MansionNET Forum

How do you consume music? Local files, streaming services, CDs, vinyls, cassettes? Which music players do you use?

I personally have stopped using Spotify since September last year, and now use local files. I've ripped the CDs that I already owned, and I've bought a couple more. Also I've started buying music on bandcamp.com since then and have now recently also bought music on qobuz.com. Those are the only two places that I know of that you can buy DRM free digital music. Please share if you know any more places!

As for music players I use Rhythmbox (https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.gnome.Rhythmbox3) on my Linux desktop and Auxio (https://f-droid.org/packages/org.oxycblt.auxio/) on my Android phone.

In addition I also have my music available on my selfhosted jellyfin instance, since I already had it running and it also supports music.

99% of the time I use local mp3/flac files, but when I'm feeling fancy, I spin up the vinyl player.

The equipment I have is nothing fancy, I haven't even set them up yet lol (in my defense, I've only lived in the current address for a bit over a year). Probably should do it during the weekend and play a couple of records... The vinyl player is a Denon, dont remember the model, amp is some new-ish Sony, don't remember the model of that either... Speakers are a set of Sony SS-G5. Good enough to the girls I go out with.

On the computer side, I use the Qmmp player, because it has a winamp skin. Though I'm probably going to try the fooyin, since it promises to be close to what Foobar2000 is.

As for CD's, I don't really play them at all. I like having them on the shelf, but they usually just get ripped to the HDD and played from there. I'm not too fuzzy about quality, 192kbps mp3 is the absolute minimum, so if I can't find a better quality version, that'll do. I do prefer 320kbps mp3 and wont say no to FLAC, but my hearing is so shit anyways that filling up the harddrive with FLAC seems like a waste to me.

What I did is created my own MP3 library, mostly full of FLAC files and have spun up a Navidrome (https://www.navidrome.org/) on the server to have the access to it from the outside world too. I now have around 50 000+ songs, and growing as I go. What helps downloading the music is using Soulseek, and the whole library organisation is done using Lidarr, from the arr stack. Lidarr itself is not ideal, but works ok once you get used to its kinks.

At home, from the analog perspective, I have a Pro Ject record player, a solid started collection of vinyl records and it's all piped in via an Onkyo amp and Yamaha standing speakers.

This is the photo of the setup in the living room:

Most streaming services nowadays suck,so i prefer to download my music...a little less convenient,but at least i dont gotta connect to wifi just to listen to some music:)

I mostly use Idagio, a streaming service dedicated exclusively to classical music, but I do have several thousands of pieces downloaded in lossless formats on my PC.

I had the good fortune to get a free Roon licence for life, most of my music is played through that to various sonos and wiim amps, streamed outside the house using Roon ARC, when it works.

Most of my music is flac, ripped direct from CD's which i still try and buy a few a month.

Wrote my own little python thingy to use the soundcloud api and internet radios

lipstick wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2026 9:52 pm

Wrote my own little python thingy to use the soundcloud api and internet radios
Bildschirmfoto vom 2026-06-16 23-52-08.png

Awesome job on that one, it looks really cool!

lipstick wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2026 9:52 pm

Wrote my own little python thingy to use the soundcloud api and internet radios
Bildschirmfoto vom 2026-06-16 23-52-08.png

Looking good. And cool that you something like that with the soundcloud api!