Continuing with CDs?

I have bronzed CDs from 1996. I have never kept my discs in a disc wallet or left them lying around outside the case (maybe overnight if I was playing music with friends, but that wouldn't be the case with these). Just saying.

Never checked out those alternative cases, btw. Still faintly interested, as space is finite (obvs) so I'm just moving more out to the loft / under the spare bed every year.

I've never noticed a CD bronze or rot or disintegrate and we must've had 3,000 go through our hands over the years.

From that wiki link, "The problem is also prevalent with many discs that were manufactured by Nimbus during the late 1980s to the mid 1990s" - yep, the one I can remember being bronzed to fuck from 1996 is Tanya Donelly's Sliding and Diving CD single, which was mastered by Nimbus. And one from 1995 that was PDO - Pulp, Common People.

Most painful victim of bronzing: Disco Inferno's "Summer's Last Sound/Love Stepping Out" EP. I bought three of them over the years until the 5 EPs got released, and every one of them bronzed out.

My second hand copy of that was always bronze. Played ok though I thought.

Apologies for misleading info on poorly-manufactured CDs; I didn't realize it continued into the 90s. Not surprised it wasn't big news at the time, though; surely, the industry didn't want the sustainability of their massive cash cow to be questioned.

The bronzing is interesting because it causes an actual deterioration of the sound, not skipping or refusal to play at all... it sounds like road noise that gets louder and louder on mine.

one of the lamest things is that it seems like laptops are being made w/o CD drives now?

external drives are p cheap though

(xp re noise)

I had a CD that deteriorated like that to the extent it sounded like Merzbow had hijacked the recording studio when they were mastering it. I suspect it was probably a CD-R since it was released on a tiny label in around 2003.

I've got about as many CDs as Sick Mouthy and as you can see I've been quite a bit less lucky with this over the years.

Oddly (?) never had a problem with older CDRs -- I still stumble across plenty for a buck from CDR-only labels last decade that rip/play fine.

And yes, pretty simple to get an external. I have a Samsung Blu-Ray drive for my MacMini, under $100, and it doesn't even need a separate power line -- just plugs directly into a USB connection. As I still get promos and scrounge the used bins as noted, it's a perfect addition.

I won't buy CD-Rs any more after getting 2 duds in a row from Hyped 2 Death.

yeah, i should get one of those external thingies.
and it's true, even when an old CDR seems to be having problems in a CD player (which is rare), I can usually get it to rip to the computer without problems.

I've been lucky with CD-Rs, too; I still have some from 1999 and 2000 that play fine (but I've never stored them in wallets).

Oddly, I did! The story here -- starting around 2000 I (like a lot of other people I suspect) ended up burning any number of mp3s to CDR as they were around, and after a while they all ended up in CaseLogics. In 2010 when I finally made a full switch to an external hard drive for the collection as such, I went back and imported them all in...and they all seemed to import just fine. Haven't removed them again since but hey.

When you burned mp3s to a CD and then ripped them as mp3 again you double compressed them... do they sound okay?

There were a couple of instances where that happened but I actually mostly directed burned them as data discs -- I had a separate player by 2001 or so (may even have been my first DVD player) which read/played mp3s directly. Therefore, no need to compress further.

The first 10 or so Burnt Sugar releases, which are some of my favorite music in the world, were all on CD-R; my copies play fine, but I've considered ripping them to my hard drive in CD quality (I usually rip stuff as 256kbps AAC files, for my iPod).

I would personally advocate for multiple backups of any CDR material

i think you should make at least 10 copies of every CDR/CD you own and send them to friends and family for safe-keeping. also keep one copy in a safe deposit box on CDR and also a digital backup on some sort of external drive and also keep a separate digital copy of every CD on a separate computer from your main computer that runs continuously via its own emergency power source separate from your main power grid (diesel generator, etc.) 24/7. also, commit the CDRs/CDs to memory and hum a little bit from them every day in case you need to duplicate them acoustically on ukelele/banjo/etc if every physical and digital copy is somehow destroyed.

otm

You should back up everything to vinyl. It's the only format that can be played without electricity.

yep as long as there are cactus needles and styrofoam cups we can always listen to those sweet 180 gram lps.

I bought a limited run CDr from Mark Burgess' short lived band Bird and it totally crapped out within a year of purchase. Bummer too, as it features the brilliant guitar work of Yves Altana. But it's essentially unplayable now.

Often you can still extract usable files on a computer even if the CD won't play without skipping.

I've tried. Oh trust me, have I tried.

