Continuing with CDs?

xp Muji's has no line out though. morrisp's link might be the best one of these knockoffs I've seen. Well, quite similar to the AmazonBasics one Techmoan looked at in this video which took a hilarious (to me) turn to finding a version of the concept that just stuffs the static CD booklet in front of the cool spinny wall disc!

that does solve a lot of the problems (although doesn't work just on its own, which i find a bit odd)

BUT the square nature means ir doesn't look as nice as the circular cd version especially given that the bottom edge is twice as wide as all the others. bugs me.

techmoan did a video about that kind of player recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZyRiHy46FQ

I feel like I could be posting his videos here almost constantly, they're a real treasure trove.

I find watching the disc spin in my Sony CMT-EX1 very satisfying even though I can't really read the display from more than a few feet away, and then I get to admire the label when it's stopped playing. Album covers remain fairly visible in general, where CD face art is the kind of thing that disappears with streaming. (A lot of it's totally generic of course, but so too were those 45 labels of yore that Rhino CDs lovingly emulated.)

I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this but if accurate it’s an interesting comparison of different cd masterings. This compares different version of abba’s “lay all your love on me”… no dumbass voiceover mansplaining just the tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op3XK_x3ehQ

Abba is the example used on the Wikipedia page for the loudness wars, too — looks like it might even be the same song. When you hit '97, it's like your ears get clogged all the sudden.

The feel of that one Pet Shop Boys case in your hand
The smell of the Cibo Matto Viva! La Woman insert

Yeah, ABBA's been treated pretty poorly in the digital era. It's frustrating because as soon as they started using the original, first-generation master tapes, they started jacking up the upper midrange and the treble to make everything overly bright and grating. Then with each subsequent mastering, they kept jacking it up while squashing it with more compression and processing the shit out of everything with horrible noise reduction.

The "best" sounding CD's are the old ones, before the '90s. They aren't perfect - IIRC they all come from production masters, i.e. dubs used for cutting vinyl - but they sound fine when you crank them up, unlike the later CD's from the '90s to the present day.

CDs must be back as Amazon keeps trying to sell me things like these
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imperius-Portable-Improved-Carrying-Moistureproof-Clear/dp/B08XZHV9DF/

https://i.imgur.com/BOwhL96.jpg

They heard you're continuing with CDs

Your Kickstarter Sucks just alerted me to the HOTT CD player: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/553318161/hott-cd-player-rediscover-the-soul-of-music

A stand-up version of the wall player design! lol. Looks technically better than the Muji knockoffs. Headphone jack, optical port, etc.

lol at the image used to represent "Stereo High Quality Speakers" - an lp and a tone arm that looks like it wouldn't track

Ooh... if only the pretty lights also displayed CD-text somehow.

I know memes are the lowest form of art, but this made me laugh:

https://av-cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6nrz45lyato3e4obmzw5jez3/bafkreiacbzjwtd754wmq7jahomlbesz3654nkl5jqjja3mf7vzax2ye6qy@jpeg

Before all you hipsters throw out your cds, we have sold more cds in the past week than anytime in the past year, and more cds than vinyl for the first time in years! pic.twitter.com/G4ZXxlbPSm

— Simon Raymonde (@mrsimonraymonde) September 8, 2023

I like being able to buy like a dozen good secondhand CD's for the price of two brand-new vinyl records. If there was accurate and reliable data about secondhand sales, I'm sure CD sales numbers would be several times more than what's usually reported.

bought jewel cases from…. eugh… Acoustic Sounds because I needed some of those rounded corner SACD ones. The standard cases don’t close all the way and have different kinds of warps. One case back is so bowed that it won’t lay flat. Pretty sad for a company that caters to millionaires. I did pick up the SACD of Dylan’s desire for $20.

xxp lol i bought a vinyl of that anime recently. Kimagure Orange Road. Highest rec.

take me to Summer Side!

Okay, incoming rant here, but I'm increasingly annoyed by artists/labels who just really don't want you to have options to buy their music, or else erect so many barriers to make it not worth your while to try.

Example A - I read about this Philly band, Blues Ambush, who are putting out their S/T debut on Radical Documents, to be released this Friday from what I can see. It is only available on vinyl and the first pressing is sold out already, but there is apparently a second pressing of a whopping 20 copies according to the label's site (in all fairness, that second pressing seems to be currently available at this very moment). But the label recently killed their Bandcamp page, so no digital option anywhere to purchase and not even available to stream either. I get the challenges of physical copies and micro-sized pressings aren't rare at this point, but it seems extra boneheaded in 2023 to not offer a digital/streaming option at all.

