Would you purchase new Quadio releases as lossless downloads?

[atrocity]

I would be buying downloads if they were offered. My reason is that I ran out of space to store all these discs years ago and my collection is a mess at this point. I rip everything and haven't played an actual disc in years. Did I mention that my collection is a mess? Harder and harder to find what I want because it's become unmanageable for me. All I want is to hear the music. And I can always easily find it in my collection of digital files. They're all in one place!

This times ten thousand.

In the CD world, having them all on a server that I can access remotely is not just convenient, it has also on multiple occasions prevented me from buying a second copy of something I already own.

 

[atrocity]

That being said I've always maintained that the record companies (or rights holders) should make available their entire back catalogue at least as a purchasable download, if physical releases are not practicable. I would accept downloads as a last resort, never as a first choice.

I remember trying to find a CD of Jerry Harrison's first solo album and learning that such a beast was never released...but Rhino was happy to sell me lossless FLAC files. This was a lot of years ago now, but I remember thinking at the time that if downloads truly opened the vaults, I was all for them.

 

[atrocity]

I guess if there was a tidy box that would act much like a physical media player, handle all of the various file formats (DSF, FLAC, MP4, MKV, WAV, MP3, etc) - play them gapless in stereo, surround, Atmos, etc, and connect to a processor via HDMI that would be a start.

You've just described my Raspberry Pi 4 running Kodi.

 

[kfbkfb]

Maybe this concept can be (adapted?) and applied to Blu-ray audios
(just found this with a quick Google search):
https://moviesanywhere.com/collection/spring-boco-2021-wb
It seems popular (in the USA) to include a paper with a unique code to watch and listen to your purchased movie (which likely has a surround sound soundtrack) on a variety of devices.

I haven't tried using any of the codes yet, might try it out this week.


Kirk Bayne

 

[Sal1950]

This times ten thousand.

In the CD world, having them all on a server that I can access remotely is not just convenient, it has also on multiple occasions prevented me from buying a second copy of something I already own.

Not me, I still forget to check my server and buy second copies now and then. LOL

 

[BillSamm1]

At the risk of blasphemy, I would definitely buy high quality downloads of Quadio albums WHEN and only when the physical releases are out of print and only available on Discogs at extortionate prices. For example, if they put the Chicago set online tomorrow, yes, I'd buy the downloads. Otherwise I'm a hard copy Blu-Ray guy all the way.

 

[Sal1950]

I haven't tried using any of the codes yet, might try it out this week.

Neither have I but I was under the impression that these downloads were highly compressed (compromised quality) versions for storage and viewing on small devices like phones and ipads. I could very well be wrong on that ??

 

[barfle]

I guess I’m fortunate in that my equipment can play a wide variety of music sources. So the nature of the source is far less important than the program it contains. I have a fairly large collection of LPs, CDs, SACDs, DVDs, DTS, and even a handful of Edison Diamond Discs, along with about 20 EVR films. But also have a pretty good collection of files, from pretty bad MP3s to DSD64s that are all worth listening to from time to time.

So I’ll take what sounds good to me, as long as my equipment can play it.

 

[Guy Robinson]

Right now there is almost no space left for physical releases and that is with overflow from my room to another. I only buy the physical releases that I really want now and even those I convert to mkv or flac files on hard drives. Downloads are a great idea. Besides, I am 70 and my wife has already said if I go before her it is all going out. So if I have another 10 years on this earth I figure it's time to stop the madness.

 

[Pitscher]

I would be buying downloads. But why should not be both possible? Physical and download?

 

[NYMo]

Some of us are still on 4g wifi ..yay to physical media !

 

[Pitscher]

I use Eversolo DMP A6. Music on SSD. HDMI -> AVR. That`s it.

 

[mandrix]

12 HDD's & 4 SSD's (all internal!) run from an LSI 9211 & a Lenovo SAS expander board.
HDMI > AVR for sound/ TV video
RTX 3060 DP > 4K monitor

I rip discs on an external optical drive then scan art and put the disc in one of the 6 racks.
Optical drive goes back in the box and on the shelf.

 

[kwd kwd]

physical media only.

 

[Guy Robinson]

12 HDD's & 4 SSD's (all internal!) run from an LSI 9211 & a Lenovo SAS expander board.
HDMI > AVR for sound/ TV video
RTX 3060 DP > 4K monitor

I rip discs on an external optical drive then scan art and put the disc in one of the 6 racks.
Optical drive goes back in the box and on the shelf.

I currently have 32TB of music and another 32TB of backup. But I am running out of space so it will soon be time to delete stuff I haven't listened to or rarely listen to. Make the tough decisions as I don't want to buy anymore hard drives. I have the 32TB's (8 HD's) attached to my Oppo 103 which has no issues indexing the entire thing within seconds of turning it on and I myself have no issue navigating the various folders.

 

[esimms86]

I happily buy both and have made surround download purchases from IAA and NativeDSD. I should also point out that having a blu ray doesn’t insure protection against disc rot.

 

[MIDIQ]

No, when I pay money for something, I like to have something in my hands. Keep making them on Blu ray.

 

[jimfisheye]

Of course I would buy surround downloads!

A nice clean digital file with a checksum that I can backup easily vs an error prone disc format that has been questionable from the beginning? And it can include a pdf of artwork that can be as large and comprehensive as anyone imagines? Let me think... um... YES!

I miss vinyl album covers too! Discs have never been even close to the same thing. Always a facsimile of the past. And the error prone thing right out of the box...

 

[atrocity]

I happily buy both and have made surround download purchases from IAA and NativeDSD. I should also point out that having a blu ray doesn’t insure protection against disc rot.

Yes! For me it's less a matter of strongly preferring one over the other than appreciating both. I like the tactility (is that a word?) of having the actual thing in my hands while simultaneously greatly appreciating the convenience--and, in some cases, more reliable permanence--of the bits on multiple hard drives with backups on the other side of the world.

And while I don't think this is true of any post-CD media, there's also a distinct possibility that streaming playback of properly-extracted CD bits is more accurate. Though unless we're talking about a really delicate bitstream like DTS, that theoretically improved accuracy is probably inaudible 99.9999% of the time.

 

[M-K]

People with limited time.
Why download and not listen?
My stack of unheard discs is bad enough.

Reminds me on my stack...