Continuing with CDs?

AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!

I often worry about discs scratching or having a skipping problem but I think it's actually happened only a couple of times before with the same second hand CD, and eventually the later times I played it, it never skipped again. One dodgy disc in roughly 15 years is not bad.
Some CD players had problems reading some old discs but the two CD players I bought could read anything.

I started playing the first disc of the new(ish) Lush box set Chorus. It skips like a bastard and a few reviewers have noted this, good thing I didn't buy an expensive replacement. Why did such an important package have to have this problem?
One reviewer said that with a CD over 76 minutes, there's a risk of skipping but I've never had this problem.

My new Sony CD is great but it smells really bad of strong plastic. Hope the smell fades over time.

I'll say that the way most labels are packaging their CDs now--in flimsy cardboard digipacks that ten years ago would have been used strictly for promotional copies--is definitely not encouraging me to opt for CD versions. Looking at you, new Sleep album, Drag City, Neil Young...

...New Pornographers

having never actually owned a cd player apart from my computer and playstation I'll cop to a certain level of ignorance here but records are packaged in cardboard and that seems to work ok?

Paul Ponzi- Are you saying the cardboard damages or it just looks crap? Don't know how flimsy those particular digipaks are that you're talking about.

They:

1) look like shit even before they get bent and creased, which is inevitable
2) typically (and increasingly) lack an additional protective inner sleeve equivalent to vinyl paper sleeves, so the CDs are often scratched before you even unwrap the plastic
3) are impossible to file

the lack of inner sleeves is criminal. MFSL puts out CDs in cardboard jackets these days (not digipaks) but they come with nice soft inner sleeves.

are you guys talking about 'ecowallets'?

when those first hit the scene 15 years ago they felt substandard / promo-only, but strangely, I'm increasingly into them for modern releases as long as they have a thick enough spine to be readable once shelved

I have to make a decision soon between 6-panel digipak & ecowallet for a new release and I'm seriously torn

digipaks are totally cool! with ecowallets i feel like i'm always forcing the CD to fit inside.

Just googled ecowallets, and yes, these bug me. Many don't have a spine at all! The last few Drag City releases I bought were even worse: no panels at all, just a flimsy sleeve with a disc inside. Felt like some Relix compilation CD you'd get in a SXSW swag bag and immediately throw away

Milton, don't factor my opinions into your research or anything! I'm a relic. If I had my way everything would be in a jewel case.

Jewel cases are my pref as well, b/c they can be cleaned or replaced altogether (if needed). I imagine they’re environmentally terrible, however.

(I also dislike those thin cardboard cases w/no inner sleeve)

My main issue with the digipack is the tray: if the spokes on the hub break, you're out of luck, while the glue becomes discolored over time and sometimes loses its adhesion. (This has happened with a few of my 2004-2005 Eno remasters, which were packaged with plastic slipcases as if in anticipation of the trays eventually falling out of place. Heck, maybe they fell out of place because of the tight plastic slipcase.) The Chic box set, which contentwise is among my favorites, needs to be held in place and then opened with great sensitivity (like, on a flat surface) because the hubs simply don't hold the discs in place.

dammit you're right about the tray!

lol those eno slipcases were so f'in weird and seemingly pointless

Yeah, the teeth break on those digipack trays, goodbye packaging forever. Totally impractical. I like the uniformity of the jewel case, with visible spines and, yes, universal and easily replaceable if necessary.

The idea of making a "mini LP replica" sleeve is so fucking stupid.

lol those eno slipcases were so f'in weird and seemingly pointless

I believe the label did the same thing when they reissued Van der Graaf Generator's catalog a year or two later.

