The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / Music Listening Survey

Music Listening Survey

by 88 Comments

Following on from discussion in the Pretenders thread.

How do you primarily listen to music?

1. CDs on a CD player
2. Vinyl on a record player
3. IPod/Fiio/Phones (streaming or downloads)
4. Computer
5. Streaming player using a server
6. Car only
7. Cassettes
8. 8 Tracks
9. Gramophones
10. Other (name)

You may pick more than one option

0

Comments

  4. For me it’s 5, 3, 1

    I still buy CDs, but they are immediately ripped to a hard drive which sources the music to the Hi-Fi using Roon. I also often listen using a Fiio (M11 Pro) late night on headphones which is full of mainly hi-res music. The only CDs I listen to direct these days are SACDs (they are not easy to rip) as my player is a universal disc player. Finally, in the car it’s either BBC World Service or Bluetooth from the phone.

  5. All music listening is via Spotify, plus either Sonos players or headphones. No idea what number that is on the list above (5?).

    At this stage I don’t even own a CD player or turntable; don’t think I’ve played a physical disc in about a decade now. I don’t miss it, although I do occasionally miss record shopping.

      • In your survey, is there a difference between listening to Spotify / Tidal / etc via Sonos or other computer / NAS setups and listening to your own collection that has been ripped or downloaded ?

        In my response I took 5 to mean a computer audio setup with a NAS / DAS etc not to mean the streaming of Spotify etc.

        Also I took 4 (computer) to mean listening directly on the computer, not using the computer to stream to a HiFi or Sonos, which some responses seem to indicate.

    • The highlight of my month in the late 80s/early 90s was my monthly trip to Manchester record shopping. I tended to go the first day after payday that both me and my girlfriend had a day off. Liverpool just wasn’t as good in those days for record shops, although I’d be in all the Liverpool shops at least once per week and to the monthly Transpennine record fair, if I’d managed to get the Sunday off to go to it. Manchester was just brilliant though. The Corn Exchange was like an Aladdin’s cave and would be where I’d start, and then I’d wind myself through the city up to Oldham Street.

      The internet was both a blessing and a curse. I was in London by then, where my monthly trip was out to Notting Hill. But one I found eBay I found all the stuff I wanted fairly easily. I quickly completed my wants list, but it wasn’t the same. It took away one of my favourite hobbies.

  9. 1. CDs on a CD player
    2. Vinyl on a record player
    5. Streaming from a streaming service
    3. IPod in the car on journeys
    10. DVD-A, SACD, Blu-Ray via surround sound
    7. Cassettes (almost never frankly)

  10. 1 & 3 in equal measures, 2 rarely, & 7 if I ever get round to going through boxes.
    CDs are great when working, as I can gauge how long I’ve been busy, by the number listened to.
    iPod gets used as background on shuffle, while I have a cheapie MP3 player in my coat pocket for when I’m out & about.

  11. 1. CDs on a CD player 1st place by a long way
    4. Computer – Youtube and Spotify mainly
    10. Other – 6Music in the car
    2. Vinyl on a record player – sometimes, not often, and only if I don’t have it on CD

  14. In order, most used first:

    1) LPs – Turntable (What else!)
    2) CDs – Main system CD Player
    3) Blurays/DVDs Surround Sound – Bluray Player
    4) CDs/DAB Radio – Kitchen Mini-System
    5) iPod – Jarre AeroSystem One Tower Speaker Conservatory
    6) iPod – Sennheiser PXC 450 (headphones) when walking the dog
    7) SACDs – Main System SACD Player (I use a different player for Redbook CDs because the SACD player is feckin` awkward)
    8) CDs – Car
    9) CDs/DAB Radio – Bedroom Mini-System when using desk top computer

  15. In order:
    Computer (4), CDs (1), Car Radio/CD (6), MiniDisc Player (10), Phone/iPod (3), Vinyl Deck (2), Cassette Player (7).

    As I live in a small 1-bed flat, streaming players are of no use to me.
    Does anyone still play/possess an 8-Track player or own any tapes for one?
    Gramophone? Is that some kind of Phonograph? How quaint.

