So…Much…Music!

@onhwy61 

Well sure. But only under certain circumstances. If we assume you have a streamer that is sonically as good as your CD /Vinyl / or tape. Then the media type is irrelevant. 
 

Then it becomes a question of how you found those great recordings. It is likely you know about, heard about or sampled only a tiny bit of the available music out there. So, you have only collected from a tiny pool... with a careful choice before you buy an album. 
 

However, when you have millions of albums at your disposal then your means of exploration can change... mine did and I have discovered so much new music that I love that I almost never listen to my 4,000 albums (vinyl / CD collection). One can argue that, ’well, I use streaming for discovery." This implies a lower sound quality to your streaming system or why would you bother to buy something if it doesn’t sound better, and why would you want to spend all that time listening to inferior sound. ound quality makes a difference in your assessment of some albums... so if you could listen to them if full fidelity to make a choice, why wouldn’t you?

Anyway, for me I would guess if I could do this that if I ranked my favorite albums there were 3,600 vinyl / CDs in my collection that took 50 years to find. And now my top 3,600 albums 80% are albums that I stream... so 2,800 are albums that I found by streaming in the last ten years. 

@ghdprentice Based upon your system and postings I. am not surprised that you would maximize your streaming experience.

If you have a 1,000+ CD/vinyl/tape collection and it's not one of the best collections of music you've ever heard, in your humble opinion.  Then is getting potential access to 100 million song sreally going to help you?

Yes, because there is so much more than 1,000 albums with great music and sound out there that you can sample without having to spend $20 to $50 for the privilege.  Too much great music to ignore.

Streaming provides inexpensive access to a vast quantity of music, but how much music can you actually listen to?  Realistically, how many hours of music can you not access, not sample, but actually listen to in a day?  Do you really think you're listening to more than a 1,000 CDs worth of music in a year?

It's s a question of inward looking vs outward looking. Once you get the skills to navigate a nearly infinite catalog you can be discovering fantastic music you have never heard constantly. For whatever time you have.