As I’ve been using servers to play back music for many years now I only purchase physical media if I cannot purchase the digital equivalent. Resources I’ve found invaluable are cdbaby.com, bandcamp.com, murfie.com and qobuz.com. cdbaby and bandcamp in particular carry a lot of brilliant artists that aren’t mainstream pop and have also proven a great way to access discographies from artists that are no longer label bound.
Pity this topic appears to be an orphan. I understand everyone is trying to figure out how to use Roon, or trying to get solutions to problems they’re experiencing with Roon (I’ve had a few myself), but beyond the interface it is as the cliche goes all about the music.
I still purchase a mix of vinyl, physical digital media and downloads, though for digital if I can find a higher resolution version to download from a trusted source (not just upsampled Redbook) at a competitive price, I’ll opt for the download. When it comes to buying physical digital media – CDs – I’ll check for used first. Amazon, half.com, rarely, eBay. Discogs.com has been very useful both for finding/buying CDs and for researching releases and labels. I prefer DSD when available, and Acoustic Sounds has a decent catalog of DSD downloads. Also nativeDSD.com and HDTT.com.
I also keep an eye on Elusivedisc.com and other on-line vendors for scratch and dent and blow-out sales for vinyl and digital and have gotten some very good deals that way.
I’m slowly using a Korg MR2000S to digitize some of my vinyl collection to DSD128 for good condition LPs and to 24/192 to salvage noisy LPs with ClickRepair.
As you might imagine, it’s not been too hard to fill up a pretty generous sized NAS with rips of one sort or another.
Good thread. Though I recognized the names of the sites you mentioned, I hadn’t explored them recently so it was a nice reminder.