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I "hoard" because there is a lot of media I own that I can't find elsewhere. I had stopped buying physical media and ripping them to my disks in the last 2 year

I "hoard" because there is a lot of media I own that I can't find elsewhere. I had stopped buying physical media and ripping them to my disks in the last 2 years and moved full time to streaming - Spotify for discovery, Apple Music for maintaining the library (both are cheap here in India). But recently I saw that a lot of music I owned was missing from both services. That made me decide to go back to my old ways. Also, having spent the effort in cataloging and ripping my collection has made me intimately familiar with my collection and has been an activity I can partake in to relax/wind-down.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
I also remain a keen member of filesharing communities because I want to actually own my music and films, and I know it could disappear from streaming sites. But another advantage of having my own collection is that it lets me enjoy all this media at my country cottage, where the only internet access is 4G that gets throttled to hell after just a few gigabytes per month. I can torrent Blu-ray images in the city with my fiber connection, and then keep a backup hard drive at my country home. That has proven a lifesaver during this long virus lockdown when I am stuck in the countryside and can’t travel back and forth.
timrichard 7y ago
I'm in a similar position. The nice thing about the NAS is that it doesn't have a "leaving soon" section. Another good thing about using it for most video consumption is that disruption of internet service becomes a temporary issue upstream, rather than game over. Quality downgrade because of a drop in bandwidth doesn't happen either. Similar to you, I'm converting CD to Flac one cherished album at a time, taking a bit of time to enjoy it and tweak the artwork, etc.
- hashhar 6y ago
  How do you handle listening to songs on mobile devices across the internet? I'm currently using Resilio Sync (trying to hack around for selective sync support in Syncthing) meanwhile to get albums I want onto my phone. I haven't yet looked into things like Plex, Kodi or Emby.
  - timrichard 6y ago
    I haven't looked into playing back Flac files from Mobile devices. I'm currently using a client on the Mac called Audirvana, but intend to use something on the Raspberry Pi like Volumio for general listening, connected to an amp and speakers. The Flac files are just available on the LAN from the NAS. I think Synology does support Plex too, which would let you listen to tracks away from home.
callmeal 7y ago
>But recently I saw that a lot of music I owned was missing from both services. It's not just that, it's also that apple "transparently" changes the version of the music that you "bought". I had a version of a musical album with a particular song in it. When my ipod died and I re-downloaded that album on my new computer, I found that they had helpfully "upgraded" it to the newer release (without the song I wanted on it). And there's no easy way for me to get it back unless I find a physical copy somewhere and buy it again.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  Added to that concern is that streaming services often feature only recent versions of albums that are pitched as “remastered”, and they might replace earlier audio with whatever the label now sells. The supposed remastering is not any improvement on earlier digital-era releases, it just reduces the dynamic range because labels know that people are listening to music on their phones in noisy places these days. So, if you have a nice stereo and listening environment and you want to get a version of the album with actual room to breathe dynamic-wise, your only choices are buying a used CD or torrenting it.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago

I also remain a keen member of filesharing communities because I want to actually own my music and films, and I know it could disappear from streaming sites. But another advantage of having my own collection is that it lets me enjoy all this media at my country cottage, where the only internet access is 4G that gets throttled to hell after just a few gigabytes per month. I can torrent Blu-ray images in the city with my fiber connection, and then keep a backup hard drive at my country home. That has proven a lifesaver during this long virus lockdown when I am stuck in the countryside and can’t travel back and forth.

timrichard 7y ago

I'm in a similar position. The nice thing about the NAS is that it doesn't have a "leaving soon" section. Another good thing about using it for most video consumption is that disruption of internet service becomes a temporary issue upstream, rather than game over. Quality downgrade because of a drop in bandwidth doesn't happen either. Similar to you, I'm converting CD to Flac one cherished album at a time, taking a bit of time to enjoy it and tweak the artwork, etc.

hashhar 6y ago
How do you handle listening to songs on mobile devices across the internet? I'm currently using Resilio Sync (trying to hack around for selective sync support in Syncthing) meanwhile to get albums I want onto my phone. I haven't yet looked into things like Plex, Kodi or Emby.
- timrichard 6y ago
  I haven't looked into playing back Flac files from Mobile devices. I'm currently using a client on the Mac called Audirvana, but intend to use something on the Raspberry Pi like Volumio for general listening, connected to an amp and speakers. The Flac files are just available on the LAN from the NAS. I think Synology does support Plex too, which would let you listen to tracks away from home.

callmeal 7y ago

>But recently I saw that a lot of music I owned was missing from both services. It's not just that, it's also that apple "transparently" changes the version of the music that you "bought". I had a version of a musical album with a particular song in it. When my ipod died and I re-downloaded that album on my new computer, I found that they had helpfully "upgraded" it to the newer release (without the song I wanted on it). And there's no easy way for me to get it back unless I find a physical copy somewhere and buy it again.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
Added to that concern is that streaming services often feature only recent versions of albums that are pitched as “remastered”, and they might replace earlier audio with whatever the label now sells. The supposed remastering is not any improvement on earlier digital-era releases, it just reduces the dynamic range because labels know that people are listening to music on their phones in noisy places these days. So, if you have a nice stereo and listening environment and you want to get a version of the album with actual room to breathe dynamic-wise, your only choices are buying a used CD or torrenting it.