    99.9% of my listening is either downloaded files, ripped-from-CD files or streamed files (Spotify) on a dedicated laptop, the sound from which is fed via a DAC into my stereo and thus to my speakers. YouTube clips and Bandcamp stuff get played on my main laptop which has it’s audio fed via a second DAC to a pair of very old Bose computer speakers.
    I play CDs sometimes when it’s easier to pluck a CD from the shelf nearby than search for and play it’s digitised version. All of my CDs have been digitised, mostly losslessly.
    My two iPods and my phone, my car radio/CD and my vinyl deck rarely get used these days. I used to listen to BBC Radio 4 in the car, then I switched to Radio 3 but these days I prefer silence when driving. Phone and iPods got used when I used to commute to work by tube but now I’m retired and don’t need them.
    Cassettes very rarely get an airing. Only when I want to digitise something I hadn’t previously got around to. My MiniDisc mixes that I made for tube commutes quite a few years ago will occasionally get played. I have all the tracks in my digital collection but I enjoy the sequences I created back then. I have a few boxes full of MiniDisc radio recordings (circa 2002-3) that I’d like to digitise and edit down eventually.

  16. I love a good survey. My music listening habits over the past few years are-
    5. Streaming (spotify) in the car or at home. Lot of podcasts in the car, although trying to cram in a bit of ‘new’ before the end of year polls
    10. Radio 6 Music in the kitchen or living room
    2. Occasional vinyl
    1. Occasional CD in the car, rarely on the HiFi

  17. It’s changed a bit recently due to WFH/lack of a commute.

    Roughly in order:

    2. Vinyl on a record player
    1. CDs on a CD player
    10. Downloaded files e.g. from Bandcamp on a USB stick (my streaming amp has a USB socket) .
    5. Streaming player using a server
    4. Computer (streaming radio when working)
    3. IPod/Fiio/Phones (mostly podcasts on my daily walk)

    Vinyl to CD ratio is about 5:1 at a guess for when I sit down and have a proper listen, which is not as often as I’d like.

  18. At the office (usually a minimum of 4 – and max. 12 – hours a day) I listen to playlists from my iTunes library (currently nearly 90,000 tracks). These playlists run from complete works or albums (say, »Freddie King 1960s«, or »Screamadelica plus outtakes, mixes & live«) to MOJO, Songlines or The Wire compilations.
    At home I don’t have background music. I sit (or rather, lie) down to listen to an album or a compilation. A turntable (incl. 78 rpm), cassette player, DVD/BluRay/LaserDisc and a MiniDisc deck are all connected to the hifi. Or headphones.
    I use a trusty old MiniDisc walkman for walks or long train journeys.

    Don’t have a car, smartphone or tablet. I’ve never used streaming services or any cloud-based portals. Yes, I know I’m boring.

  19. I take it you are collating all these results on a spreadsheet? 🙂

    Your categories are making my logic circuits twitch a bit, because you have “car only” for 5, and yet you say we can select more than one choice? And is “playing a CD in a car” 1 or 6? Anyway, I have a CD player in my car so I’m making that 6. OKAY?

    So, from most to least frequent:
    2 (40%) – vinyl on a record player
    1 (35%) – CDs on a CD player
    6 (20%) CDs in a car
    3 (4.5%) MP3 player or phone
    7 (0.5%) cassettes (yes, still have them and still dig them out when I’m feeling nostalgic)

    I must say however, my answers would have been completely different about a year or so ago. In that time I have:
    – Discovered audiobooks, which is now my default listening for my phone when I am out and about
    – Worked from home, so I now spend most of my time sitting in the same room as my music collection

  21. My answer: 1,4,3,2,10, 7

    Where 10 = internet radio – (mostly) from selected stations in Spain (Radio Tres) and France (FIP) – as a means to randomly hear great music I would otherwise never have encountered.

    And 7 = very occasionally, only to do a tape rip to wav on the PC, which is then burned onto a physical CD-R and stashed on the hard drive for access to my media server should I wish to stream it to the telly (and thence to the hi-fi).

