Music CDs - Hidden Tracks - What else have we forgotten after moving to streaming services?

[Conrad_K]

The Sony 'pebble' MP3 player I bought (first one) had it's own software, and Sony's proprietary ATRAC encoding. Needless to say I wasn't impressed! It also was absolutely dog slow with large playlists, it could lock into trying to browse ones for up to 2 mins sometimes.

I had a Samsung MP3 player circa 2007-ish. Very nice; aluminum body, glass display, real buttons. Cost a pretty penny, too.

It didn't take long to learn to hate it. If you paused playback, it would jump back slightly when you resumed. Which was probably nice for 4-minute song tracks, but in a single-file audiobook it would jump you back 20 or 30 minutes. And you couldn't just fast-forward - it technically did that, but it was at something line 1.25x normal speed, so slow it was useless.

It charged via USB. But only if it "recognized" the PC or charger. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't. There was no indication if it was actually working until you unplugged the cable. Great to find out just before going on-shift. And as an extra FU, unplugging the charge cable reset playback of whatever track you were listening to back to the beginning. Great for a 10-hour audiobook and no practical fast forward.

It also wanted to randomize playback, even with "random" turned off. It didn't care what the file name was, or what the tags said, or what the cue sheet said. And if you had more than one book, each in a separate directory, sometimes it would grab a track from a different book and play that one instead of the next one in the current directory.

The replacement player from 2010 or so was much better, except it will also occasionally play some random track instead of the next one.

 

[Lightning CycleQueen]

I know we miss the physical disc to play music but you have go to admit, streaming music is so much more convenient.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I agree it's far more convenient to stream, but I do miss a shelf full of CDs to look at sometimes. Fine if you have the space (which I used to when I lived with my parents) but now space is more at a premium, I'm glad I don't have to store them all

 

[wiggydiggy]

I know we miss the physical disc to play music but you have go to admit, streaming music is so much more convenient.

It is, and I have ripped my entire library which makes listening when travelling easy. But it was just a nice surprise for me to hear these hidden tracks. Theres another bonus that for some of the CDs as I went and searched for more info online, some band simply had little to no online prescence (foreign mostly), but I've still got the sleeve notes to read.

Coincidently I think I'll finish listening back to all my CDs today, and have them organised A-Z at last.

 

[matticus]

Spoiler: This spoils the fun of hidden tracks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_albums_containing_a_hidden_track:_S

 

[Alex321]

I know we miss the physical disc to play music but you have go to admit, streaming music is so much more convenient.

Not if the main place you listen is in the car. It is either the radio or Cds, or music downloaded to my phone (or other bluetooth device).

 

[Dadam]

Not if the main place you listen is in the car. It is either the radio or Cds, or music downloaded to my phone (or other bluetooth device).

Don't you just stream from the phone via the car's audio?

 

[Alex321]

Don't you just stream from the phone via the car's audio?

Wouldn't dream of it. Quite apart from the fact that reception while travelling isn't reliable enough, it would also tend to require more interaction.

While I did list playing downloaded music from your phone, it isn't something I actually do. It is always radio or CDs for me, in the car. And CDs mainly when I have a passenger who can change them.

 

[lazybloke]

Don't you just stream from the phone via the car's audio?

I think many of us do use Spotify and similar services in the car, but the car is also one of few places where there is often still a physical CD player.
I've got no CD player in the house; none of the computers have them.
I do have a SATA DVD Re-Writer drive that can play CDs, and in theory I could connect it to my laptop using my SATA/USB converter, but the drive expects a 12 volt molex power supply. Nope, haven't got anything to provide that.

Where do I play my old cassettes?

 

[wiggydiggy]

I think many of us do use Spotify and similar services in the car, but the car is also one of few places where there is often still a physical CD player.
I've got no CD player in the house; none of the computers have them.
I do have a SATA DVD Re-Writer drive that can play CDs, and in theory I could connect it to my laptop using my SATA/USB converter, but the drive expects a 12 volt molex power supply. Nope, haven't got anything to provide that.

