It’s the time of year for saving money!
This story started out as two separate pieces, both of which I was thinking of trashing until I read a post from someone on Facebook echoing pretty much exactly what I was thinking. So… I figured that, well, if I can condense this into one cohesive piece, perhaps at least one person will appreciate it.
My tale begins when I was a little kid, less than ten and probably not much more than five. I was immediately quite in love with the little hand-me-down record player I’d been given but that was almost superseded by my love affair with a tiny magic transistor radio that I was given. This was a sweet palm-sized plastic cube (made by the Lloyds brand) that I could carry around with me anywhere. With my little earphone plug, I could tune in to hear music almost literally all over the country.
It was magic to me. This was especially true late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping and I was able to catch some of the distant signals bouncing off of the upper atmosphere. I remember hearing some weird ‘n wilder music stations as far as Chicago beaming music I never heard around my hometown in New Jersey, a bedroom community to Manhattan.
As I grew older and my tastes more sophisticated, my patience with commercial radio eventually dwindled to the point where by the late 1980s I was barely listening to it. I preferred being able to play what I wanted to hear when I wanted and thus dove in deep in building my personal music collection.
Heavily controlled corporate playlists and the demise of the independent DJ made radio increasingly boring. By 1978, Elvis Costello’s song “Radio Radio” was already resonating deeply:
“I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
When the switch broke ’cause it’s old
They’re saying things that I can hardly believe
They really think we’re getting out of control”
Fast forward past ’80s boomboxes and the groovy portability of the Sony Walkman to the era of mobile phones, for a while I started getting back into the joy of musical portability, enjoying once again the notion taking “my music” wherever I wanted to go.
When I got my first adult “new car” after college, having a cassette deck in it was a godsend and later the car CD player gave me even more musical independence. Music on my eventual Smart Phone seemed like a good idea for a while until it became a hassle…
So I began to lose interest conceptually, preferring to play albums from my CD collection or a CD-R “burn” of a download. I never had an iPod (I do have an iPad however). I still find syncing things a hassle (and don’t get me started about maintaining a digital music collection… oh wait…oops… too late).
Lately I’ve been experimenting with loading up a flash drive but even that has compatibility issues in my Subaru (it mostly seems to like lesser sounding MP3s than clearer CD quality WAV and AIFF files which many times won’t play) so it becomes… a hassle… I just want to hear the music at that point in the manner in which I curated them. Easier said than done.
Jump ahead again some years and the notion of streaming started to win my favor for a fleeting moment for mobile listening. Then the notion of having to be reliant on some sort of Internet connection — aka a cellular connection — became problematic. And this is coming from someone who worked on the launch of a noted “Internet Radio” technology in the early 00s (which is basically what “Streaming” is today, a rebranding of a sort).
Streaming music became problematic for me because of the need to be tethered to some sort of cellular signal necessary to receive my “my music” while mobile. Sure, when I’m connected to WiFi its handy. But in the car and walking around, the hassle factor seems to have crept back in and the cost factor. For a newbie, Spotify and Tidal is a curious gift, an extension of the web essentially that you can hear a lot of music in quality that varies wildly. But it’s not free. You’ll either have to pay a subscription to get the good stuff or be exposed to ads. It’s a business model, I get it.
Stepping back, purely as a consumer, it sure seems to me that we’ve traded one evil for another. The commerciality that was problematic on so-called “terrestrial” radio is essentially at the root of streaming. Yeah, MQA sounds better than my little magic transistor radio cube, no doubt. But at the end of the day, I’d rather not have to worry about whether the service will work where I happen to be.
I understand that some cellular providers are providing unlimited streaming of music which is cool but… well… it seems dubious that they would do this for the long haul. Nothing is free, folks. I have this sneaky feeling that will change at some point in some manner. My inner cynic is sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear: ‘they’re gonna pay for this somehow, someway…’
Pre-downloading songs you want to “stream offline” sounds again like a bit of a hassle to me; I mean… I might as well just “download” the albums on my own and play it in whatever mobile device I have. So much for having everything on-demand at your fingertips.
There are times when I kind of wish I still had my little magic transistor radio and I could just tune in to Cousin Brucie on WABC-AM or catch one of those late night radio broadcasts at a Chicago.
The original concept of all this was that by going on the Internet we would avoid the commerciality and we would get more control over what we want to hear when we want to hear it. Etc. Blah blah blah blah…
That’s all fine and good on paper except I wonder if it will ultimately be economically infeasible for the consumer. For the streaming companies its a potential goldmine… From a consumer vantage point, this is all beginning to feel more and more like old terrestrial radio…
“So you had better do as you are told
You better listen to the radio
Wonderful radio
Marvelous radio
Wonderful radio
Radio, radio”
Nice article but, about downloading songs to your device from the streaming service being the same hassle as doing it from your own collection couldn’t be farther from the truth. Nothing could be easier and most of the services have done a good job at implementing it. The biggest limitation being the storage capacity of your phone. You really should give it a try with the streaming service of your choice.
