How does everyone play music these days? I must be missing something!

Johnmcl7

If there's music I'm possibly interested in I usually find it on Youtube, convert it to mp3 and if I like it then buy the mp3 or CD. I still use a standalone mp3 player, I don't listen to a big variety of music so not much point paying for a streaming service.

John

henm2

In the car I would keep it simple and just listen to the radio,

However at home and using a Amazon Fire stick with Kodi installed and connected to your TV there is plenty to listen to. Apart from BBC podcasts there are plenty of other streaming music add ons such as MP3 streams. Although it can not be discussed in detail here I am sure you can quickly google it.

Mr_Toad

Another vote for the car radio when out and about.

If I really want to choose my music or listen to an audio book in the car I connect my iPod to the car radio, it has an Aux in socket on the front panel. My last car had a built in iPod dock in the glove box.

At home I have a couple of Internet connected DAB radios, there are literally thousands of internet radio stations out there that play by genre.

googler

ripplyuk wrote: »

I've recently started using Spotify's free service but it's driving me nuts.

What do you have in terms of music equipment already? Any portable players? Car stereo (if so, does it play USB/iPod etc?)? PC w optical drive?

What's in your music collection at home at the moment? CD? LP? Tape? Files?

ripplyuk

It's mainly in the car that I want listen to music, as I can't stand the radio.

My old car didn't even have a CD player. The new car does so I've bought a few CD's but only enjoyed a few songs from them so it seems a waste of money. It also has a round pin thingy to connect my iPhone so I've been using that with Spotify. At home, I just have an iPad, no PC. I have a Roku for the TV though. I'm not sure if there's any good music channels for that but I'll have a look. I've heard of Kodi too, which sounds great but very technical and confusing.

I only upgraded to a smartphone few months ago (a friend gave me her old iPhone) and it's pay as you go so the data costs for Spotify are high. I was hoping it would mean I would never need CD's or any other gadgets but perhaps that was wishful thinking.

Can I do this 'converting' and MP3/YouTube stuff on the iPad? Or would I need a PC/laptop?

ETA: that's literally all I have googler, just a few CD's.

ballyblack

Get Spotify premium, works much better and plays only what you want

Get a phone with SD storage

Download all your Spotify playlists on wifi to this storage to play offline, no data needed


.

GunJack

This is why people like you and me still need a pc/laptop with a CD/DVD burner on it, a decent ripping program, and create your own CDs for in the car....none of the services mentioned above have the sort of stuff I listen to (which are mainly smaller bands who may not have been around for long, and release everything DIY anyway) so cd burning is essential

googler

ripplyuk wrote: »

Can I do this 'converting' and MP3/YouTube stuff on the iPad? Or would I need a PC/laptop?

ETA: that's literally all I have googler, just a few CD's.

FYI, I have a 'mech-less' player in the car, which just has radio, iPod and USB playback. I loaded up two or three of these USB sticks,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00FJRS6QY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

which each give me the equivalent of around 70 CDs if I store them as FLAC at CD quality, way more if I put mp3s on them.

But I'm starting from the position of having well over 2000 CDs, 1500 LPs, and years and years worth of radio concerts on tape, and wanting to listen to them in preference to random stuff from the radio, or trying out stuff on Spotify. And having the PC to rip the CDs and convert all types of stuff to mp3.

What do you WANT to listen to, if you only have a few CDs? Do you just want background music, any music, or do you want something specific?

A.Penny.Saved

ripplyuk wrote: »

It's mainly in the car that I want listen to music, as I can't stand the radio.

My old car didn't even have a CD player. The new car does so I've bought a few CD's but only enjoyed a few songs from them so it seems a waste of money. It also has a round pin thingy to connect my iPhone so I've been using that with Spotify. At home, I just have an iPad, no PC. I have a Roku for the TV though. I'm not sure if there's any good music channels for that but I'll have a look. I've heard of Kodi too, which sounds great but very technical and confusing.

I only upgraded to a smartphone few months ago (a friend gave me her old iPhone) and it's pay as you go so the data costs for Spotify are high. I was hoping it would mean I would never need CD's or any other gadgets but perhaps that was wishful thinking.

Can I do this 'converting' and MP3/YouTube stuff on the iPad? Or would I need a PC/laptop?

ETA: that's literally all I have googler, just a few CD's.

If you do not have any computers then you would have to rely on the tracks being already encoded to a suitable format for your playback device ie download or stream them. Computers which are now fairly cheap and it is near to Black Friday, do have some uses and this is yet another useful option. There are many different audio formats ie codecs giving different levels of quality and file size. Being able to encode audio gives you the option to choose which is most suitable. How many tracks you can fit on your playback device and the quality that suits you. Some people like lossless audio and therefore go with the Flac codec. It takes up a lot more space than Mp3 but is lossless meaning that all audio data is preserved whereas with Mp3 it is not. Using Flac a CD will sound exactly the same as the original CD whereas with Mp3 depending upon the bitrate some audio frequencies will be lost. Mp3 is an approximation to the original source audio and the degree of approximation depends upon the bitrate. Be aware that a CD is also only an approximation of the original audio! It's lossless but it is digital rather than analogue like real audio. The audio waveform has steps rather than being a smooth curve which is what real audio has. This is the approximation done with digital audio. Lossy codecs introduce further approximation by losing frequencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC

Fightsback

I use one of these excellent devices on the move just for that retro vinyl bad sound quality and track jumping experience, I'm just so audiophile.