Ask Lemmy

Usually with my ears.

No streaming. DAP loaded with mp3/flac/m4a/opus from ripped CDs and downloads then I make a few playlists or set random play on the while library.

Setup: Tidal through USB Audio Player on my Samsung Galaxy S23 with an Audioquest DragonFly Cobalt DAC and Sennheiser IE 900 headphones.

Why: because I can taste the sound in my mouth

Some favorites: Erutan, Diana Panton, The Ink Spots, The 8-Bit Big Band, Dir en grey, Eluveitie, Aimer, Paramore, Shiina Ringo, Tokyo Jihen, Yorushika

Streaming. Mostly YouTube music, some Bandcamp, all legal. Headphones at work, speakers at home. Favorites are many, old and new music, last couple of years it's been Fontaines DC I think, they are just so good, sitting at the intersection of rock & punk & melodic with such awesomely poetic lyrics and the underlying thread of despair of all Irish music.

Streaming. Favorite artist is the Beatles, but Led Zeppelin is a close second.

A mix between MP3s, FLACs, and streaming through FOSS frontends to YouTube Music.

I've been collecting vinyl for close to 20 years now. I didn't mean to but bands and labels were just trying to get rid of them in the mid 2000s so I got a dozen or so free records when preordering CDs. About half of them were not on any other format at the time so I got a record player.

So I mostly listen on that when at home or use volumio as a multi room playback system to stream off qobuz or from a local library on my NAS. I did get into cassettes during the pandemic and do find them rather entertaining.

Favorite band is easy, its Guided by Voices. As for why I can't really say except that they rock. You have to be able to see the brilliant uncut pop gems through the lofi tape hiss. Pretty much all their best stuff sounds like a first take demo tape.

Recently bought a DAP (Digital Audio Player) and started downloading to distance myself from Spotify’s increasingly intrusive push of AI-riddled music and podcasts. Large commercial artists are torrented, while smaller bands’ music off of bandcamp and qobuz.

I still have my Spotify account to reference songs that I’ve bookmarked, but since I ended my subscription I no longer use it frequently enough to discover new music as I detest ads. Now I discover new music throughs combination of falling down youtube rabbit holes, and browsing various lemmy communities, /c/eternalplaylist@crazypeople.online (I forget how to link communities. I’m also considering checking out last.fm and other music services like that.

Bands I've been enjoying lately:

• Magdalena Bay
• Night Tapes
• Feng Suave
• Rikas
• The Beths
• The Marias
• Djo

I'm also looking forward to purchasing the new Paper Kites album when it releases in January. :)

My music library on my PC, often SoundCloud, in phases YouTube Music, or online radio streams.

I pretty much always have music running, unless I actively do something that has relevant audio.

Generally Spotify but I’m looking to ditch it for another similar services bc I can’t take their crap anymore (fucking YouTube kid like feature I cannot block, audiobooks…). I insist on paying so that eventually, even if only a portion of, I pay artists. Also I have yet to find alternatives for finding new / matching songs.

On the side I recently acquired a record player. I like to have a physical media. Makes music more tangible for the kids as well. Make us listen to whole albums as well so it’s a different take than what Spotify offers.

Apple Music. If I like it I’ll buy it from places like bandcamp, or acquire it if I can’t buy it.

• Spotify for social and casual listening
• Tidal for curated personal music listening time
• brain.fm and endel for background music
• youtube music for rare finds
• youtube premium for tv music like tiny desk concerts and party tv
• mp3 through bone conducting earphones for workout, especially water sports. I try not to take my phone to avoid distractions.

I have my music on my nextcloud instance and nextcloud music app and stream it on my phone using any ampache client

With my ears

These days, I avoid Spotify, or anything else with their ridiculous advertisements. I used to pay for Spotify but they charge so much for paying so little to the artists that I didn't want to support them anymore. Not to mention that I truly dislike this algorithmic world we live in, where things are "recommended" for me, but it's part of an endless conveyer belt of things being sent my way when I didn't ask for it.

I'm working on getting a record player so I can just intentionally play the music I want. I also like the physicality of it. It feels easier to dive into the artist's vision of the album as a full experience.

Files downloaded from Soulseek and Bandcamp. Supplemented by Metrolist.

Mostly stuff I bought from Bandcamp. It's drm free, but for convenience I usually let it stream from the app.

I also have a bunch of mp3s from older purchases I listen to sometimes, but I don't have a media server set up so that's mostly limited to my desktop.

Sometimes I'll pull up a specific track on YouTube, but that's mostly for "do you remember this song?" stuff. Adblock and the "resume playback from lock screen" make it bearable.

I mostly use Apple Music because I have it and it’s easy access to a huge catalog of artists. I started using a little cheap MP3 player in my car that’s loaded with old Punk o Rama compilation albums, some ripped from my own collection, but many were downloaded because they are hard to find now.

I found a bunch of good bands at my library, so I checked the cds out and ripped them to my PC. I also frequent thrift stores for cheap books and cds. I’m slowly learning how to set up my own home network and I’d like to stream my own stuff on the go, but I have a lot to learn before that.

