I can see the cracks getting larger here😉
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Never really gone away (like cassettes) more of a WAF issue
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I kept a bunch of mixtapes cassettes I created or got from friends in the 1980s. I can still play cassettes and vinyl. My main system has a cassette player and turntable connected. When I moved houses 12 years ago I had the space and system to allow me to connect these. Other than the initial setup test, I’ve not played either since. I have a CD player and FM tuner too, but haven’t used either. Still buy some CDs (when only way available to obtain the music), but rip to FLAC immediately.
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Yes that would be ideal (excluding a tuner in 2022).
I buy a lot of old CDs to rip and some new one’s. I lack the space at the moment after getting rid of it all and buying Sonos to replace most of my gear in 2006
Buy I would say I buy 80% Digital download these Days mostly from Bandcamp. Sometimes CD work’s out cheaper than digital and then I will buy a CD
I dumped a bunch of vinyl in about 1991. Don’t regret that. The only thing I regret is dumping all my old 8-Track tapes. That was my medium of choice in 1970-75. I had a big collection (in my car as a teenager). I recall my favorites were Pink Floyd “Meddle”, Leo Kottke “My feet are smiling”, and the first New Riders of the Purple Sage album. In mid 1970s I even had an 8-track player/recorder in my home system and used to do mix-tape 8-tracks for the car.
edit: Who knew?
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The cassette bug bit me hard in the 70’s in college. I lived in a dorm and would pay folks $1 for allowing me to tape their albums. Later on I would tape CDs and then resell them and buy from used CD/record stores in L.A.
Extremely strange sidenote: when I received a shipment of blank tape, Maxell MX 110 (metal) I would tear open the packaging, take out the cassette and smell it. A whiff of metal tape triggered an olfactory response in the pleasure center of my brain… 
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I got my wife singing lessons. So far, I prefer Roon. (even in my acoustically treated room)
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I use JRiver as a backup for local files. I use mconnect and mconnect hd as backup for streaming Qobuz and Tidal. mconnect uses the audio output of JRiver. Very stable solution. Right now better than Roon, which crashes since the last 2 updates. Also tried Audirvana, which is not recommended atm, if you need to use UPnP.
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I would use LMS and squeeze players. That way I could continue to use my server (Antipodes) and my endpoints (Ropieee). I feel LMS has superior sound but roon’s gui, search and radio functions will be hard to beat.
You might enjoy this story then
I keep thinking about letting Audirvana Studio expire, then I use it for a while with no problems. Yesterday, I listened using AS for several hour with zero issues using RPi4, Mojo 2, and Focal Clear. It does sound good, but maybe no better or different than Roon, IDK.
Audirvana 3.5 seems pretty flawless, but you can no longer buy it if you don’t already own it. It’s good with Tidal, but not so great with Qobuz just because of how it sorts albums.
Audirvana Studio might be a replacement for Roon, if they get their UPnP implementation working. I would like to use it, but streaming HRA, Qobuz or Tidal is just a game of luck. Where JRiver works flawless, Audirvana simply has too many bugs. I will try them again in a year or so.
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A true metalhead then!
Yep, same here. The alternatives are currently too horrible to contemplate.
Indeed, those who are so dependent find no peace of mind. Roon is really adorable, great, but sometimes so slow, annoying…there I appreciate my Foobar2000 again. The love of music can then still be lived out well without the Internet.
A functioning concert hall always remains in the house for the intact soul!
My backup plan does not exist. After a three-month trial, I subscribed for life. I bought KEF LSXs for my small room and stream from Tidal with an old 2012 Mac Mini, with a good dose of EQ. I am extremely satisfied with the setup and wanted to support the company, which I believe is the best backup plan possible.
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I went through multiple roon trials (free) and 1 paid month before I went for the lieftime subscription.
Audirvana 3.5, studio didn’t really deliver the same experience.
Yamaha musiccast and Cambridge streammagic where just tolerable but sometimes close to annoying.
CDs seem like a nonsense alternative since they are just digital files that require more space and hardware.
And if I just rip them why even bother?
Vinyl… considerable more expensive overall. (20-35€ on average) requires even more expensive hardware and alot more storage space for just 100-200 albums.
Physical media is not really a alternative for me.
If streaming services ever disappear we might probably have bigger problems than local files or a physical collection of music.
If my Internet ever goes down for a extended time (never happened In the last 10 years) I have a couple of Flac files on a usb stick.
About 600 cd’s in storage and a couple of hundred LP’s, alongside by double backed up ripped version of all of the above. Roon is convenient and I like it, but it’s loss would t make much difference to me
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I went back to Audirvana for nothing except playlist management (I have a LOT of playlists). My collection of .m3u playlists work great with Roon and everything else.
Audirvana is a buggy mess and it’s UPnP implementation only sort-of works with my Bel Canto e.One Stream. If Roon goes away for some reason, at least I won’t lose my library and its playlists, but one thing’s for sure: I am never going back to UPnP/DLNA.
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You nailed it. Nothing to add.
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