It does that weird thing where it sounds like rotating static over the music. You know that thing?

vinyl-only releases are super annoying huh

if i don't want the vinyl i have to hunt for the mp3 and i hate hunting down mp3s on shady sites, i hate it so much that i just might buy the vinyl

sorry not completely relevant to the thread but i didn't feel like finding another one

it's just, vinyl is so useless for me. i have a bunch but there are so few circumstances that allow for me to listen to vinyl at home. cds i play in my car, can rip to my laptop and then put on my phone, etc. like if you put out a vinyl-only release i am pretty much only doing the purchase to support you and not to listen to you.

Oddly, I did! The story here -- starting around 2000 I (like a lot of other people I suspect) ended up burning any number of mp3s to CDR as they were around, and after a while they all ended up in CaseLogics. In 2010 when I finally made a full switch to an external hard drive for the collection as such, I went back and imported them all in...and they all seemed to import just fine. Haven't removed them again since but hey.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, February 22, 2016 12:02 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is what I plan to do (seriously) given a Burgess-Meredith-in-the-Twilight-Zone-last-man-alive-in-the-bomb-shelter type scenario. I have thousands - thousands! - of CDRs of things burned from Audiogalazy, Napster, as well as stuff friends have burned for me, friends' bands, mixes, etc, just sitting on spools (and, God help me, "slim" jewel cases) and I know a lot of it isn't replaceable.

My New Year's resolution for the past five years running is "less stockpiling, more listening,' but it's tough to really listen when you're spending half your time cataloging the shit you have already, err, stockpiled. I realize it is a senseless waste of time, but such is the disorder. This is a problem that predates the digital glut: if someone recommends a book to me, I'm the guy who finds it cheap online and buys it that day, despite having a pile of unread books on the nightstand. I guess I figure I will live forever.

I have never done the math on this, but a similarly-afflicted friend once told me that if he started listening to every CD, LP, 7" and cassette he owned TODAY, doing nothing else for the rest of his life and without ever even eating or sleeping ever again, he still wouldn't get to hear everything he owns. A sobering thought, and a comment more on mortality than anything else. Especially fucked up when you realize you are still acquiring more new music every day.

that's true about not having the time to listen, but as a fellow fiend I feel that the real problem is not "I want to hear everything" but "I want to be able to hear anything"

having more and more choices is part of the addiction

Hmmm. That is an important distinction, I guess. Like, if I feel like listening to dub, I can go find a hundred dub albums I bought when I went through a massive phase ten years ago, and hear days of dub without leaving the house (or resorting to streaming). Of course, the problem is, I'm just as likely to find an old dub thread on ILX and be all "I didn't know that got reissued omg need that right now" and down the rabbit hole I go etc etc etc

Even at 33 I'm pretty sure I don't have enough days left to listen to my collection end to end, which causes a bit of internal concern every now and then when I bring home another haul of cheap CDs.

I still mostly buy on CD, preferring to to vinyl for price and versatility and to buying MP3s on the basis I'd rather have a physical copy if it's costing about the same. Until recently I didn't have a reliable CD player, so all of those CDs were being ripped straight to the computer and iTunes used as a convenient jukebox - if nothing else it gives access to the half of my collection that would have to be dug out of crates to play, so otherwise forgotten about.

I got a reliable second hand CD player before christmas, and started actually listening to CDs again. The input to the (cheapo) amp was a little distorted, but otherwise a reasonably satisfying experience. On a whim at the weekend I went into Richer Sounds and upgraded my amp, turntable and speakers and what a difference it's made! Everything I've listened to on CD since has sounded very good, certainly better than the MP3s. I'm even happier with how the vinyl I've listened to sounds, but I think my prime format will remain CD for now. I could do with a better storage solution than I have, though. There's not much space in my flat!

This may be a dumb question, but does the quality of the CD player make any difference whatsoever? Obviously I'm asking as it pertains to sound quality, not durability, looks, etc. I've been using a DVD player for a decade now and it's never occurred to me to upgrade.

I doubt it makes all that much difference, I replaced the old one because it was pretty temperemental as to whether it felt like playing a CD or not on that day. May be differences in the quality of the in-board DAC, I suppose.

I'm not much of an audiophile though, so may be wrong.

xp DVD player probably has a decent DAC, it definitely makes a difference. I think scott swears by the PS1 as a CD player on some other thread.

"When you burned mp3s to a CD and then ripped them as mp3 again you double compressed them... do they sound okay?"

MP3s don't "double compress." They remain unchanged. You wouldn't rip them again, just copy them as the music format files they are.

