The concept of streaming digital music files over distances great as with internet-streaming services like Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal, etc.) and small from a home-PC hard drive, NAS, or networked music server) became mainstream only recently. But it was already brewing during the late 20th century, with people illegally downloading low-bitrate MP3 files made from CD rips and coming close to killing the recorded-music industry.
That wasn't streaming exactly, or not in the current sense, because the files needed to be downloaded, stored locally, then either played out of a computer or loaded onto a portable player, but from that point forward it was a steady march to the streaming-dominated present.
Never mind Napster-the first subscription audio "streaming" service was one you probably wouldn't think of: Audible, the audio book service now owned by Amazon, which started up in 1995.
I did beta testing and editing work for early-days Audible, and around that time, I started loading up home-ripped MP3 files on a pocket-sized Rio MP3 player (which by then had replaced Audible's proprietary player), using it in place of a portable CD player. This led to experiments with a PC music library/player running Linux, controlled by a Handspring PalmOS device connected to the stereo system via a Sound Blaster 16 card.
In the 1990s, downloading a CD's worth of data would have taken forever, and storing a big library of lossless tracks required a serious investment in hard drive storage. Over time, internet service got faster and storage got cheap enough that lossy compression was no longer necessary. Over the last few years, I've built up a massive digital library of CD rips, content from HDtracks and other download services, and my own HD digital transfers from LPs and tapes.
This story is from the September 2023 edition of Stereophile.
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This story is from the September 2023 edition of Stereophile.
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