After having been a vivid collector of CDs back in the days (I sold all of them some 15 years ago…), I started collecting vinyl and depend on streaming services ever since. Currently, I make use of a Quobuz subscription and Roon to manage my library which also includes various high-res downloads stored locally (with backups in the cloud).
But I miss physical media, and vinyl doesn’t cut it for me. Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats listening to a good record with a dram of Scotch, but quality wise, it’s nowhere near digital sources, at least not within any reasonable price point.
Where to go from here? Paying for high-res downloads I often can stream at the same time feels strangely unsatisfying, while falling back to CDs might be an option, but leaves out higher quality tiers. Physical alternatives such as HDCD, SACD or DVD-Audio seem more or less a niche for enthusiasts of classical music (if not dead), with a very limited catalogue.
Can some of you share my feelings? How do you deal with it?
It’s not an either or to me, and you are absolutely right: streaming subscriptions are probably the best way to discover new music – I wouldn’t want to miss it. But it’s been a few times already that albums from my streaming library weren’t available anymore or have been swapped with a new (and potentially remastered) release, which I find disturbing.
You’re right, I’ve found a handful of CDs that are just not on any streaming source, but they are rare.
But thankfully usually the opppsite is true, that there are more versions of an album than I have CDs, and you can compare them all