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Why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl

70 points · 109 comments · beardyw

  1. pkthunder · · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve been going through my own personal revival of physical media - mostly audio. I don’t miss streaming at all.

    Every CD I buy gets ripped to a NAS that hosts the music behind Navidrone where I can stream to my vehicle using Play:Sub (thanks to Tailscale for enabling all of this to work for me!).

    I am just so enamored with being able to get the best of both worlds - my own music, anywhere.

    I do wish I could figure out some sort of recommendation system to find new magic, though. Obviously not to steam new/unowned songs, just to point me in a direction next time I go to the store.

    1. alin23 · · focus · HN ↗
      I got myself an iPod Nano recently and love curating my songs to fit the 8GB [0]

      But I have the same problem of trying to find recommendations. Whenever I talk about music with my brother and friends, that's when I discover the best music, but that happens rarely nowadays.

      So with the help of Claude, I&#x27;ve revived my 10 year old project on finding music based on Spotify tracks and liked songs: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;noiseblend.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;noiseblend.com

      Completely free, haven&#x27;t shared it much because it&#x27;s more of a personal thing than something I want public. But maybe it comes in handy for some people here.

      [0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;files.alinpanaitiu.com&#x2F;ipod-nano.mp4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;files.alinpanaitiu.com&#x2F;ipod-nano.mp4

      1. pkthunder · · focus · HN ↗
        Took a quick look at Noiseblend, seems nice! Will play around a bit more with it when I’m actually at a computer, but I find that I end up getting into a downward spiral of recommendations (not from yours - just in general) that reinforces what I listen to, versus expanding based on what I listen to.

        I listen to a good amount of underground hip hop&#x2F;backpack rap kind of stuff and I find that so many recommendation systems just recommend what I already listen to.

        Oddly enough, I randomly asked Claude one day and got three novel album recommendations that no other service really gave me :shrug:

        1. alin23 · · focus · HN ↗
          Oh tell me about it, it&#x27;s so hard to expand into other genres using online services.. Noiseblend is no better at it since it relies on the same data.

          I mean, in its 30-50 recommended albums, one might be just the one I might be looking for, but how am I going to find it? Am I supposed to sit through 29 albums I don&#x27;t really like, just to find that?

          That&#x27;s why friends are the best here, they act like impromptu curators :)

          But on some occasions, I find Noiseblend useful when I hear a song at a cafe or restaurant or some friends&#x27; place, &quot;shazam&quot; it, then put it through Noiseblend and get dropped into a musical area I might have never looked into otherwise.

          1. pkthunder · · focus · HN ↗
            Really wasn’t a knock on NB - don’t worry hehe. I’m at least glad it gave me what I expected. I listen to a good amount of stuff like Aesop Rock and you tend to just get a bunch of his own stuff back, generally.
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