Here's my story. I'm old enough to have had a decent vinyl collection . . . bought and sold three f'n times, beginning in the '70s! Yeah, I'm not too proud of that. I swore off vinyl the last time for a number of reasons, mainly because of the poor pressings for too much money, and the fact that they're damn heavy when you have to move. I like CDs, and I even splurged on a Rega Apollo-R a couple of years ago. I had MP3s; always hated 'em, after the initial novelty wore off. Then I became enamored with computer audio and FLAC files. Sold the the Rega. After a couple of years of not enjoying the IT-ish maintenance, the bad album cover linking and other assorted aggravations, I said to hell with that for now (maybe the future will be beautiful and perfect). Back to CDs . . . So I thought I'd put my crummy Samsung single disc DVD player into use with a Schiit Modi DAC. That sounded pretty good, but I didn't like the display of the DVD player limited to only showing the current track's time played. And the DVD player's transport's noise started to grate on me, just enough to make yet another change. So I bought a refurb'ed NAD CD player from Spearit Sound in Massachusetts. $200, normally $300. Yes, a good player can sound better than a crappy one. No need to spend a lot.

I just want to put a CD into a box and hear good music. It's all I ask.

If you burned mp3s as *audio CDs*, ripped them (which is what "skip" wrote) and re-encoded to mp3 you would be talking about a further stage of sound degradation.

yeah the confusion here is that someone assumed Ned burned the MP3s to CD as redbook CD/WAV files, then re-encoded them to MP3, but what he actually did was burn the MP3s as data to a data disc, then ripped them back into his computer at a later date.

That's not really "ripping" which might be where the confusion is. He just copied the mp3 files off the disc back to his computer.

ha, good point

And I didn't have to say anything! Further, that is.

When I moved into my current (small) flat, I had space for a bookcase to the right of the sofa bed, and for some storage in my bedroom. (My speakers sit on Ikea Traby cubes full of vinyl). The bookcase contains A-C of my CDs, and the slightly terrifying storage behemoth in the bedroom D-Z + comps + CD-Rs and all my DVDs. I would like, one day, to condense all the CDs into that bookcase. I guess this means shedding 70%+ of them. Rather than the "I never listen to this any more" purge of a couple of years ago (when I put 200-300 CDs on Music Magpie), I guess this would more take the form of "I'm fine with streaming/ripping this" vs "I can't imagine being without a physical copy of this". Not that there isn't another layer of "I never listen to this any more" in those racks.

So I bought a refurb'ed NAD CD player

Which model did you go for, out of curiosity? I have a NAD C541i.

I still buy CDs, and listen to them about half the time (the other half is spent streaming new shit). But I'm really starting to get annoyed by the different-sized CD cases that companies use. Fucking Sub Pop is the worst. I really loved the Kristin Kontrol album that came out this year and wanted to own it on CD, forgetting that it was a Sub Pop CD (I never pay attention to labels). Like all other Sub Pop CDs the CD case is massive, and doesn't fit in my cd rack slots. Sub Pop isn't the only one doing this (Skeleton Tree, another 2016 album I bought on CD, comes in the same sized package), and I'm starting to acquire stacks of these CDs that I can't store in my CD racks.

Even worse is some of the CDs I purchased aren't thick enough to have a spine ao you can make out what album it is without taking it out. I'll stop bitching now :)

I'm with you on all of the above. But I like jewel cases so I'm a true relic of another age. I guess I just don't really require "artistic" packaging, would much rather be able to have some consistency for storage and display purposes. Hate the flimsy not-even-digipacks the most (Skeleton Tree is a good example).

Anything other than a standard box sucks. You don't get CDs for packaging. Or at least not nowadays. Just for convenience and sound quality.

If it's from the peak CD years and it's the kind of music that's recorded, mastered and possibly even written with CD as it's intended medium, then it's the best sound quality you can get. This is how I prefer to listen to Stereolab or Air or something like that.

With vinyl and cassette too - if it's music made for vinyl, from the peak vinyl years, and maybe a genre that fetishised the medium to begin with, it's often the best: garage rock, punk, 80s-era indie, easy listening, classical etc.

Early to mid-80s music that's highly polished sounds best on cassette: Duck Rock, Peter Gabriel, Punch The Clock-era Costello, Mike Oldfield/Jean-Michel Jarre in the 80s - I have a bunch of cassettes of this kind of stuff that I keep, still listen to and they don't seem to have deteriorated at all.

Modern CDs and vinyl: often badly made and not worth it (old ones were badly made too but most of the old ones are cheap).