Where do I play my old cassettes?

A relative got a CD last year for their birthday, and wondered how to play it. I could only think of them using their Blu-Ray player to put it through the TV, as we all know TVs have great sound They've bought a little counter top CD player since which they love.

Old hi-fi for cassettes, charity shops once had loads but they are rarer now.

 

[lazybloke]

A relative got a CD last year for their birthday, and wondered how to play it. I could only think of them using their Blu-Ray player to put it through the TV, as we all know TVs have great sound They've bought a little counter top CD player since which they love.

Old hi-fi for cassettes, charity shops once had loads but they are rarer now.

No thanks. Queen Jazz was the last music i bought on cassette; a very long time ago.

I'd forgotten about games consoles having a drive. I do occasionally use the xbox for a DVD or Bluray. It presumably does CDDA too

 

[Dadam]

Wouldn't dream of it. Quite apart from the fact that reception while travelling isn't reliable enough, it would also tend to require more interaction.

While I did list playing downloaded music from your phone, it isn't something I actually do. It is always radio or CDs for me, in the car. And CDs mainly when I have a passenger who can change them.

I never play CDs in the car except sometimes on long trips when it's something my son wants on. For me it's about 60/40 radio and streaming in the car. The phone automatically connects via BT and I have a bunch of playlists I can start from the car's controls so I never have to interact directly with the phone. A lot of the playlist tracks are pre-downloaded but quite a few will be streamed on demand. I'm not often in an area without data coverage.

I also have a 32Gb USB stick full of mp3s in a socket in the centre console cubbyhole but I never remember to update it with new tracks and the convenience of the phone managing it all means I rarely use it and keep forgetting it's there.

 

[Electric_Andy]

100% of my music is streamed from my phone. Often in the car, and it helps that you can shout at the phone to play x artist or x album in spotify without even touching the screen. It (voice commands) doesn't seem to work as well with YT music though.

I used to have copies of CDs in my old car, but it was a pain on a long journey when you had to pull over and change the CD. Or blindly scrabble about whilst driving and eventually the CD would get very scratched. I also dabbled with poking a USB stick into it, but you have to keep updating your list to prevent song/artist boredom

 

[Alex321]

I never play CDs in the car except sometimes on long trips when it's something my son wants on. For me it's about 60/40 radio and streaming in the car. The phone automatically connects via BT and I have a bunch of playlists I can start from the car's controls so I never have to interact directly with the phone. A lot of the playlist tracks are pre-downloaded but quite a few will be streamed on demand. I'm not often in an area without data coverage.

I also have a 32Gb USB stick full of mp3s in a socket in the centre console cubbyhole but I never remember to update it with new tracks and the convenience of the phone managing it all means I rarely use it and keep forgetting it's there.

My phone also connects vis BT, but I don't have any playlists on it, and in fact I don't even have spotify installed on it. I've never felt any need to stream music through it - at home I will either be on the PC, streaming on that, or (very occasionally) will play Cds using either the bluray player through the tv, or the music centre in the living room, which still includes a CD player. I do have a spotify (free) account, but very rarely use it.

My wife only ever uses either the living room player or a portable music player in the bedroom.

For us, setting up streaming anyhwere other than on the PC is just too much hassle to be worth the bother for the limited use we would make of it.

 

[wiggydiggy]

No thanks. Queen Jazz was the last music i bought on cassette; a very long time ago.

I'd forgotten about games consoles having a drive. I do occasionally use the xbox for a DVD or Bluray. It presumably does CDDA too

Good album

Xbox plays CDs. On Xbox One and onwards its app based now so Media Player, it won't play them natively. Something its missing though compared to the older Xbox 360 and OG Xbox is a music visualizer, and the ability to rip music onto your console to play. I used to play many games with custom music in the background, and some would let you control it in game too (GTA:SA played it as a radio station).