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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. Hoodedcrow · · focus · HN ↗
      Seems like CDs are redundant here though, given that they get digitized anyway.
      1. pmontra · · focus · HN ↗
        They are the backup. A music CD can last for a long time. Proof: my father CDs from about 35 years ago still work.
        1. pkthunder · · focus · HN ↗
          Also just fun to be a plain-old jockey when you have company over, rather than just let “Appotifydal Top 3”
          1. l72 · · focus · HN ↗
            Even though I've ripped my 1000+ CDs, I tend to not let company dig through them, as I consider them my pristine backups!

            I also buy a lot of digital music on bandcamp.com, and like OP, host using navidrome.

            But you are right, when company comes over letting people DJ is fun. Instead of using my actual CDs, I set up a system with RFID cards. You can buy hundreds of RFID cards for super cheap. I print out the cover art of each of them, and the RFID ID corresponds to an album. A simple RFID reader hooked up to a pi, which reads the ID and plays the corresponding album with mpd on my stereo, makes for a cheap, fun way to allow people to physically explore your collection.

            1. pkthunder · · focus · HN ↗
              Really like the idea of RFID cards - I was brainstorming something like that years ago for the kid, but never chased it down.

              (Un??)fortunately, I am usually the one slinging CDs for people to listen to, people just like being able to offload that and listen to curated music, vs. "throw on spotify whatever" and having it just _play_.

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