Thanks for the kind words and a couple of points in reply. I do explain in the article that I DO use streaming services (Tidal at present and soon will be checking out Qobuz). I don’t want to be charged for streaming on my phone so that is out of the question. And I disagree with you that “nothing could be easier” because even I as a fairly technical person up to a point (I have my own home recording studio gear and such) have trouble getting things organized and uploaded on to devices. There are often problems with format compatibility as well (also things I discuss in my piece here). If I download a high resolution file, I’ll have to make a copy that can be cut down to a size that will be playable on a phone or iPad without eating up tons of storage space. Generally I don’t like listening to MP3s but I will if that is all that exists for a downloadable version. And again I have cited the problems I’ve had with my car stereo not being able to play higher resolution files from a flash drive.
So… at the end of the day it IS a big hassle for me… Its a personal preference so we all have different opinions which are valid.
Oh no, I was saying downloading to the device with the streaming service couldn’t be easier. I agree downloading personal files is a hassle. Downloading with Tidal is a one touch operation. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
well, i have always been into radio big time, in a big way. (i presently own ~50 vintage fm tuna; i really do need to downsize!) when growing up in dc, i was blessed w/one of the best commercial “progressive” radio stations in the usa – whfs. there were always good jazz and classical stations, as well. so, i was spoiled; and even tho i had a decent vinyl collection, i frequently would be in the “sweet spot” w/the radio playing. (my 1st stereo, purchased at age 13, w/paper route money and b-day money, was a pioneer sx828 receiver, dual 1219 turntable, and the ubiquitous original bose 901’s – heady stuff for a 13 year old back in 1969.)
by the early 1990’s, i had progressed to a somewhat respectable audiophile system. (my 1st separate fm tuner was an adcom gft-1a – quite decent, but little did i know how good fm could really be.) and then, a year or two later, i also purchased my first “real” quality fm tuna – an onix bwd1 with soap-2 power supply. i was totally amazed – a decent broadcast station easily rivaled the best vinyl. it happened because i wandered into a little boutique audio shop in silver spring md, looking to upgrade speakers, and the owner was an fm fanatic, w/a serious antenna set up on his building. he had two systems going – one w/the onix, and the 2nd w/a naim nait-01. both sounded totally incredible on his multi-kilobuck systems he had set up. he said he was closing out the the onix line, and would give me a deal on the demo equipment he had. so, instead of new speakers, they’d have to wait – i went home w/a freaking bargain deal on a retail ~$1850 tuna set up.
even 10 years later, when my system had been upgraded considerably, the same was true; friends would come over and catch me in the sweet spot, and if some particularly engaging piece was playing, they’d ask me what i was listening to, and be floored, when i’d say; “i dunno, you’ll have to wait until the dj announces what he’s been playing…”
today, there’s only a couple of stations in my area worth listening to, (programming and sq), and unless you like classical, there’s only a few hours/week of jazz/world, and the same w/progressive new music. but i don’t stream at all, and i suspect i never will. what’s largely taken the place of fm for me, (and i even rarely even play selections from my extensive software collection these days), is internet radio. a quality internet fm tuner that outputs a digital feed that can be inputted into a good dac gives surprisingly good sq. and there are more and more internet fm stations broadcasting in high bitrate formats. there are stations that appeal to all musical tastes, and then there are some stations that play everything. and when i say everything, i mean EVERYTHING.
while i have a few fave internet radio stations, there’s one in particular that gets most of my attention. you all owe it to yourselves to check out fip/france, probably the best freaking radio stations on the entire planet. no hyperbole here, i am dead serious. they do everything. classic rock, classical, metal, punk, grunge, hiphop, r&b, motown, jazz, world, folk, show tunes, tv show tunes, bluegrass, blues, country western, new music, the most eclectic (and sometimes downright bizarre) covers of popular tunes you could imagine. and i’m sure i’m missing something. and at 192kbps, thru a good dac, the sound is very very good. and, if you hear something you want info about, their website has an extensive history that will allow you to search up to a couple of weeks back, as well as having a current update of what they’re playing and what’s next. and besides having their eclectic stream, they have several others, that are more focused on specific genres.
https://www.fip.fr
https://www.fip.fr/player
happy listening!
doug s.
I’m afraid I don’t understand the difference between “streaming” and “internet radio”. In order to access either, I aim my computer at a URL (www.pandora.com for Pandora or http://www.wbgo.org for radio station WBGO, the jazz station for the New York Metropolitan area.) I realize neither of which is high-definition, but the point is, the question of streaming and internet radio is purely semantics. In the case of Internet Radio, you have to possibility of a DJ, although not all stations have them, where, I suppose, if Pandora is the example, you aren’t bothered by a human.
