Continuing with CDs?

I'm keeping my CDs.

I'm too lazy to sell and also I have a suspicion that some kind of new digital format will emerge (MP5?) that will make MP3s sound tinny and useless, and that I'll want to re-rip my CDs.

I still buy cds and vinyl. I will keep them all unless I needed the money.
I barely download now, but like always, I still try to buy what I downloaded as long as I liked it.

im continuing! cd's are beautiful

1. No, never.
2. I will keep them as the art objects/media that they are.
3. Until I can buy whole albums from iTunes or Amazon as .wav files, I will continue buying essential CDs.

A lot of good reasons to hang onto CDs in this thread. I still enjoy cases and liner notes and having a good thing around to throw my disposable income at. In a lot of ways, I also find them easier to store and maintain than digital music, where you need at least two forms of backup and need to keep an organized file/folder structure together if you're going to find stuff easily. Finally, I still can hear the difference between reasonably good-quality CDs and mp3s, and with formats, storage methods, etc. changing frequently keeping CDs around seems like less of a long-term headache.

I'll still buy a lot, taking advantage of the lower cost and because I like having the little cardboard boxes from Caiman in the post to look forward to after returning from work.

I keep the price stickers on my CDs, and it amazes me just how much I was paying for music in the 90s. £15 - £16 for some CDs was not unusual.

ridic

its like 12 bux tops for me now. unless its brand new and too good

I'll continue keeping 100s of cds in a sock drawer which I occasionally pull out for a car ride. I wont sell them. But I oughta clean them all. I hate when a cd skips and I hate how I lost some of my cds even though I dont listen to any of my cds much. But I did lose Roxy Music - The Early Years and Tangerine Dream - Rubycon. I broke Thrakattak. And I can't remember what else at the moment. Kinda sucks. Kinda not.

Those of you who sell off your CDs, someday your hard drive is gonna fail. If you're lucky, you'll have it backed up to another drive. But then that one could fail as you're trying to dump it to your new hard drive. Then I will point and laugh.

i hate that too, captain -- i'm actually making a list of CD's i have that are too scratched up/missing. i replace a few ever year

it's like i just realized how to properly take care of a cd.

Fastnbulbous accurate enough, which is why the CDs I sell back are the ones I never listen to, or have only heard once and thought, "Nice" and never went back to at all. Ergo, why keep 'em around?

I moved into a new place two months ago and never bothered taking my CDs out of their boxes. I have a few lying around that I've bought recently, but there's no real reason for me to have them out, since the majority are on my iTunes/iPod, anyway.

Back when I started to download albums, I told myself that if I really liked something I downloaded I'd buy it on CD. But then it just seemed silly to go to the trouble of buying it, only to put it on a shelf and forget about it as soon as it was out of its shrink wrap.

Now the albums I buy are the ones I simply can't find online. I don't use p2p, but I can find most major new indie releases on a couple of choice websites or through friends. So what I buy ends up being not necessarily indicative of what I'm really excited about. A lot of times this amounts to used CDs I stumble across and take a chance on.

Those of you who sell off your CDs, someday your hard drive is gonna fail.
This is exactly right — CDs have become nothing more than backup.

http://www.sevenoaksart.co.uk/images/record1.gif

1) nah, I'm the kind of person who saves everything
2) ???
3) I never exclusively bought CDs, it was always a mix of vinyl, cassette (back in the day), or mp3 formats. I see no reason why this will change for me in the near future.

1) too lazy really - and they're not worth that much anyway
2) never completely stopped buying vinyl, so it's not even an accurate record
3) I''ve bought maybe 6 cds this year and maybe 300 LPs (and some cassettes, second hand for the car)

Also, I may want to rip at a higher bitrate later once hd prices come down.

yeah i thought about that. A couple weeks ago I embarked on digitizing my collection, starting with albums I didn't like that much; I ripped ~ 30 cds @ 320 which is fine for those but my main collection I'm probably gonna want to do in flac or whatever for posterity but i haven't done the math on what i'll need for space. I got 2 500G drives on black friday and I was gonna send one back but maybe I won't. than again i've been latched to rhapsody pretty hard lately and soon even the mp3s might be ancillary to how i'm listening to music. so much up in the air.

soon as I'm satisfied with backing up, and keeping the habit, I'm selling all my CDs. I need the space and I need the money.

i've sold all of my cds. still buy vinyl, which i also sell sometimes. while it's impractical, it retains its value better (and escalates in value far more often) and is more 'fun'. sue me

I keep the price stickers on my CDs, and it amazes me just how much I was paying for music in the 90s. £15 - £16 for some CDs was not unusual.

