (single tracks or whole albums) in a long playlist and rearrange that freely. It also has priority and shuffle options (and intelligent playlists) for parties and stuff.

 

The playlist is kept on the server (obviously), so is persistent. I've gotten used to keeping my main playlist going the whole year and starting a new one on 1 January. So far, I'm at 9671 tracks/23 hours 11 minutes for 2020. (Working at home a lot during the pandemic has also boosted my music listening)

 

I somehow didn't see this before and thought you never replied to me.  Thanks for this!  Lots to investigate

[Michael Scorefan 4]

I have a CD player at work as well as a decent chunk of my collection there, which I use frequently.  Since COVID though, I have been working from home and using my iPod to listen to scores.