The jewelcase is like just this side of a really good design that might have let me stay in love with CDs. The universal-replacement aspect is great! Sliding them in and out of shelves is satisfying! It's everything else about them that's ugly and unpleasant - the tabs that hold the booklets in are ungenerous and unforgiving, swapping out the back panel is a little harder than it needs to be, the hinge attachment feels (and is) flimsy and doomed to break. And overall I think the plastic is just a hair too thick, or something, which makes them feel more like the massive utilitarian theft-proofing things the chain stores would additionally house them in, not like a beloved album in your hand. The material feels worn out and scuffled and not-quite-completely-transparent sooner than it ought, making even the brightest and most saturated album art look kinda dingy and blah.

One of those things where a design got standardized too soon IMO, and digipaks stepped in as the "classy" alternative but with such a host of other problems as enumerated above. Though even a period of wider experimentation might not have gotten us anywhere - the early years of VHS saw a real range of packaging solutions, almost all more satisfying and feature rich than the very basic form-fitting cardboard sleeve that became the ubiquitous standard.

I passed on a bunch of cheap used Eno remasters recently because they were in those digis.

I started buying CDs in the mid-to-late 80s and even those still play just fine. Back in the 70s some company(ies?) where selling car-audio turntables -- who would actually want to take their wax on the road? Cassettes, though, cassettes were practically designed to handle ketchup/beer spillage and even the errant leftover roach.

Using solid storage towers/shelves and organized will keep my well-used stax looking pristine indefinitely.

Kinda dig those 'slimline' jewel cases - they're roughly half the depth of a regular jewel case, yet you can fit a J-card in the top cover and still print information on the spine. Often times you see them without a back-sleeve, and the disc is fixed upside-down, so you can see the graphics when looking at it from the back. The teeth don't seem so brittle on my copies (+Minus - A Rainy Koran Verse, and one of the ErstLive series), as most clear plastic trays.

I liked the attention that Drag City put into their jewel cases, during the late 90s / early 00s - with a custom (glossy, or colored) tray piece, and high quality (various types of stock) paper booklets. Nowadays you get a cardboard slip that's dog-eared to shit when you get it in the mail.

Edition Wandelweiser uses these three-panel, folding paper (thick) pieces, with a small foam 'anchor' for the CD hole. Uniform layout / typography, discs are colored (nice appearance), but it's a flimsy package. It comes in a plastic slip, with an adhesive, fold-over lip.. pretty much throwaway

Another Timbre

Don't know why jewel cases still use teeth after so many other better types have been around.

I've never really thought about it, but it's kind of true that there's no durable, protective and aesthetically-pleasing case widely available for CDs. Jewel cases are durable (or at least easily replaceable) and protective, but not aesthetically pleasing. Digipaks are a slight step up in aesthetics still kind of ugly, and prone to breakage. Cardboard eco-sleeves are a bit more aesthetically pleasing but not terribly protective. I guess maybe having an inner sleeve in a cardboard outer sleeve would be the best of both worlds, but a bit of a pain to get the CD in and out. In my own cases, I ditched all my CD cases a long while back and put everything in binders - a triumph of convenience over aesthetics.

The basic / single (?) gatefold "wallet", with two panels (+ a spine = two creases) and a plastic tray glued on the right panel, (in)side works--no extra unfolding necessary, print the information inside the single-panel cover, beneath the disc, or on the back cover. Remember when Syro came out on CD, it has like a nine-panel gatefold packaging (wtFphex !?) - i would've cut the bulk/excess cardboard off if I had to open it every time I put it on.

I solved that problem by selling it to Amoeba.

I raved about these upthread, they are great:

https://spacesavingsleeves.com/

They are polythene gatefold CD sleeves that take up a fraction of the space on shelves. If you get a CD in a jewel case, just throw that shit away and put the disc, booklet and tray card in one of these. And yes, you can still see the spine on the shelf.

100% agree ^^^

I'm still thinking about getting those.

Oh hell no

No. Those look awful.

Sadly, if I wanted all of my CDs to be on shelves as a proper library, I'd have to own an apartment twice as big as my 650 s.f. apartment. So they're all packed away in boxes in the basement. Which admittedly does defeat some of the purpose of physical media, besides the sense that if I somehow catastrophically lost all of the rips/backups I have of everything, I could re-rip them (over a process of years).