  22. 2, 5, 3. I honestly can’t remember the last time I used my CD player, any cds I get now (usually magazine freebies) get ripped to an external hard drive and streamed via Sonos.

    I don’t use a streaming service because I prefer to own stuff rather than hire it.

  23. 5. 1. 3.
    Streaming Tidal and Spotify from a Bluesound Node 2i to speakers and headphones via two different DACs.
    CDs through speakers. NOT headphones.
    I download files to an SD card in my phone and listen to them through a pair of noise cancelling earbuds on the rare occasions I am away from the flat.
    I have given serious thought to putting a turntable into my audio chain but I don’t have an available flat surface near enough to my amplification to make it a viable proposition so I’ve made as many improvements to my digital rig that I can afford.

  25. 5, 6

    I download purchased mp3s and also rip CDs to my server and stream it via Sonos. I don’t possess an audio CD player. Most of my music collection is also on a SD card on my phone and I use Android Audio to play it in the car. I normally just put the tracks on shuffle and enjoy the surprise of what comes next

  27. CDs on a CD player – House/Car
    Vinyl on a record player
    Phones (streaming or downloads) – Car/walking the dog/surviving TESCO shopping

    All used pretty equally.

  28. 5 Music and podcasts through spotify on my phone through the various amazon echo’s strewn around the house (I’m aware I’m not exactly sticking it to the man by doing this)
    2 Vinyl. Still buy them so I feel less bad about 1 and they are lovely to have. But convenience of 1 tends to win out.
    1 tried to play a cd recently but the player seems to have carked it so looks like 5 and 2 exclusively from now on.

  29. 99% CDs in a CD player, in this room, each album in its entirety.
    No radio. Streaming only if checking out a new album/artist before purchase. Small number of albums on cassette that never became available on CD; even less vinly for the same reason; smaller number still of albums that have only been released digitally. (I didn’t mean to type vinly, but I did, so I’m leaving it uncorrected.)
    Never on headphones, portable or otherwise, nor in a vehicle; can you imagine trying to listen to music in a 37 year old Landrover Defender? I suspect Einsturzende Neubauten would be the only part of my collection to survive.

    Not trying to be a smartarse here, but I remark that we are not including ‘live’ in how we listen to music. Throw that in, and I would say that 5-10% of my listening is live music.

  31. Streaming Sonos 99.73%
    Every so often I shuffle along the château corridor to the West Wing where the Music Library resides. I play a CD or an LP and think “Lovely, must do this again tomorrow.”
    Six months later I shuffle along the corridor

  33. 2 & 3 for me.
    Trying to play more and more records, but streaming is just so damn convenient! Play my phone or laptop through my TV, that is connected to main amp and speakers, and have to say, I have no issue with the sound quality. Just listening to Sparks’ ‘Hello Young Lovers’ album as we speak and it sounds terrific!

  34. Records (predominantly reissues or second hand) on a proper record player.
    CDs- sometimes new but usually re-issues or boxes- on a CD player.

    That’s it.

  36. Equal parts phone (Spotify and Apple Music – my own ripped CDs and bought downloads via the Apple cloud) in the car or commuting and Sonos. 3 and 5 when at home. Very rarely radio in the car.

    It is so much more convenient and I don’t miss cds or records at all. Like Bingo said, I miss shopping for music though.

  37. 5 and 6 and none of the others. I don’t own any music, it’s all leased. Well I mean there’s a suitcase full of CDs and a box of vinlys in the loft but they’ve been there for years

  38. 2. Vinyl on a record player – evenings at home.

    3. IPod or iPhone (streaming or downloads) – in the car and listening to podcasts in bed.

    4. Computer – BBC 6 Music during the day, mostly.

  42. In order of frequency:

    1. CDs on a CD transport/DAC through the Hi-Fi; and in the car
    10. FM radio – tuner through the Hi-Fi; Tivoli Model 1 in the kitchen; Roberts wireless in the bedroom
    2. LPs on a turntable
    3. Pioneer hi-res DAP (strictly downloads on microSD cards) when out walking
    10. MiniDisc player – through the DAC/Hi-Fi
    7. Cassettes – rarely nowadays, but still have the Nak

    No streaming! No strong objection to it, just happy with my current arrangements…

  44. Mostly streaming (from Spotify) through my phone and onto Sonos, Bluetooth speakers (depending on the room I am in), headphones when out walking, or the car. Sometimes listen via the laptop, but usually it’s the phone.

