How do you listen to music?

[mothpanic]

at the moment I mostly use the free version of Spotify web player along with an ad blocker. it works just fine, even if it gets kinda laggy sometimes. the app is unusable when you can't choose a single song to play.

lately, however, I've been moving some of my favourite songs onto an SD card in preparation for getting a dedicated music player! no need for wifi, no ads, saving battery life on my other devices, it'll be a dream come true. I never grew up with iPods or other dedicated players, so maybe this is just because you always want what you can't have, but I'm kinda jealous of the people who did. I admire everyone who's eager to pay for their music, since my plan is to just use any random youtube-to-mp3 converter. as much as I want to use my mp3 collection as my default way to listen now, my laptop overheats too fast. I did get a nice player second hand that one time but it turned out to be half broken and I had to return it. thus the search continues.

if I really like an album, I'll try to buy the CD. I only have 4 in my personal collection so far though, and if I do end up with a good player, CD collecting will fall further down my list of priorities.

[RatWedding]

I actually buy my music on Bandcamp that I download in .ogg and .mp3 on an USB key and on a hard drive to have backup.

My friend are doing something similar

Two of my friends each got matching patterned USB sticks and are planning to export all of their music from steaming to the USB, sticks. One of them got a head start and is already fixing the metadata so it all looks neat and good.


As for the op's question, I use CDs primarily. I started collecting CDs, getting digital albums on band camp and burning them to CDs, and just taking my misc songs and putting them in like categories to burn. I got paper labels and everything 

[lakes]

• Downloading music from Soulseek, intmusic.net, or torrents and then playing it in AIMP
• Listening to internet radio. Someone mentioned Vintage Obscura which I also listen to a lot. That and SomaFM & radio stations from the Icecast server directory.
• Playing youtube music over open source programs and apps. I mostly use Freetube & Tubular. I might try Nuclear Music Player, since it can play Spotify playlists. I tried stuff like ArchiveTune and Metrolist, but my dad got an ad for BabyMetal because of it. So I won't trust stuff with "local algorithms" whatever that means.
• Occasionally I'll listen to Bandcamp, Peertube music videos and Funkwhale. But not as much. Bandcamp, I can't afford to actually support the artists. So it defeats the point. Funkwhale, meanwhile, is very slow and laggy in my experience.

[crazyroostereye]

When I discover music I like I usually Buy it in Digital form if possible, else I get CDs or do YouTube Downloads. For that mostly use Bandcamp, on occasion Beatport or Label Specific stores and when I don't have any Options any more Amazon.

For actually Listening to it, I have a Navidrome Server to stream the Music to my Devices, except when I'm out of the House where I use my iPod where I have a mirror of the Music.

I do plan on adding some Physical media to my collection, especially Records, as I'm in the Process of repairing an old Record Player. And if I succeeded I'll be Purchasing some Records for it.

[fablefound]

hooo boy. at this point, i think the better question is, how DON'T i listen to music?
i have a whole list of albums on my to-listen list, which i first put on through youtube. if i like any tracks on the albums, they get added to my spotify.
once my to-listen list is burned through, i'm hoping to finally leave spotify and turn my spotify collection into a hoard of mp3s. this'll also let me add some of my favourite vintage obscura hits, and indie tracks from folks who have left streaming services due to their various problems.
besides these, i quite enjoy dj sets on youtube (i'm listening to one right now, actually!) and tuning in to radio stations the world over. some of my favourites are arctic outpost for oldies, seeburg 1000 which i discovered thru this very forum, and new wave radio for, well, new wave lol.