@mahler123
For those who are so quick to respond to queries such as this by saying just stream, keep in mind that many CDs are reissued in big box sets and then deleted when the run is over, with the CDs then being unavailable to stream
Agreed.
Streaming is a great option. But t leaves you at the mercy of the streaming service and your internet service. If either one has an outage, then no digital music. And streaming services might come and go, just as many huge chain stores have come and gone. And there goes your playlists.
When you own CDs, and rip them, the songs are yours, forever. You rely on no one and no service (other than the power company, which is unavoidable in any scenario).
And some songs on some CDs will likely sound better than what is streamed.
Two high-end store owners and their staff have told me that if you purchase the song from the streaming service, and play it from your local storage, it will sound better than coming from the streaming service. I have not confirmed that for myself, because I subscribe to no streaming services. But different personnel from stores, thousands of miles apart (New Jersey and Navada), told me the same thing.
I do not stream, because I do not want to rent my music. But I am considering it, to discover more music, and to land better sounding versions of the songs that I love.
I have purchased a couple of thousand songs, and many of them have vanished from the seller’s site. In one case, it was ponomusic, which went belly-up. Numerous other songs I have purchased from 7digital, and many of my purchased songs are gone from that site.
But I downloaded all of my purchased music, so I lost nothing. If I was purely renting, things would have turned out differently.