We still quite frequently pay $25-$35 AUD for some CD albums in this country. And they wonder why ppl use torrents.

resolved, did you just rip your CDs into FLAC format and keep them on your hard drive or something?

i ripped the ones that deserved it to FLAC + mp3 (for ipod), most of them just to variable rate mp3. and then a lot i just sold without bothering.

Will you bother trying now to sell off your existing CDs?

maybe. next year I might be compelled to "monetize" my vinyl collection.

Will you leave them as a record of 80s/90s to early 00s buying?

hate to say it but after sitting there unplayed for awhile they just take up space.

Will you continuing buying CDs selectively alongside downloading, for reasons of completing certain artists or genres?

Barely. I stream music on my computer, listen to old CDs less & less often. CDs/itunes I buy as gifts.

First off, CDs are still the primary way i listen to music, and I don't download very often.

1.) I'll hang onto my CDs for a long, long time, until they rot away (none of them have). I stopped selling back CDs a few years ago, because I tend to regret it later on. I used to regularly purge my collection of stuff if I hadn't played it in awhile, but there are too many CDs that I'm kicking myself now for selling then.

Plus, it always killed me when I tried to sell stuff that I knew was of really high musical quality or that someone would love to have, and the clerk would offer a pathetic couple of bucks (usually less!) for it. Most used stores never offer very much for CDs, and now when I think about it, the best offer I've ever received (about $3 for a CD, not common at all) is just not worth it to me. I'd rather hang on to the album, sorry, then take your 50 cents.

2. I'll keep my CDs as much more than just a record of this particular time, as they have fucking music on them!!

3. I'll probably buy CDs for quite a while. As others have mentioned, there are so many good finds on used CDs right now, it's great. So much stuff that I would never expect to find in used shops. It's only going to get better over the next few years, too.

Newbury Comics usually gives about $3 per CD.

1) No - mainly because CDs are not worth much now, particularly when trying to trade them in at a record store.

2) Most of the CDs I listen to regularly have been ripped now, but I'll keep them as a backup and also because of the possibilty of ripping in higher quality formats/higher bitrates later.

3) I still buy CDs sometimes but nowhere near as often as I used to - I've gone from half a dozen a week in 2001 to a couple a month now. But if I see a box set at a cheap price I'll probably buy it.

Those of you who sell off your CDs, someday your hard drive is gonna fail. If you're lucky, you'll have it backed up to another drive. But then that one could fail as you're trying to dump it to your new hard drive. Then I will point and laugh.

I've never had a hard drive die on me ever before. Meanwhile in that time a lot of my records and CDs got damaged in a flood. Life's funneee.

I wonder how homeowner's insurance would cover a hard drive filled with burned FLACs. Are you just screwed or could you reasonably claim the full value of replacing them on iTunes or whatever?

i sold them on amazon btw, the run of the mill ones at least. you get a lot more money that way if you're prepared to go to spend an hour going packing/going to the post office every few days.

x-post
but when your hd dies it's all gone. and the probability is much higher than all your cds being destroyed at once...

word. i'm still reeling from getting over £30 for a tatty Sasha & Digweed CD. xp

what is with you hd-failure doomsayers? you have to fuck a hd up pretty bad before the data on it is completely irretrievable.

Oh I'm just curious from an insurance standpoint. Like what if someone broke into your house and stole your HD. Can you only claim the HD or could you reasonably claim the cost of replacing the MP3s (I just talked to my boss-a former underwriter--and he's gonna find out for me)?

once i had a hd which seemed perfectly ok. but suddenly it crashed. it had been formatted a couple of megabytes too high. when i reached the limit it was all over.

presumably it might differ according to the original source of the mp3s. like if you've bought them from digital sources in the first place you'll have the receipts etc to demonstrate this. if you've just ripped your cd collection i assume you'd be shit out of luck.

The downloading thread is bad for music. People need to see an entire album as an artistic statement, and not just pick single tracks.

The only positive thing is that people are at least less fixated on singles, able to see that there may be good tracks that aren't hit singles too. But generally, downloading is bad bad bad bad!

BAD!

Bad?

bad bad bad bad

On the insurance thing, pretty sure the only things that would be insurable would be receipted downloads, as you don't actually legally "own" the ripped mp3s if the CD is gone, thus they have no insurable value.

xpost

People need to see an entire hamburger as an artistic statement, and not just pick off the pickles or eat the grilled onions.

http://www.baronbob.com/hamburgercdholder.jpg

Snacking is destroying the meal preparation industry

home cooking is destroying the fast food industry.