My favorite band is Green Day. I fell in love with them when I was 10 and heard them on the radio in the early 90s. They were my introduction to punk music and were my lifeline during some really rough parts of my life. I survived because of the 1039 smooth album and Star Wars Pod Racer on N64.

mostly mp3s, but I also use iBroadcast to stream my personal library on other devices

favorite band is The Magnetic Fields, favorite album 69 Love Songs, favorite song "100,000 Fireflies"

flac files + navidrome + tempo app on mobile / supersonic on desktop

I stream FLAC on Qobuz. Sometimes I listen to CDs. My favourite band is Rush, I love Neil Peart's lyrics along with how great the three of them are at their respective instruments.

Used Spotify until recently, but cancelled my premium subscription after the recent price hike as well as the increasingly prevalent AI content. I'm now trying to build a local library of mp3 files. Not sure if I won't resubscribe to Spotify at some point though, as I find music dicovery quite difficult without it.

A mixture of hard-drive storage and streaming.

Never streaming or radio. I like to choose what I want, and want uninterrupted play (not reliant on internet), when I want, and often prefer stuff where all or most of the album is good, so I listen mostly in order and almost never shuffle.

Mostly mp3's on whatever works for the device. Phone mp3's, USB for game console and car. Sometimes vinyl. Even record the vinyl's sometimes so I can play the vinyl mix anywhere since vinyl's tend to be mixed differently.

I would like to listen in an armchair to cd or vinyl through a modest, though still good, stereo speaker system. But my life doesn’t include space or time for any of that.

So - almost 100% streaming, through earbuds, the car speakers, and/or HomePod. There was a time I was on Oink and then What - what put Apple Music to shame. The staff picks were eclectic and amazing and I learned a lot about new to me music styles.

I don’t like listening to music in the background in general, but dance/electronic music is good for background distraction for workouts and focus. But my preference is for classical music - Bach, Beethoven, etc. - depends on my mood. Sometimes I’m in the mood for Queen or Pink Floyd. I’m never in the mood for pop.

Primarily Spotify, mixed in with SoundCloud and YouTube for live sets.

I like to change it up. I'll listen to USBs on my stereo, or on my phone with earphones. I listen to USBs which have mp3s from all over the place, YouTube, Radio Garden, and regular radio (on a stereo where you have to manually tune it to a station). I'm constantly unearthing new music, and music that's new to me.

Vinyl and cds. Mostly vinyl. I do stream albums I consider buying in physical form, just to check out if the expense is worth it to me.

I listen on Deezer. I know, streaming is awful for the musicians but otherwise I would just pirate songs + I freeload on my friends family plan.

Currently I'm obsessing these artists:

• Femtanyl (KATAMARI)
• STOMACH BOOK (Fukouna Girl, Bambi)
• Danny Brown (Copycats, The End)
• FEM&M (Beep Beep Beep)
• Joey & Valence (DROP!!, BUST DOWN)

Anymore there are a few songs on yt that I listen to that I haven't downloaded. Otherwise it's mostly all local files on my devices. File type varies.

Otherwise, I have a bunch of CDs that I can either play using my desktop or battery hog of an old Discman. Pros for desktop is I have access to my higher quality bluetooth headphones and can move and do other things whole listening. Pros for the CD player is I have an old pair of 90s in ear Sony headphones that came with it.

Couldn't tell you a particular group for a favorite band right now since I've been listening to a fair bit of 90s ( basically all my CDs ) when it comes to most of the band music I've been listening to.

for streaming, Soma.fm. for everything else, ripped CD's and mp3s/flac I've found all over the internet that I've collected for 20 something years. I use jellyfin and a VPN to listen to my stuff from my phone.

Tidal, though I've quit payments so when this month runs out I'll switch to try out Qobuz. Before that I was on Spotify since it was invite-only until a few years ago when I had enough of the CEO Daniel Ek complete disrespect for artists that make him a billionaire. Before that I was sailing the seas for many years. Before that I bought CDs. Before that I bought LPs.

I generally use my ears to listen to music.

Seriously though, between Orpheus, Soulseek, and Bancamp I have a large library and I paid for a Plex pass years ago, so I use Plexamp on mobile and PC. Pretty pleased with it, and it even has scrobbling support for last.fm and support in Maloja+Multi-scrobbler.

Large commercial Artists Music is downloaded illegally in various ways. Smaller Artists Music I buy via Bandcamp, Quboz or wherever else they offer it.

All Music is stored as Mp3 and Flac in a Filen Cloud from where I pull selected Titels and Albums onto my phone and into a Musicolet Playlist.

Current musical obession: Turkish Psychedelic Jazz

CD's at Thrift Stores.

Seeker for everything else.

I download the song once using yt-dlp, then I use Musicbrainz Picard to fetch song metadata like author, cover, title, year etc... Then I listen 100% offline in any mp3 player app.

I send my songs encrypted to pCloud free tier (gpg) just to keep a backup somewhere else.

In other words, not a single online service on earth know what I'm listening to.

I used to use Spotify, but got tired of the bullshit they were doing. Now I run my own navidrome server and use feishin for desktop and Symfonium for mobile.