    Long way back, CDs on the kitchen (or, very occasionally, car) CD players

    And now and then some vinyl, having bought maybe half a dozen new vinyl albums in the last twelve months.

  45. 4,1,5,2, but it gets a bit incestuous, as the computer tends to be the hub, as it is the main CD player, even if I then have a choice of speakers to hear it through. I never listen to music on my phone, but it has apps to turn it on elsewhere.

  47. Well, the radio’s on at work all day long so that’s easily the most music I hear…unfortunately, as the radio stations are shite.
    At home, where I choose the music: 4, 1, 3, 10, and (2).

    I listen to my ripped albums on the WMP or Groove.

    But when I buy new CDs I like to listen to them on a CD player, as I find that I listen with more care when I do that, compared to at the computer while clicking my way around the internet and thinking about other stuff than what I’m (half-) hearing. Plus I always bring my CD Walkman with me on the bus to visit my dad, who lives one hour’s journey outside of Stockholm – without headphones full of music I arrive feeling like a zombie after listening to the dull drone of the tyres against the asphalt… I also have a mini CD player in my kitchen, which get used during washing up and cooking.

    I mostly read on my commute or in the bathroom these days, but when I find the time to sit down in my comfy armchair in my living room for an hour or two with a book, I tend to listen to mystery music from one of two iPods I’ve been gifted (hence the mystery part – I didn’t personally fill the pods with the music, so it’s always a surprise).

    The 10 is the very occasional listen to internet radio stations on my computer. Used to do it a lot ten years ago, now hardly ever.

    And the parenthesis for vinyl is because although I have a record player set up and lots of records, and in theory love the idea of putting one of them on to blast through my speakers, I only think about it, but never actually do it. Mostly because the time I’m able to sit down to listen to music is at night after coming home from work, and my neighbours probably wouldn’t appreciate that…I’d be forced to plug in headphones, but the placement of my stereo is too far away from the armchairs and sofa, so I’d have to sit on the floor to make the chord reach…and at this age, getting down on the floor is easy; getting up is an undignified affair! 😀

  48. 4, 2, 3 and occasionally fire up a Sony Walkman (original box-fresh unopened 80s model which once I’d replaced the perished drive belt works fine) for no.7 – mostly to play weird tapes from Boomkat.com or work through a boxes of unmarked c90s from the loft – I can’t remember what’s on them – dodgy band rehearsals, peel sessions, all sorts

  49. I usually listen to music all day, mainly though my hi-fi, which is on CD or via the iPod, which I plug into the amp, for albums I don’t have on CD. I occasionally listen to 5:1 mixes via my surround sound.

    I never listen to the radio and don’t stream, apart from when I am checking out albums to see f they are worth buying/downloading. I very rarely stream a full album though, as I tend to just listen to random snippets to determine whether something is to my taste or not. I passed 10,000 albums on CD or download last week, so I don’t need to stream anything.

    When I’m out walking, or on the train I usually listen to stuff I’ve downloaded to my phone, or on my iPod if it’s a longer journey. I’ve made a couple of hundred playlists on iTunes, so I usually put one of those on if I’m only out for an hour or two, cos that saves me having to fumble around choosing another album.

    So, the order is predominantly 1 and 3 in equal measure, and then 5 (via 4) if I am ‘auditioning’ something new.

  50. 4 and 3 equally.

    3 is mostly my iPhone, to Sonos if at home, and in the car via Apple CarPlay. I have about half a dozen iPods of one sort or another but they don’t get used much.

    4 is to Sonos via Roon. I’ve given up on Apple Music, though I have a small selection on the phone, which mostly gets played in the bathroom, where there is a small Bose speaker.

