Reasons to keep physical media (from the Stereophile piece just posted):
1. Control. Streaming services may not exist forever. The financial health of even Qobuz and Tidal "is largely unknown."
2. Control. Streaming services often don't provide information about which version or mastering of a given "song" is being played.
3. Control. Searching on streaming services, even using Roon, is often difficult or even impossible. If you keep your CDs in a sensible order, you can find what you're looking for very easily.
4. Control. With so-called classical music, there's a lot of information one wants to know that streaming services rarely provide. The Strereophile essay indicates that, with a given symphony, it was impossible to determine from the stream which orchestra was performing it! But what about when the recording was made? (Von Karajan recorded Beethoven's Ninth at least four times, three times with the BPO, but streaming services rarely reveal this kind of information.) How about where it was recorded? Audiophiles speak of hearing the venue's ambiance on a superlative recording. But streamed recordings will rarely, if ever, identify what that venue was. And streaming services identify "songs," as mentioned above, which can be movements in a larger orchestral or instrumental piece. That fact can be obscured or even effaced.
