I consumed huge amounts of music during the golden age of Turntable.fm (and later plug.dj, to a lesser extent). Since totally losing my playlists during each shutdown, I'm wary of any future similar services.

Discovering Bandcamp has been great, though. On the listener side you have a "collection" of music you've bought, a "wishlist" of music you haven't paid for but plan to at some point (most albums are fully streamable before buying), and a "feed" where you can follow artists you like to keep track of new releases. You can also follow other listeners with tastes similar to yours, for which the Bandcamp site provides recommendations. When there's nothing new in the feed, the "discover" tab and the Bandcamp Weekly podcast are both good ways to explore new music.

I would love a device like the one you describe. Having shopped for dedicated MP3 players recently, the current gold standard seems to be the Sansa Clip+, and even that device is relatively dated. As long as it supports normal USB-stick-like file/folder management, without some iTunes clone to wrestle with.

Opposite for me. Someone turned me onto pandora 7 years ago and I listen to it all day at work (via headphones). I have it on my phone and use it in the car. I actually ended up paying for Pandora|One.

Only in the last couple years, when I started flying for work, did I realize I had virtually no mp3s anymore. So I've been working on gathering music to use in offline mode at airports.

This is where podcasts came in for me. And downloading the occasional DJ mix.

I have the same feeling. That also might have to do with that I earlier was a DJ that played regularly on different underground electronic parties. But the thing talking against that is that the music I listened to at home has never been the same that I've been playing when I DJed.

The conclusion that I've made is that before i had to _curate_ my own music. Go and search for new releases, download new and totally unknown stuff that I later went through and actually listened to. In a way the whole "setup" forced me to listen to new stuff. Now that I have everything online, i more and more just tend to listen to the same stuff that "i already know" over and over again, hence it gets more and more uninteresting to actually listen to it.

In a way I have everything available, which makes me not forced to go out and search for the music I like and find interesting.

edit: A lot of talking about recommendations and music discovery further down. My input on that; I'm fortunate to have been using last.fm, even from before they changed name to last.fm. So I have a large history in there. That is the place that gives me the best recommendations and discovery so far. Their recommendations are spot on, and a good way to find new and good music is to go to "people like you" and see what they are listening to that is unknown for you.

Same here; I have been listening to streaming stuff less and less...but my reasons are: 1. Between so many work/day-job meetings, seldom in front of a laptop with the opportunity to work with headphones, and music in the background. 2. When I'm mobile - and on my mobile/away from laptop - I'm just too stingy with my mobile data plan. (Maybe its my age, or cuz of family, but priorities of data plans change with growing families ;-)

>I'm just too stingy with my mobile data plan.

Yea that is exactly my sentiment. There was a time when I was cool to walk/drive about and listen to music. Now my data plan pushes me over the fence into silence.

This is where I really like Google Play Music. I can download the album/songs I want to listen to while I'm on WiFi at home, then when I'm on-the-go it just plays the local version rather than streaming.

Which streaming service do you use that doesn't allow offline caching?

I don't know if there's a real market for simple audio-players, but I surely would buy one. I don't need e-ink display (simple LED like Sansa Clip+ is nice), or even 10TB of memory. Hell, thinking of it, Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox is almost perfect. The only thing I don't really like is form-factor. And rockbox itself isn't prefect. But there is no real choice: I don't know any other player that would support every necessary audio-format and just play music. Granted, ability to sync tracks/playlists over the internet with what you have on your server it huge improvement, but I still cannot convince myself that it's worth carrying my phone around all the time.

I don't see any real need for a "new iPod" now though. Yeah, SSD slots for new phones are a bit less common than they should be, nut it's still bearable. For me the phone itself is what's inconvenient, not the absense of your whole audio-library on it all the time (browsing it on the phone would be painful anyway).

Nope. Since I signed up for rdio several years ago, I listen to much much more music than I did before. If I was listening only to stuff I owned, I'd get sick of it pretty fast. People who listen only to music you own: isn't it really expensive to buy enough that you don't get bored?

With Rdio shutting down, what are you switching to?

I signed up for spotify for now. They're doing a promo so you get the first three months of premium for $1. I like some things about the interface better, some things worse. Overall, I wish rdio wasn't closing, but spotify seems like a sufficient substitute. I may also check out google play music in parallel.

My one strange requirement is that I want to play music on a headless computer hooked up to my stereo system, and control it remotely with a nice interface (including discovery, etc.). Rdio did this basically by default. For spotify, I think I'll end up using mopidy as the player, but I'm not sure about the remote control yet. There's some conflicting information about whether spotify connect (their shared queue feature) is supported on linux or by 3rd party clients.

I listen to a lot less music now, but I am not sure of the reason. My listening technology certainly changed a lot, but I also went through a serious bout of depression around that time. I would try listening to music, but it just made more anxious and unhappy, regardless of the style or content. Since that time I really haven't listened to music like I used to. This all, of course, coincided with me growing up, leaving college, leaving grad school, and getting a job. So it's tough for me to really say if my decline in music listening comes from any of those factors.

Yes! I'm so stuck between different streaming services that I Haven't been able to fully consolidate my library on either one.

Moreover once I have done that I'm not even sure where my library will begin or end, does it end at the temporary stuff i'm listening to on the discovery radio or stuff that I have added to a playlist but not my library.

At least with MP3s it would be "I'm downloading these songs and they will be in my library because I enjoy them." Now i'm not even sure if I have a library.

I use iCloud for my 30k+ songs music library and it works great. Genius mixes fill the void when it comes to music discovery. I have a lot of albums I have never listened to.

> Anyone else find that in this new streaming age they listen to a lot less music?

Yes, +1. Bulk of my tracks are same old tracks that I used to tune in a decade ago in CD or cassette form. Radio is closest to what introduces me to new music, but they are limited and the decay is quick. May be quantity is lot more than what I(/we) can consume.

When I was streaming with pandora, grooveshark, and spotify I was constantly hearing new songs.

But that's just because before I was content with listening to the same stuff repeatedly, never did look out for more music on my accord.

Stopped doing streaming, but open to getting back into it, found some great music that way.

I always have a MP3 player with me and i couldnt agree more.