Thanks mate.

Yeah best not to discuss it I think.

You guys can talk about it, it's fine.

I generally download, but with albums that are hard to find in a rar or zip search that I've heard are really good I will try to track it down as long as it's not too expensive (I've seen a Kaoru Abe album at $500 before). If the album is bloody fantastic then I'll try to find a physical copy so I can have it and maybe lend it to friends and such. I definitely prefer physical albums, but that just gets too expensive.

• I download from the internet
• I buy from music stores in real life
• Both
• Pink Golfball

I don't know why you included things like "Pink Golfball" etc. in your poll and left out buying mp3s/iTunes and buying CD from online sites. Maybe you could ask mod to add more options to the pole.

Really? I truly want to believe you but Im afraid I need to hear this from a moderator in order to freely talk about it. I dont want to get in trouble, you know.

The Pink Golfball option is just there for those who dont know what to vote or have something else in mind that isnt available as a poll option. I called it Pink Golfball simply to make it more hilarious though.

About new poll options, tell me please what exactly you think should be added and I'll ask a moderator to add it if its really needed.

Both - who am I to deny a delicious vinyl when one wanders into my midst

I voted pink golfball because it's similar to my username.

Now that I'm (almost) 50, I can say that I've sort of paid my dues, literally, in that I used to spend all my pocket money then part of my wages on albums. I used to buy them by the bagload. Seriously, I would go into town and come home with 10/20 albums. I did this for years, first with vinyl then with CDs (mostly replacing my vinyl albums with digital copies), but back then I knew what I liked and more of less stuck to it. Now as I get older there is so much more music out there I'd like to try, but I'll be damned if I'm plonking down ten or twenty Euro on the offchance it might be good. I can't afford that.

Not only have times changed, my circumstances have too. I worked for almost 30 years (in the one job) and had a pay packet. For the last coming up to four years now, I've been my sister's carer, having jacked in my job in 2009, and I now survive on about a tenth of what I used to make. Admittedly, I have less expenses but it's still hard to make ends meet.

So I download torrents but I also use those Russian websites where you can get albums for a dollar or less. Why shouldn't I? Half of what I buy may not be any good; if so, all I've lost is a dollar. It also enables me to build up my collections at a fraction of the cost, and I'm not one of those audiophiles who has to have perfect sound reproduction. Hell, I grew up on vinyl!

The closure of the likes of HMV is just their chickens coming home to roost. After decades of ripping us off, with no other option open to us, when we finally were able to give the record shops the two fingers they collapsed like so many sandcastles suddenly caught as the tide comes in. Good riddance, say I, though I feel for those who lost their jobs. But it's been comin'.

Finally, I no longer have a working stereo --- once the most important item in my life --- so any CDs I bought would just get ripped and transferred, then played on the PC anyway. So what's lost by just downloading MP3s? If you're not anal about the sound quality, then what difference does it make?

I torrent every now and again.

A lot of the time I'll just borrow CD's from my friends or find cheap used discs at the local record store. I've also come across some good finds through libraries.

Wow all of this is so true that i dont know where to begin actually! Also I never would've guessed you're nearly 50 Trollheart! And its good that you are honest about this. We dont need to feel ashamed that we download our music from torrents and such.

If I'm not buying music from a real life store, am I buying it from an imaginary life store?

On second thought I get mine from the Pink Golfball.

Okay, alright, I'm not funny. I usually just download albums and if I really like them then I'll buy a physical copy of it. I'm not a huge fan of downloads though because I used to do that alot in middle school, and then lost everything when I got a new laptop. So having files of music feels temporary to me rather than holding the physical object (be it a record or cd) in my hands. Plus, not going to lie, most downloads I just rip from Youtube, so if I get to really liking a band then I will want to pay for the album and support them. And if I'm doing that, I might as well have a permanent (physical) copy of what I'm paying for. That's my logic, anyways. Plus album art can be really cool and contain things like lyrics, notes, etc. About half of my music collection is vinyl albums my dad collected as a teenager that he gave to me. The other half would be cds I've bought as I've grown up, and some records I've picked up here and there. The latest thing I got was the new My Bloody Valentine album on vinyl, which I'm excited about getting in the mail soon. #winning