    Now the s-in-l has a record shop I’m becoming more vinyl-minded, but tbh the thought of getting all the kit and finding the room for the LPs makes me feel tired.

  51. The only addition I’d like would be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Show (like the old Stuart Colman or Mark Lamarr shows) on the radio.

    I’ve never much cared for music on the move (but then I don’t drive) and don’t what to hear what, say, The Beatles sounded like in the studio, I want to know what they sounded like on the radio or on a juke-box at the time. That’s why I like those BBC CDs so much.

  54. Alexa kicks in early and FIP comes on the radio
    Then CDs mostly as that’s the format most of my music is on (theres 3 players around the house) and sometimes vinyl although I don’t really have a lot and it’s mostly very old.
    SD cards and flash drives to plug into the car – my wife’s car is a Chevrolet and it doesn’t accept mp3s for some weird reason, just WAV and WMA. Annoying as I’ve been ripping stuff in mp3 and Apple lossless for the past 15 years.
    I very occasionally play stuff through the MacBook
    Radio and podcasts on my phone

    Nothing very exciting!

    Actually, I think I’ve lost the point of the original OP. In order

    CD
    SD in car
    Vinyl
    Laptop
    Phone (radio and podcasts only)

  56. 1. I purchase CDs – but rip them on to i-tunes and mostly listen on an i-pod at work or walking – unless I’m alone in the house when I use the CD player.
    10. (a) Late night / Early Morning Radio (RTE – Hello, Lilian Smith!)- leading me to purchase more of No.1.
    10.(b) Mini Disc! Wait! Let Me finish! Years ago I copied all my vinyl onto this format as a space saving measure. Sound is good. And I still have the vinyl LPs stored out of the way.
    10. (c) Linked video recommendations on the AW site – sometimes leading back to the purchase of more No.1

  58. 5 (Spotify through a Sonos speaker) and 10 (internet radio though an Amazon Echo hooked up to my stereo) mostly.

    Very rarely, I will play vinyl. But I pay $10 a month for Spotify, which is less than the cost of one second-hand LP these days, and I just can’t justify the cost. (One record store I was in recently wanted $45 for Metal Machine Music, which is surely the definition of madness…)

  60. Mostly streaming from the computer

    Radio in the car

    CDs in the living room while I unwind at the end of the day with a Pinot Gris and the SMH crossword

    Occasionally vinly when I usually discover the belt has slipped off and I have to set it up again which makes me grumpy

  61. 1, 4, 5, 3.

    I like the physical format and the sense of making an active choice when listening to CDs. Can’t be arsed with vinyl.

    Listen to my iTunes library on the computer while working.

    Some streaming, mainly to check out new releases/reissues, or to dig up stuff I listened to years ago to see if it holds up (generally, it doesn’t).

    Been WFH since 2015, so the iPod gets much less use these days.

  62. 3 and 10 (Alexa).

    I briefly had a vinyl resurgence (TMFTL) but though I still have all the (entry-level) gear I don’t use it often.

    Honestly, I don’t listen to that much music any more, except when running. (And even when I did, I skorned and uterly diskarded all audiophilia nonsense. It’s a hobby as valid as any other, but let’s not pretend it’s got anything to do with music.)

  64. 3. Earbuds off my phone (iBroadcast) – often as not random play of 40 000 tracks from 1610 to 2020
    4. YouTube on my laptop – good for all those singleton albums from your Bests of 2020.
    6. Radio 1/Magic – the German equivalents thereof – preset buttons on the car radio, which wife and daughters push until they find something they like – rarely hear a song all the way through
    1. The only time I play CDs is when my kids want to listen – thumpy kid techno or Beatles ‘one’
    7. I still have a double cassette deck, one of which works and some music only in cassette form – old compilations – sweet memories
    2. Not in decades – all my vinly is in the UK. I don’t know what to do with it.
    5. Too many adverts and I have enough music in 1. to not need any more
    9. My mobile is heavier than that, and it’s not from Ireland
    8. After 8 tracks, of random I usually marvel at how my iBroadcast knows just what I need to hear
    10. Yes I am a bit different.

    Will there be prizes for getting the right answer?

Leave a Reply