The hamburger analogy isn't so hot. I prefer to think of an album as very much like a box of chocolates.

yes, yes, and yes i guess. the last few times I went to sell stuff back i didn't get a whole lot, and with 800+ CDs still it's kind of a pain to drag them up to amoeba and then back home. BUT, I did sell more stuff recently, and got more money for them than I'd expected; might have just been because I had a new buyer. I also sold off a ton of rare stuff on ebay because this stuff is never going to be worth more than it is right now. But there are things I still can't see myself getting rid of, and I'll still buy CDs from time to time, of artists I like, who pay attention to packaging

Geir you assume no one downloads whole albums, then? Oh wait why am I even arguing.

Mark Clemente OTM on all counts. Same for me.

you have to fuck a hd up pretty bad before the data on it is completely irretrievable.

That's not entirely true. I've had an external (Maxtor) drive fail that wasn't fucked with at all, and internal (IBM) drive that, well, it was involved with Microsoft products, so I guess was doomed to fail. (Back on a Mac, thnx Bill.)

Secondly, have you ever paid to have your data retrieved? I did, once, for 40GB worth of data - and paid about $1K/10GB (aka $4K). Now I've got two external drives, backing up my backup of my backup. But I would guess that, for example, $4K to retrieve one's digital library would, by cost alone, define "irretrievable."

Youch. I had no idea. That's crazy expensive.

https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/

Thanks Nick! Having a dig around, I've noticed the word Conblock on it - looks like a connector they used to use in the 90s.

https://www.hifiwigwam.com/threads/what-sort-of-plug-is-this.122336/

okay that is a different thing than I was saying, yours has a middle pin that's longer than the other two. Either way I'm guessing you can just swap it out for a standard uk plug?

says random internet reply guy who doesn't really know what he's talking about

I'm entirely here for it - you know more than me! Looks like I need a UK plug, aye. It has the correct, er, wires etc so should be fine.

hey koogs, I can help you out! ilx-mail me again with your email address

I finally got the last of my CDs that had been in storage at my folks' place for 18+ years. For me, this is 31 years of my life, all brought together for the first time.

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/20240425_234708.jpg

Getting them all organized (and reuniting the discs eith cases with booklets--I used a dozen of those binders back in the 90s to early 00s) brought a flood of memories of times, people, places, versions of myself. I was amazed how often I could remember what shop I got an album in, and when...

But I think it also cements the reality that, at this point, I'm really *not* "continuing with CDs". Because I've been 95%+ digital purchases since Covid, and almost none of the shops sell CDs in my region anymore, and--well, the shelves are completely full now.

Anybody succeeded in instituting a one-in-one-out policy with physical media?

I have, but it definitely requires some effort in the culling. I have to do it in batches where I'll go through and think "what have I not listened to in a while and may not want to keep?" I'll end up with a little stack of CD's and that'll be my primary listening for a few days. Either it'll be a nice way of rediscovering something or it'll be one for the sell pile.

@ Soundslike - that is an absolutely beautiful photo.

I got rid of my CDs about ten years ago and rather regret it. Luckily I've been able to repurchase a few given the bargain-basement second hand prices right now. Although if I did still have them I really don't have the wallspace to showcase them as lovingly as Soundslike, they'd probably be in a box/binder somewhere.

I love unboxing stuff ive stashed away somewhere for whatever reason (space, moving, travel, no current interest in etc). 18 years is a long time!

I've forever given up physical media, but pictures of full CD racks brings back the memories/feelings.

^^

love seeing your photo, Soundsalike

Two copies of Nashville!

daughter has just started doing a college radio show (streaming) and she's been going CD only, so maybe a sign of them being cool with the kids (retro!)(that looks great, Soundslike!)

getting new shelves on Monday, looking forward to having my CDs all sorted in one place for the first time in ages

I figured if anyone in the world would appreciate seeing thousands of CDs in 2024, it would be my fellow ILM oldsters in this thread! Haha!

But I love hearing your daughter is using CDs on her radio show, Bulb! Even if it means my youth is now "retro"--so it goes heh. There are a couple CDs on those shelves I "borrowed" from my college radio station when I had a show circa 1998... Do they actually still have a CD promo library at your daughter's school?

