How do you listen to media when driving?

Started by ZLoth, February 27, 2023, 08:31:09 PM

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ZLoth

When driving, how do you listen to "media" to keep yourself entertained? By media, I am not only talking about music, but also news, talk, audiobooks, podcasts, and so on. As far as I can determine, the selections are:

  • Terrestrial radio "over the air" (OTA)
  • Terrestrial radio via mobile app
  • Satellite-delivered radio
  • Streaming media via mobile app (e.g. Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, Plex)
  • Pre-recorded physical media (CDs, cassette tapes)
  • Downloaded media via mobile app (e.g. Audible)
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Max Rockatansky

#1
I usually listen to ESPN radio (AM 1430 Fresno) for about the ten minutes it takes me get back and forth from the gym during weekdays.  Combined running time and driving to work I listen to about 12 hours (which is about 6 hours driving) of music and podcasts weekly. 

Rothman

YouTube liked videos and maybe their suggested ones.  Have a dashboard mount for my phone.
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1995hoo

It varies. In local driving, regardless of which car I'm driving, I often turn on WTOP-FM to get the traffic reports because that information is essential for driving around here and their reports are the most available.

Otherwise, it depends on which car we take. In mine, I generally listen to XM or to DVD-Audio discs (many of which I've burned myself to take advantage of that format's high capacity). My wife's cars don't have XM. In her TLX, for shorter trips I generally listen to FM radio and change the station constantly; for longer trips out of town we often plug in an iPod. I haven't yet tried my new high-rez Astell & Kern player in there (it can play DSD).
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commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
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jakeroot

Most of the time I have my phone plugged into the aux port on my car (my Mazda Atenza does not have bluetooth), but only use it sometimes.

Usually have 648 AM on, which is constant talk and news here in Okinawa, Japan. Mostly listen to this on short journeys (5-10 minutes).

There are some FM stations but most are in Japanese. The English-language channel is one of those non-offense "mix" stations that I find a bit boring, so I don't listen to it hardly ever.

On longer journeys (15+ minutes, give or take), I switch over to aux mode and maybe have a YouTube video going or listen to Spotify.

wanderer2575

In no particular order:  Over-the-air if I can find something, CDs, iPod.  My wife has an old Microsoft Zune where she has stored a lot of music for roadtrips, and she'll listen to that with headphones if I don't want to listen to anything at the time.

Moist of the time I don't listen to media at all; I just crack open the window for some white noise.

Scott5114

I still have MP3s on my phone. Remember those?  :P (Actually, a lot of them are actually .ogg files since that's what Linux utilities rip CDs to.) That's what I would listen to on the way to work since I was in no mood for advertising or talk.

Most of the time these days I just listen to local over the air FM radio. I like not having to fiddle with connecting the phone to the car or being tempted to fuss around with skipping songs while I drive.
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Big John


Bruce

Music is almost all via MP3s on a USB stick I reload and tag carefully so that my car can read it properly. Sadly it does not work as well in other cars.

Podcasts over a bluetooth connection, as my new phone does not have a 3.5mm audio jack (really miss the aux capabilities).

AM and FM radio for certain programs (traffic reports, weather info, some NPR/BBC programs).

I've never used the CD function in my car and probably never will. Same with satellite radio.

formulanone

#10
My personal car doesn't have a true Bluetooth connection, so I use my iPod / AUX, usually on random songs. I have a CD player that usually only plays the one CD-ROM with about 150 MP3 songs on it every now and then, just to make sure it's still working, or if I just bought a disk from the store.

I usually listen to classical music on the radio, when on my way to the airport at 4:30am. On Saturdays the local college plays some 1960s-80s funk/soul/R&B which is not typical fare for radio stations (think: XM Channel 49), so it's fun to listen to that when running errands.

In rentals, I might listen to NPR for about 5-10 minutes to catch up on news, but longer if they're talking about something / someone interesting (Science Fridays, for example). So one week might be 10-20 minutes at most and other times it could be several hours.

There's been a handful of occasions I've streamed the F1 app like a radio play-by-play, if I hadn't had a chance to watch the race live, and then catch up with the highlights in video form when I'm not driving. And a few times, I've started up a really good YouTube video that's really just chat, but really want to hear the rest of it before I forget.

But about 90% of the time, I just listen to my music or even no other sounds at all.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: MultiMillionMiler on February 27, 2023, 09:47:17 PM
I don't. Music is so horrible/boring today I don't even bother turning the radio on anymore. Wastes my car's battery. I'll usually have a Playlist up on my phone with earjacks that I can just reach to my phone in the phone holder and play if I want.

How is listening to AM/FM band radio even the slightest battery consumption concern?  Do you even know what an alternator is?

Hobart

For context, I'm 21, I just have horribly outdated music tastes like my parents.

I'm still a fan of listening to what's on the airwaves with the old fashioned radio. 97.1 (classic rock) by Chicago is okay, but I prefer to listen to real oldies stations. 87.7 (ME TV-FM) in Chicago, and 100.3 (FONZ-FM) in Milwaukee are great for getting the older music I'm used to listening to. The issue is that not all vehicles (namely the car I drove to Gary, Indiana all last summer) have dials low enough to get 87.7 FM... my dad's van can't get it either with clear tone.

