I think I'm starting to buy into the idea of streaming.

amclark2

So I think I'm starting to buy into the idea of streaming.

I know I've fought with people here or elsewhere a little bit about this. "I'm a buyer and a collector, not a renter" I would say, but a few things recently have me rethinking it.

First of all, there was the amazon mp3 thread discussion about streaming. That got me thinking why am I buying these $.99 things, just because they are $.99? Do I need to have these forever, especially given that they'll always be accessible?

Then there was the using your phone as a listening device conversation. That got me thinking too; my iPhone spuds pretty good to my ears, and although I still use iPods, I find myself using the phone more and more, especially because of the next thing which is:

Amazon's cloud drive being made available for iPhone. This coupled with all of amazon's sales, has had me downloading a lot from my cloud lately, listening to it a few times, then deleting it back to the cloud. So finally I thought, why not use a streaming service, where I can still download, listen a few times, then delete, I just would have a much bigger cloud to choose from.

Honestly, the "what's wrong with music today" thread had some effect too, because I find myself very curious about the current pop scene without feeling a need to own very much of it.

So yesterday I started a Mog free trial. I don't have wi-fi at work, so the best way for me to stream is to download at home. So I downloaded about a dozen albums, downloading was easy and pretty fast, and I'm working on listening today. I think the sound quality is great, and playing downloaded stuff isn't a huge battery drain. On the minus side, I find Mog's player to be a little clunky, and one album (Aaron Dilloway's Jester) only had four tracks available.

I figure I'll try Spotify next, then rhapsody. Rdio's 15.00 rather than 10 for a phone service, so that's out, unless it's much better for some reason than the others. Anyone have any pointers for what services are best?

Dr. Mutex

My experience is limited to the desktop version of Spotify. On whole I'm quite pleased with the selection. As for streaming, I propose that if early network streaming services had gained traction and expanded, typical listeners would have felt no need to own records.

greg

The main streaming service I use is Spotify, partly because some of the other services are not available here, and Spotify has been available in the UK for several years now anyway. Often I will listen to Spotify omce to decide if I want to buy something, as I only use the limited free version. This is especially the case when something is not available on emusic and I have to pay more for the download. I don't mind downloading something I'm not sure about when it costs me around £2, but if it is going to cost me £8 I want to know I'll like it. (Some artists, though, I buy 'blind', eg the Boss) I do also listen to other streaming services like NPR and, occasionally, the Guardain will have a stream of a new album. Like you amc2 I ought to use streaming more, but I do have this thing about owning a copy, even if it is only on my computer.

Doofy

I actually just bought the big 160G iPod Classic - partly because I imagine they'll be going away eventually. I consider streaming all well + good, but damned if I'm going to pay for the bandwidth to stream in the car, etc. I think I mind the lower streaming bitrate a little bit, perhaps beyond my ability to hear the difference. I'll stream across the home wireless network occasionally. On recent family trip, was able to take advantage of the new Amazon cloud app to stream (via wireless) recent purchases on my phone, and play them through a dock/speaker device.

Dr. Mutex

I stream some internet radio (EVR, a Do-Wop station, oldies station, eXponential Radio) on my mobile and never come close to the 2 GB in my plan. I tend toward the lower bandwidth streams not due to usage, but because they're less likely to hiccup when I'm driving through areas with the dicey connectivity.

eta: I suppose I should also own up to streaming like a fiend on my wifi at home. I plug the phone into the aux input of one of the various iPod docks around the house, plug in the charger and listen all day while I'm working on projects. I've also got Spotify on a mini Laptop, and I've been known to plug that into a dock as well. Normally the minl plays Spotify on my computer speakers while I work at my desk.

Doofy

This picture pretty clearly illustrates where I'm at on this issue - found all but one of these while clearing off my desk this morning. (And of course took the picture with yet another Apple device - the only one capable of streaming.)