When it comes to music, which is your favorite audio format?

Believe it or not, I still listen more often to radio (usually SiriusXM satellite radio) and mass-produced CDs than all other formats combined. I'm an oldies fan and have a nice collection on CD; for me, Chicago and Bob Seger are go-to artists. But in the car I am even more likely to listen to one of the Top 40 oldies channels, in particular '60s On 6.

Of course my preferences are largely influenced by my age group and background. I'm 65, remember when rock&roll was just starting, and worked as a radio disc jockey from the days of 45s through the CD and hard-drive-library eras. I grew up with Top 40, loved the album-rock/arena-rock/corporate-rock formats, and eventually (early 1990s) came to enjoy modern country because it sounded and felt more like "rock" than most new music that claimed to be rock. To me, Bon Jovi was the last major act to come on the scene that embraced rock as I know it; Kid rock, Nickelback and others come close and they're very entertaining, but they get lost in a crowd of weaker pop music.

Since much of the music I enjoy is available on CD oldies collections and remastered CD albums -- and much harder to find as digital downloads or streams -- I still buy CDs; most of this music was originally recorded on analog tape, and some was transferred from vinyl (or polystyrene, used for pressing 45s), so it has a "warmer" sound that direct-to-digital sometimes lacks. As for radio, I gravitate toward stations where live disc jockeys inject personality into their programs, and that's hard to find on terrestrial radio in many places today; but Pat St. John, Lou Simon and the inimitable Cousin Brucie Morrow on SiriusXM still know what it takes to do more than just "play jukebox".

I realize most younger listeners care more about hearing their "flavor of the month" favorite songs than actually hearing amusing quips, reminiscences and facts about the artists and music they're listening to, and that's fine; sometimes I do too, and that's when I listen to CDs by artists I already know well ... because I grew up with them.

I also listen to a lot of talk radio! Whether or not you agree with the views of a host, guest or caller, at least they're usually entertaining and pass along interesting (if not 100-percent factual) information ... including news and (locally inserted) traffic and weather info that I want when I'm driving. The best talk-radio hosts are "disc jockeys" minus the music, and their ability to entertain (or infuriate, which itself is a form of entertainment) doesn't rely on playing the ten hottest songs of the week.

Nothing against digital recording and delivery when it's well done, and I have digital downloads on my smartphone and computer; but a lot of digital recordings are done at bit-rates that simply don't do justice to the music itself, and some digital _music_ includes "instrumentation" that sounds like a pale imitation of the actual instruments I'm used to hearing.

Nor do I have any quarrel with other people's tastes in music or format preferences; I was saying "use what you like, like what you use" decades before the Mac-versus-PC arguments, and apply it to everything I do.

Youtube. If I think of a song I've not heard in awhile, then I look it up on youtube and listen to it there. The older you get, the less the quality of sound matters, lol.

.mp3 is the way to go. At present, it is basically the universal music format.

SACD system, which is great when I can find SACD discs. I still have a stereo system w/ record player & tape player.
But atm I have been using a usb flash drive loaded with mp3 files for my cars. I love these flash drives, no more cd's all over my cars getting messed up. Flash drives are so inexpensive and hold hundreds of 320kb mp3 files. I have 2 boom boxes that have usb & SD slots that I play while working. I never hear the same song twice for about a week or so. Anyway I choose SACD because of the sound quality, but I like all the formats listed above for 1 reason or another.

Compressed audio - MP3, MP4.
Storage is priceless