brephophagist wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 10:03 am Not exactly your question, but here are things that keep me going back to Bandcamp as a listener, in order of import:
- easiest way to buy both a lossless download and the vinyl at the same time
- related to ^^: many artists and labels I follow do not sell digital music through any other retailer (in the US anyway)

Oh I agree, but it's just another example of Something Has Power Because Everybody's Already Doing It (see also: bands/artists/businesses/etc. using Facebook or IG as their primary web presence). It's a little more understandable for individuals or very small labels, but pretty disappointing when it's established entities that used to put some effort into being independent.

We'll never get rid of cunty middlemen if we aren't willing to do a little more work on our ends.

The marketing copy for Bandcamp Clubs seems to be aimed at someone other than me (unless we're talking about an actual museum, I don't really need to read the word "curated" again). That said, maybe it's effective phrasing for the target audience.

What would make me more interested in something like this might be would be knowledgeable people in a genre I want to investigate (something like modern classical) recommending, say, 3 albums a month and letting me pick one to buy. That's not really much different from having "buy" links in regular editorial copy, but I'd have already committed the money so I'd be more likely to read the email and, ideally, this would allow them to fund more editorial work across genres.

brephophagist wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 10:03 am So I'll grant that I am not an important music consumer, statistically.

Isn't this most of us album-obsessed olds, who between the LP tapes, CD tapes and artisanally hand-encoded digital files made from those tapes have tens of thousands of hours of recorded music at hand already?

Tangentially, does anyone still sell a phone you can put an SD card into? No, right? If I want to keep carrying around a terabyte of my own flac tapes I'm going to have to become a Pono user or something?

Buy a Walkman. I got one maybe five years ago for my Bandcamp (and other) stuff, they do lossless, and work with mini-SD.

LuciousSandwich wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 4:35 pm What would make me more interested in something like this might be would be knowledgeable people in a genre I want to investigate (something like modern classical) recommending, say, 3 albums a month and letting me pick one to buy. That's not really much different from having "buy" links in regular editorial copy, but I'd have already committed the money so I'd be more likely to read the email and, ideally, this would allow them to fund more editorial work across genres.

I had this same thought, in conjunction with their editing staff running the clubs.

W.L.Weller wrote: Tangentially, does anyone still sell a phone you can put an SD card into? No, right? If I want to keep carrying around a terabyte of my own flac tapes I'm going to have to become a Pono user or something?

If you're an iPhone user, I recommend this unfortunately-named app to be able to just drag shit onto your phone and never open Apple Music / iTunes on a computer again. Yeah, the licensing model sucks.

To add another recommendation besides Walkman, Cowon's players have worked well for me in the past. Recently I pulled out an iAudio 7 that I hadn't used in 10+ years, to use as a background music player at an event where my phone and laptop had other duties to fulfill. Still plays lossless just fine, easy to use, just drag shit onto it like a USB drive, all good. The battery was mostly fucked from sitting unused for years, but I expected that. That'll be true of any digital audio player you can get now.

My comment on the previous page wasn't meant as a dig at this new service or anyone here, but more at the idea of me personally trying to monetize music recommendations. There are people who keep tabs on what I listen to, but short of playing a DJ set or making a mixtape or doing a formal in-depth write-up, it would feel foreign to charge money for this sort of thing.

brephophagist wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 7:26 pm If you're an iPhone user, I recommend this unfortunately-named app to be able to just drag shit onto your phone and never open Apple Music / iTunes on a computer again. Yeah, the licensing model sucks.

Solid rec, my genuine thanks, since the iPhone users in my life don't understand why I won't come back to the iFold. At least that would make one aspect of it easier (glossing over the terabyte of flac tapes that I'd have to turn into alac tapes? give up and admit my lossy hearing isn't justifying lossless audio anymore, if it ever did?)

Unfortunately for me it doesn't look like COWON still sells any standalone audio players (speaking of being an unimportant consumer...)

Maybe I'll just get the one model of flip phone still sold and....jesus christ you can't even get into baseball games without a smartphone or a companion with one.

W.L.Weller wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 10:41 am

brephophagist wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 7:26 pm If you're an iPhone user, I recommend this unfortunately-named app to be able to just drag shit onto your phone and never open Apple Music / iTunes on a computer again. Yeah, the licensing model sucks.

Solid rec, my genuine thanks, since the iPhone users in my life don't understand why I won't come back to the iFold. At least that would make one aspect of it easier (glossing over the terabyte of flac tapes that I'd have to turn into alac tapes? give up and admit my lossy hearing isn't justifying lossless audio anymore, if it ever did?)

Unfortunately for me it doesn't look like COWON still sells any standalone audio players (speaking of being an unimportant consumer...)

Maybe I'll just get the one model of flip phone still sold and....jesus christ you can't even get into baseball games without a smartphone or a companion with one.

There are a bunch of apps that will play flac files from an iphone if you do go that route (I've only ever used Vox-- it seemed fine). There are affordable players from Chinese companies like Fiio. and Shanling selling for various prices. https://www.headfonia.com/category/sour ... le-source/ or things like the walkman someone mentioned above https://www.crutchfield.com/S-YLQVyGXTA ... 5191355812 . There are also really fancy options for big money (of course).