Anybody found any reasonably attractive shelving system? In theory someday I could at least try to turn one wall in my apartment into shelves to make a library of a few thousand of the albums, spouse permitting. . .

Or maybe I need to admit defeat, and donate the 7k or so albums to a library, or to my favorite shop, or something, since supposedly they're now worthless to the LPs-with-download-codes/streaming-only youth ; )

Guess how often I curse at trying to unfold/refold an IPR release (Scenic, Savage Republic, Lanterna, etc.) in one of those origami discfolios. After 20 years, they/'re all coming apart.

Re shelving - a monolithic shelf wall in a neutral colour allows thousands of discs to be just a texture in a room. If you make the shelves a few inches deeper than the discs need, you can put small stuff like photos etc in front even.

Recently bought a bookshelf and a bunch of those Snap-n-Store CD boxes. They hold ~60 regular CDs in jewel cases. I still need about two more. It's an alright (but not perfect) solution so far, and I like that my discs can be accessible without being displayed. Most of my discs are ripped now (save for DJ mixes), and my home listening is usually through Airplay to the A/V receiver or on vinyl through the DJ setup in my front room.

i don't want to continue with cds, and i have a lot of them. some of them might be valuable to someone, i imagine. what is the best way to get rid of them? i'd like to maximize a return but also not have it be a pain in the ass

Buy a barcode scanner (seriously, it will make your life a lot easier) and figure out via Discogs what you have that's valuable. Then sell the valuable ones on Discogs. Then sell the common-but-still-desirable stuff in lots on eBay. Donate the rest?

sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me

also re barcode scanners, there are many smartphone apps for that (which may be what PP meant by buying one)

Just get the Discogs app itself, it has a built-in scanner.

I have never sought and installed an app more quickly in my life! Thanks Ned.

Sit them outside in a box that says "Free CDs"

thanks all, cool to hear about the discogs app!

we do have a really good record/cd exchange shop here but I don't think I'd be able to get a good return on everything in my collection there

'Hipster kryptonite': will CDs ever have a resurgence? https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/08/cds-resurgence-hipster-kryptonite-compact-discs-vinyl-format-music

shit, it's happening.
just picked up :
mike oldfield - amarok
elo - zoom
various - the sound of dubstep 4 (2cd)
derrick carter - pagan offering
£3.50 the lot.
articles like that are going to kill my fun.

Just get the Discogs app itself, it has a built-in scanner.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, August 8, 2018 12:07 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i had this app but could never get the scanner to work, plus when i was in the app it would often open safari and take me to the discogs web page automatically. maybe i should reinstall and try again.

Find a store that still buys them (like a record store, some only do by donation but I found a place that gives me 3 bucks a piece). Unless the cds are in good condition with little to no scuffs they may reject them - this can be a blessing as on a good day I have made 50 bucks but not lost every record (including rare ones)

Just get the Discogs app itself, it has a built-in scanner.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, August 8, 2018 12:07 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

D'oh! I wasn't aware of this!

Like so many others, the hipster is at the helm of these revivals.

I put all the worthwhile cds on half.com when that was a thing like, 10 years ago? I think I made pretty decent money. The next time I moved, I got rid of all the jewel cases. The next time I moved, I finally Iet everything go (2 years ago). I couldn't even find people who wanted 336 caselogic books to use for whatever. It felt really good to stop lugging all of it around.

Find a store that still buys them (like a record store, some only do by donation but I found a place that gives me 3 bucks a piece). Unless the cds are in good condition with little to no scuffs they may reject them

some of them might be valuable to someone, i imagine. what is the best way to get rid of them? i'd like to maximize a return

I bought a shitload of secondhand CD's in the 'Book Off' chain whilst living in Japan - mainly £1.50 to £3.00 per disc. Have since made a bit of a killing on Discogs over the years. There's still demand.