I’ve been an adopter of Pandora for so long I have a Pandora T-shirt for pestering them to add artists to their jazz listings (and they STILL don’t have Dave Pell!) I started listening to Pandora about the same time I started listening to WBGO (no nearby jazz stations, and WBGO was one of the first on the Internet.) At the time, I didn’t see the need to differentiate, and I’m sure there still isn’t.
well, on my computer, i can listen to any internet radio station i want; yes, technically, they are streamed. but, they are still traditional radio stations.
i can listen to my local stations, like wpfw-89.3, or weta-90.9, on my computer from the internet, or on my audio system from my fm tuner. (or, i could listen on my audio system from the internet, from my internet tuner, if i really wanted to.) typically, tho, i am listening to “streaming” internet fm on one of my dedicated audio systems, from a dedicated internet fm tuner that outputs digital into a dac. (and typically, it’s fip france, altho i also like sing sing bis (french), radio naba (latvian), radio student (slovenian), among others. yes, my internet tuners will play pandora (and sirius), but i have never listened to either.
doug s.
Doug, does FIP have a program schedule?
Programming from other parts of the world is cool. I pick up Celtic music shows from BBS Scotland and BBC Wales, and I know there’s a ton of other stuff out there. I haven’t found anything I love from Ireland yet, whether RTE or private, which surprises me.
if you go th the “player” link, you will see that the only program they have is what’s next to be played. they have an extensive history list that extends back two weeks, from what i can tell.
there really isn’t any “programming”; they play a completely chaotic mix with no specific format all the time. opera might segue into country western, and then bebop. when i first discovered the station, i browsed thru the history of what was played, and was really amazed. see for yourself:
https://www.fip.fr/archives-antenne
they also have a few genre-specific streams.
What’s lost IMO is the magical find of stations that weren’t entirely controlled/guided by corporate playlists, where some DJs did color outside the lines. Since you mentioned WABC-AM, then you’ll appreciate the difference, by the late 70s, between WNEW-FM and WLIR-FM. Similarities, sure, but WLIR was not as constrained as WNEW.
The adventurous DJ who understood the art of the segue was rara avis in the day, and is now a cherished memory at best.
For me, good radio has always been about the joy of someone else curating your musical experience in a good way. “OMG, I love that familiar song, and haven’t heard it for awhile” is almost as good as “OMG, what a great song-I’ve-never heard before”. For being able to listen this way, I find Pandora to be the best non-radio experience because of the good new stuff related to what I already like. While Spotify’s “radio” thing doesn’t match up, I value and pay for Spotify to get the large on-demand catalog, and I do use the feature to cache stuff in my phone and like that for offline use. For a party, I put on Spotify “Your Daily Mix” to get immersed in familiar, loved tracks. But honestly, most of my listening is the best genre-specific radio shows from non-commercial radio stations around the country, which I record from Internet streams with software at home and turn into a personal podcast so that I can listen wherever I am. Because hearing the best DJs play the best music is truly awesome.
i agree about loving to hear someone else choosing new/old/same/different music, for me to just sit back and enjoy listening to. which is another reason why i love fip-france so much, that i mentioned below.
curious about your recording of internet streams. my present commute has me sitting on trains for 3-4 hours/day, and while i have never considered headfones/eaerbuds/iem’s, etc., before, i am now considering recording fip-france to listen to while commuting. are you at all familiar w/the likes of the tascam dr-100mkiii and/or the marantz pmd561? it seems one could record directly to one of these from the digital out of my internet tuna, and then use it to listen to. and not a big investment for decent sound.
thanks,
doug s.
Hi dougie_s, I record Internet radio via some free Windows software called streamWriter, which can deal with most types if streaming radio I have encountered so far. It can record a daily or weekly schedule from any of my stations (multiple at once if need be), and emits MP3 or AAC recordings. I then have scripting which crafts the XML and HTML needed to create a podcast, and to upload the files and the podcast data to an internet server, which lets me listen on my phone. I could also just sync the recordings, but the podcast thing works to get me new shows even when I am away from home. I have no experience with those recorders, though I think I looked at a Tascam once as a way to do interviews for my own radio show. Those items seem a bit pricey.
I still enjoy radio and thankfully I live in an area (Indianapolis area) that is rich in broadcasters utilizing HD broadcasting – both AM and FM….As for my Subaru radio, it has been taken out and traded for a Sony unit that has absolutely NO issues playing WAV of FLAC files on my USB drives….I still like radio. Talk radio for me makes the miles go by faster….
i have found that hd broadcasts sound better when heard in analog. i have a couple of the ubiquitous sony xdr f1hd’s – fantastic reception; the sonics – not so much. one of them was treated to serious mods, to make it sound better and run cooler. it certainly does both, but it’s still not up to the sonics of my better non-hd tuna. and one mod it has is forcing analog when a station is broadcasting in hd – it always sounds better that way. but the sound is still not good enough for me, for serious listening. i need to put them up f/s on usaudiomart, as they’re not getting any use here…
doug s.
I have an XDR F1-HD. I love its signal pulling power, but I have heard complaints about the audio (though I don’t listen to it on a system good enough to reveal it). I wish the amazing front end circuitry was available for someone to do a truly excellent tuner.