Bamboohouses, I'm sorry to hear of your regret at ditching your CDs. Based on living my whole adult life in small apartments, I'd considered ditching mine--the ones from age 24 to 41 had been schlepped around the country and stored in bankers boxes, literal useless weight... But I just hate all the streaming companies, and much as I've loved Bandcamp we see that can be precarious... So I just kept holding on. At least if/when you move, you'll have a much easier time compared to me!

Birdistheword, that's kind of what I did this time--recently bought a my first CD player in 25 years, a little discman-like (much chunkier/uglier than they were back in the late 90s, but with rechargeable built-in battery), and just put on the discs I was considering culling while I did the tedious work of rejoining discs/booklets/cases. Heard a few I liked better now than then (i.e. Flipper).

Here's what I culled--mostly duplicates (ones I bought again in later reissues), and some I'm just ditching. Not sure the best thing to do with them, but in the past I've given CDs and DVDs to the bookstore I live above who have a nice little curated vinyl-only music section. Just makes me happy to see CDs in a shop anymore--and I think they sold them all!

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/20240426_101958.jpg

Seeing that Wilco CD makes me think of the numerous Xth Anniversary Remastered Reissued Box Sets I've acquired over the years, and how I still can't seem to rid myself of the now redundant original versions of same.

I’m sure those felt 2-fers made someone very happy!

I had the same tendency, Henry. And have held on to a couple original CDs simply as mementos (like my first copy of This Heat's 'Deceit' for which I hunted far and wide in the early 2000s). And a couple where the reissues suffered from the brick-wall "remaster" era. But mostly, as with this current batch (including that Wilco, which I bought when it came out at a Best Buy of all places), I'm happy to imagine them living on and having a second life serving some precocious Gen Z music nerd to buys CDs because they're cheaper than vinyl(s) heh

The book shop downstairs said the CDs I gave them before sold very quickly, so thats where this big batch will go.

The CD revival is real! Hahaha

There are a few CDs I sold when I got remastered versions that I really wish I'd held onto. One was a mono CD of Captain Beefheart's Safe as Milk. I sold it when I got the remixed and remastered stereo version, but I've grown to dislike the way they mixed the stereo.

I still love CDs -- second hand discs are so cheap these days (undervalued IMO). I do probably need to purge a bunch of discs I'll never get around to listening to again.

I keep buying more and more cds which I play in the car to and from school so I can educate the kid. Lately he was really into Psalm 69 by ministry. Two bucks in the discount section! A steal!

Fun scanning the first photo for titles I recognize/have, where even if I can't read the spines I recognize e.g. the Can reissues from the color array and the inconsistent placement of the text across the series (I think it depended on what territory you got them from). I recognize some superseded earlier CD issues from the second photo that I got rid of, too. Kept my Stereolabs as I bought the vinyl reissues rather than the CDs, also held on to my '80s Colin Newman A-Z as I found the reissue pretty squashed/loud.

I have that Sister Rosetta Tharpe set.

And I that ESG thing on Soul Jazz, which really stands out, graphically.

Makes me wish I had followed through and bought all of those Todd Rundgren reissues on Sanctuary a decade or so ago, where all the spines formed an elongated portrait of the man, when filed in chronological order.

see also: Asmus Tietchens CD reissue series on Die Stadt

We are all the people who cannot not browse somebody's music library if we visit their house heh

If it helps in identifying discs, everything on the shelves is in pure alphabetical order by artist (though chaos order past that).

that Wilco, which I bought when it came out at a Best Buy of all places

I was explaining to someone recently about how in the '90s you could pick up practically any major label release at a Big Box store, and if you couldn't at your first stop, you could at your second (which was probably across the street/freeway).

I did buy several not used CDs from multiple online retailers last night… consumerism!! grabbed those deluxe reissues of FM’s Mirage and Tango

My favorite big box store back in the day was Media Play, they had locations in Rockford, Erie, and Buffalo. And I'm sure elsewhere. I bought so many CDs at all three locations mentioned above, the one in Rockford was the first location and I went in there and stocked up on so many '90s alt rock CDs. If they didn't have a copy, and they usually did, the Best buy across the street did. They also had a lot of techno cds, I'm pretty sure I bought almost all of my '90s techno albums at one of those. Media play cornered the market on Future sound of London east of the Mississippi iirc.

I used to wonder if Circuit City had some deal with Rykodisc, because my suburban one (opened Fall 1997) had a ton of their stuff: all the Yoko reissues, arcane Zappa stuff like the Francesco Zappa album etc.

I remember seeing the the three (ESP-Disc) Godz albums on CD at Best Buy in like 1998.