My main source for the past couple of years --when I'm seriously listening to music-- has been vinyl. It has been (and remains) both fun and pleasurable for me.
Before that, it was CDs for a few years.
A fair amount of radio (FM mostly, but occasionally, because of programming an AM station(!)) is interspersed in there, too. In fact, there are periods when radio is my biggest source, at least by time spent listening. But radio is usually "background" while I do something else, like work (or post on AK
) on the computer. I don't use radio for purposeful LISTENING.
I do sometimes listen to cassettes (the Nak ZX-9 is very nice!
). I'd really love to spend more time listening to R2R, but I don't have enough tapes. It's hard to find tapes in HK that aren't moldy! :sigh:
Recently I've been playing with computer-based digital sound. Just starting to learn the ins and outs, really, but intending to set up a PC-based server system. I've been burning CDs to hard disc using Exact Audio Copy, and extracting the sound from the hard disk via a (Trends Audio) USB connector, to a Behringer 2496 for anti-jitter/upscaling, and then to a Musical Fidelity X-24K DAC, through a (Chinese-made tube) preamp to headphones. I like the initial results, and will be doing more in this direction, eventually putting all my CDs on external HD in hi-res lossless format and using it as another input in my main system, mostly for convenience.
Actually, the sound quality of even my cobbled-together PC music set-up is getting good enough that it has kept me hesitating over whether to buy a really high-end stand-alone CD player. I want one, but part of me keeps saying that it won't sound any better than a computer-based system is capable of, if set up right. And if that is true and more people catch on, etc... then the price of those ultra-good stand-alone CD players is going to plummet, the way LaserDisc player prices did when everyone switched to DVDs.
I'm TRYING to enjoy the abundance of online streaming stations, too, many of which play music I like more than most of what is available on local radio, but the compressed and limited sound quality most of them offer is just not good enough for me to want to listen to for long.
Still, I may try more tweaking in that direction (considering a squeezebox with external DAC...), because I would LIKE it to sound good! I've heard that there are hi-res broadcasters, but I haven't had much luck yet getting them to work well with my current set-up. Maybe after a computer upgrade?
I also enjoy listening to --believe it or not-- old-time radio shows, streamed off the 'net. I've listened to 400+ episodes of Gunsmoke TWICE (800+ shows, with repeats) over the past few years, plus several other series. It's not music, but it is fun! :yes: I actually prefer imagining the scenes in my head to seeing someone else's versions on television!
