Poll: Which of the following music media, if someone suddenly handed you a piece of music recorded on it, would you be able to play without making additional purchases?

  • CD (Redbook) (93%, 2663 votes)
  • Cassette tape (44%, 1262 votes)
  • Vinyl record (47%, 1345 votes)
  • 8-track tape (2%, 79 votes)
2858 voters. Poll end: 16 hours ago

in reply to mcc

(BONUS POLL)

Which of the following music media, if someone suddenly handed you a piece of music recorded on it, would you be able to play without making additional purchases?

NOTES:

- If the answer is "none of the above" ,click "Show results". We can probably compare the previous poll to judge the significance of the scale of responses.

- Rather than worrying about differences between reel-to-reel formats, answer "reel to reel tape" if you can play at least one reel to reel tape format.

  • Minidisc (70%, 122 votes)
  • Reel to Reel Tape (27%, 48 votes)
  • DAT tape (15%, 26 votes)
  • Player piano roll (9%, 17 votes)
173 voters. Poll end: 16 hours ago

in reply to mcc

I've used/owned most of those media players/formats as either a consumer or broadcaster (brief career before I switched to IT).

In the late 90s, I learned about the mp3 format, got a CD burner and ditched all my vinyl and cassettes. By the time USB media players were prevalent, the only CD players I had were in desktop/laptop computers. (I'd have to go searching in the closet for one of those now.)

Frankly, it's been MP3's and nothing else for me for more than 25 years now.

in reply to A cool crab wearing shades

@grumpybozo Minidisc is a rewritable magneto optical disc in a caddy, the data is encoded with ATRAC and later linear PCM with Hi-MD. It was a Sony format and not a lot of other companies licensed it, it was popular in Japan but less so in other regions before MP3 players ate up it's market.
in reply to A cool crab wearing shades

@neckspike @grumpybozo It would've been bigger if Sony had marketed it as a _cassette_ replacement instead of a _CD_ replacement. Early ATRAC compression wasn't up to CD quality but it held up pretty well against cassette.

(And it improved over time, pleasantly.)

it was a nice format, I think it deserved better. Arguably it deserved better than Sony, but, well, they invented it lol

in reply to mcc

a couple of my musician friends have given me vinyl LPs of their latest music recently. They're just sitting in shrinkwrap on a shelf here. The last time I used a turntable was a roommate's in college. I also had a cassette Walkman back then, which got way more use.

We had a 1976 Ford Mustang II with 8 track player when I was a kid. Nothing else that played them.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Misty

I have a modest CD collection (a fun combination of rarities and "Amazon MP3 + physical CD was somehow cheaper than Amazon MP3 by itself" from 10+ years ago) and they're all ripped to FLAC via a USB DVD burner which is my primary optical media.

But when I first saw the poll, my first thought was "circa 2010 24 inch GE LCD TV with an integrated DVD player in the guest room, which can also play CDs", and assumed everyone still has something like that sitting in a corner.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Misty

@misty @christinelove Yeah, I forgor that this was a multiple choice poll so I didn't click "cassette tape" but I have an old boombox that I'm pretty sure I picked up for free, specifically to play the CDs I still have. Also pretty sure the DVD drives on my PC count though I haven't tried using them to play CDs so idk…we also have a USB DVD player that I think still works. Can a PS4 play CDs?

I also don't know what is Redbook but from context I assume it's what I'd call "a regular CD" 😅

in reply to Misty

@misty @christinelove Not sure if it's helping, or if folks would realize it's an option, but anyone with a modern disc-capable game console (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series) would have at least that option for a music CD.

On the nerdier side, it gets even easier. While I only have one turntable, I have lots of things that can play a music CD: 2 vehicles, 5+ old computers (one disc-capable laptop), 3 shelf DVD players (one HD DVD), 2 portable CD players, and 10 game consoles back to the Sega CD.

in reply to Adam Patridge

@patridge @misty @christinelove I would not assume that is true. digitaltrends.com/gaming/plays…
in reply to mcc

I think I have the hardware to play a CD on a PC. I'd have to pull a hard drive and stick in a BlueRay. I do believe it's SATA and not IDE.

I actually have a 94 civic with a cassette player in it. Very old school radio. When I bought the car a cassette on the dash still had it's guts hanging out the mouth of the player. So it might not play the whole thing and the tape might not survive it...if it does actually play at all.

Actually, I think my mom has my turntable. Old trunk style

in reply to lj·rk

@ljrk
Vinyl wear is very fast. 20 plays loses most above 10 KHz.
Distortion is high
Noise much higher than CD.
33 vinyl recorded with less dynamic range than 45 to extend playtime. Both less than CD.

CD best way to buy a copy of music to play anywhere. You never own streaming and needs Internet.
CD trivial to store on PC/Flash etc with automatic track names.

Cassette is best for audio books as location is "saved" between players. Quality OK for that but marginal for music.

in reply to mcc

You'd want to ask if voter is in USA or Europe.
The USA fitted 8-Track (Lear Jet Audio) to 1 or 2 brands of car as standard.
Players were very rare in UK (likely in all of Europe) and cartridges rarer.
Compact cassette already existed.
8 Track issues: No FF, no rev or rewind, recorders rare. High wear, wow & flutter due to endless loop. Shorter than cassette. Head moves when foil hits & goes out of alignment.

You can't buy 8T for decades. The others are still made. Had 1 once. 1 cart.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to mcc

In 2013, I bought a Blu Ray read write drive for my desktop. That drive has made it through all of my upgrades and is now effectively a built-in appliance in my home.

This year we were looking at ways to give our 2 year old access to music and realized that the best way to avoid any stupid vendor lock in bullshit was a CD player.

Between those and my 10 year old laptop I have 3 ways to play CDs but none of the others.

in reply to mcc

8 track will work if I steal a replacement drive band off one of my cassette decks... it broke when I was fixing it up last time.

I really need a DAT player; I have studio recordings of my old band on this format and no player ☹️

Never got into MD 🤷‍♂️

Reel2reel tape I did have around 1983 but both valve decks went to the junk years ago. So sad, I'd love one of those now 😥