Lets think about it in terms of hours a week I might use a service -
I don't listen at work, I have a short commute and usually listen to NPR while driving.
got yard work, tasks and other things ... I don't particularly like earbuds.
I do relax a lot with a book, and while I play music sometimes while reading, its not critical listening time
We do TV/movies/video a lot in the evening
So I may do relax listening an hour or so a day and maybe some Sat or Sun if the weather is harsh ...
So - not enough hours of listening for me to pay for a streaming service ...
Currently, when I play music at home I have been using the iTunes Remote interface on my phone to manage the 54k tracks of songs in my library ...
One friend is a huge Pandora fiend, but I tried it a few times and didn't see the annoyance of browser streaming as worthwhile. Or the ads.
My other friends have been recommending Tidal and say Roon is a worthwhile addition for managing various streaming sources
plus home library plus HiRez resourses, but again, just not worth it to me for maybe 5-6 hours a week.
Guess I am not an insatiable Music Junkie like you say you are ...
I'm glad you enjoy it - but you can stop trying to shill your choices to the rest of us.
no flames but we don't all have to follow your choices for them to be valid for you.
I do like the good stuff, and I do buy good gear, but for me there is more to life than listening to music.
Oh, and that $10-13 avg cost for CDs is valid since I buy a lot of USED CDs via Amazon and others -
Think I paid well under $50 total for the 5CD Shelley Mann at the Blackhawk recordings I bought individually last month,
$12 for the Al Stewart Modern Times and Year of the Cat 2-on-1 disc albums last week, and I've gotten plenty at $5 or so ...
Not to seem too cheap, I do occasionally buy special editions like a japanese disc of Graceland, the King Crimson special Editions,
various HDCDs and SACDs, and a number of others.
Enjoy your weekend!
That's cool. I get your angle. It all boils down to one's own warm and fuzzy perspective.
For me, just from a quantitative consumption/exposure such as you posed, I think streaming wins hands down at the end of the day. As an insatiable music junkie, I have (and will continue to have) a shit-ton of acquired ("owned") music; but I'm also very pro streaming. The shear ease, immediacy, and quality of streaming today tip the cost to benefit scales enormously. What with the plethora of new music and back catalogs at your fingertips... with such little muss & no fuss. I'm in like Flynn.
Relatively, lossless streaming (Tidal) currently at
$240/yr. is a bloody boon! But, let's triple the avg. cost for future forward sake to $720/yr. ($60/mo.) That leaves you with nearly $500/yr. to spend on the physical media "keepers". The big bonus (aside from having the access/enjoyment of an exponentially larger library) here is that you didn't have to rip, run, NAS and fuss with selling off your tired/shitty albums.
Again, no flame. Just food for thought.