For news, I usually listened to 720 AM (WGN) on my way to and from Gary to get the traffic report while I was driving.

In terms of other media, I used to use mostly cassettes, because they were cheap and a lot of the people I listened to (Steve Miller, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor) were all on cassettes readily available at Goodwill. After accumulating a large cassette collection, my dad sold the car I was using, and replaced it with one with a CD player. I use CDs for a lot of my music still, ranging from Glen Campbell, to Glen Miller, to Barry Manilow, to the soundtrack CD of Bluey (the children's television show from Australia). CDs are cheap, I'm cheap, it's a match made in heaven!

One of my personal favorites to listen to while driving is C.W. McCall... he wrote a lot of other good driving songs besides Convoy!
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ZLoth

Quote from: MultiMillionMiler on February 27, 2023, 09:47:17 PMI don't. Music is so horrible/boring today I don't even bother turning the radio on anymore. Wastes my car's battery. I'll usually have a Playlist up on my phone with earjacks that I can just reach to my phone in the phone holder and play if I want.

What about audiobooks or podcasts? That's why I specified "media" instead of "music" to encompass multiple audio formats.

Although I tend to agree with your sentiment about the modern music, and end up listening to 40s or 50s music, classical, or movie/television/video game soundtracks.

Quote from: Hobart on February 27, 2023, 10:07:46 PMFor context, I'm 21, I just have horribly outdated music tastes like my parents.

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TheHighwayMan3561

Usually the Beatles Channel on SXM, or YouTube playlists of whatever I've been listening to lately (a lot of anime/city pop stuff).
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Amaury

102.1 The Quake (FM radio), or other similar stations when I'm outside of range, such as in Yakima, where you can still hear it, but it's a little broken up. Or somewhere on the west side of the state, which is really out of range and you won't get anything at all. When I'm on my drives, I listen to the music on my USB drive, which is video game music and electronic dance music.
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wxfree

I use a digital audio player, commonly called an MP3 player.  My phone would do the same thing, but I like physical buttons so I can control it without looking at it.  I like to have my own recordings, so I can listen without an Internet connection.  My default setting is to have cellular data turned off, because I don't want to feel constantly tied to a network.  I get enough of that at home when my phone is always online through the cable modem.

My musical preferences are somewhat eclectic, so I like having the option of using my own playlist instead of listing to stations or channels.  I've never heard a radio station that plays "Ave Maria" and "Habanera" with "Back that Ass Up" and "Pretty Fly" in between.  I'm not good at making a list putting songs in order, but I can have selections randomly chosen from my playlist and know that it isn't all going to sound the same, and my 60s music is going to be mostly Animals and Zombies, not Beatles.
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Takumi

In my TL, I use either CDs or my phone connected via USB cable. (The car does have Bluetooth audio but it's notorious for draining the car battery so the fuse is pulled so it doesn't work.) In my Prelude, entirely CD.
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US 89

If I won't be in the car for more than 15 minutes, FM radio. If longer, I'll plug my phone into the USB port and play music off there.

CoreySamson

For me, it's all streaming nowadays with Spotify, both music and podcasts.
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Roadgeekteen

I don't have a license yet but normally in the car it's radio for shorter trips and spotify for longer trips.
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dlsterner

Interestingly, my car is new enough to have a sound system with Sirius XM Radio and Apple CarPlay yet still old enough to have a CD player in the dash.  Both are factory.

When commuting (30-45 minutes each way), I listen to music with Sirius XM Radio - usually 70's on 7, but sometimes I will switch it up with 60's Gold, 80's on 8, Classic Rewind, Classic Vinyl.  Yes, I'm an old fogey.

On road trips, either Sirius XM (it is nice not to have to search for new stations when leaving another station's range) or stream from my iPhone through CarPlay.  Or if I have a new CD, I may play that - if I haven't had the chance to rip it yet.  (I may be a dinosaur here, but I prefer to have my music on physical media that I can hold in my hand, keep in a safe spot at my house, and not on a server somewhere.  But that's a discussion for another thread.)

1995hoo

#22
Quote from: dlsterner on February 28, 2023, 12:15:07 AM....  (I may be a dinosaur here, but I prefer to have my music on physical media that I can hold in my hand, keep in a safe spot at my house, and not on a server somewhere.  But that's a discussion for another thread.)

I'm pretty sure we've had that discussion in another thread (maybe you weren't part of it, but the discussion has taken place). Several of us agreed with your point in principle and one reason is that we don't want to give someone else control of what we can listen to. That is, it won't surprise anyone here that I don't listen to Taylor Swift, but she's a great example of the issue because I remember a couple of years ago there was a lot of news coverage about her getting into a dispute with Spotify that led her management to pull all her music from said service. If you were a fan of hers who used Spotify as your platform and you didn't buy physical media (or purchase your music via downloads), you were suddenly unable to listen to an artist you liked.


Edited to add: The topic has come up several times. Here's one of the earlier iterations when some of the younger forum members were under the illusion that physical media are unnecessary.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=22215.msg2304539#msg2304539
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

thspfc

Either sports radio or my Spotify playlist.

SectorZ

Short drives: XM or the one single FM sports station I can tolerate
Longer drives: My own music on my phone (for as long as Apple will let me until forcing their own crap service) or XM



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