Example B- unperson's great substack tipped me to a recent unearthing of an old Purple Trap (Keiji Haino, Bill Laswell, Rashied Ali) recording from 2005. It's digital only and this one IS available on Bandcamp... but only if you subscribe to Laswell's subscription only thing for $22 a month. I'm sure that's a value for some Laswell superfans, but I'm not paying $22 to access the one recording I'm interested in hearing. Seems like you could keep the subscription model going for the Laswell fans interested in the plethora of recordings he has up, and also offer a download option for those only interested in specific releases.

i know this is seriously bad, but ..
i have seen this re subscriber only releases.
what's to stop a bad'un from sub'ing for one month, downloading everything, and then cancelling the sub ?
i have never done it, but weirdly the thought did occur to me via the axiom/laswell thing ..

I suppose that's an option. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely get the appeal of subscriber only models and, to be very clear, I don't fault artists for trying to make a living in any way they see fit (which baffles me even more re: my Example A above) but one drawback seems to be that you are really limiting yourself to diehards only and aren't likely to expand your base much. To be fair, I know Laswell offers other stuff more openly on Bandcamp, but I guess I'm just annoyed about gatekeeping access to certain releases, as noble-intentioned as they may be.

what's to stop a bad'un from sub'ing for one month, downloading everything, and then cancelling the sub ?
i have never done it, but weirdly the thought did occur to me via the axiom/laswell thing ..

I subscribed to Laswell for about a year. I downloaded a bunch of things right away, but then I kept it going because he does keep adding to it month after month. In fact, I'm gonna re-subscribe for a few months because since I left he's unearthed three more Last Exit shows that I didn't even know existed, like they've never been bootlegged anywhere or anything.

I made another CD, for anyone continuing with CDs. Not many copies left. $3, all sales benefitting the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance in memory of Mimi Parker (whose "Laser Beam" I cover on the album).

The CDs of 'Evensong' are in and they came out great! $5 + shipping, 100% of sales go to the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance.https://t.co/E0AAlurNgS

For fans of Stars of the Lid, @lowtheband, KMRU, @infinitykniives, Haxan Cloak, Earth, Hillary Woods, Laurel Halo, Rachel's https://t.co/Dzt8nLPtkl pic.twitter.com/RXMbWeScGY

— Musicophilia - @musicophilia.bsky.social (@musicophiliamix) October 3, 2023

This looks cool but sadly shipping is 20x the CD cost.

argh, 10x.

Yeah, unfortunately shipping internationally has gone bonkers. The last CD I did, a couple folks actually ended up buying it in the UK and Canada and I think postage was literally something like $22 and $17 or so respectively--more than I'd charged based on what I could figure from USPS' cost charts.

Sad to say it in the "continuing with CDs" thread--but at least there's digital : / Sorry : (

It's worth it though. I bought the earlier CD just to be nice and it was really good. The kids like it too.

I bought like 25 or so CDs from the WFMU table at the record fair last weekend. I felt great about it! Such value, many hours of car listening. I got a lot of singer-songwriter stuff, country, some classicc rock faves, a lil bit of 90s free jazz & ethnographic stuff. CDs are great.

ian doo yoo doo the $5 folkways subscription thing? uh, digital. but just wondering. seems like a great deal for digital people.

I do not... I don't really stream anything. I listen to youtube at work cuz we have an account w/o ads. sometimes i listen to stuff i have purchased on bandcamp.

you see all the stuff you can get though?

i only listen to youtube myself. and i pay for premium. i don't download. or buy stuff online. but the folkways deal was tempting.

of course ned "too much is never enough" raggett hepped me to it.

despite being a millennial i am resistant to paying for things i do not actually get to own.
sometimes we listen to WFMU at work too - like this show of 45s from the jukebox at the Great Jones Cafe we are playing rn
https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/133011

you can listen to the vocalion playlist i made a while back. it's free!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqITlO71C61yE3UW4WAf_96-dqfX_0Zsj

It's worth it though. I bought the earlier CD just to be nice and it was really good. The kids like it too.

― Cow_Art, Thursday, October 19, 2023 10:15 AM

Wow, very cool--glad you liked it! Have to admit, "the kids like it" is not something I'd ever have thought I'd hear about my music. They must be very calm kids haha!

The global shipping hikes that kicked in 2019 really blows. I recently bought a double-DVD set that's only distributed through a film museum in Austria, and while it's reasonably priced, the shipping charges more than doubled the cost to $50+. (The few American vendors who carry it charge accordingly, moreso to ensure a profit, likely because of import costs.)

Shipping is why I haven’t copped that three CD PJ Harvey bsides set yet

Fingers crossed it turns up in a record shop one of these days, but when shipping will cost more than the product itself …

https://www.walmart.com/ip/PJ-Harvey-B-Sides-Demos-Rarities-3-CD-CD/1560381469?from=/search

#freeshipping

😦

I noticed this on eBay too, but chalkys (the actual vendor in that Wal-mart listing) in the UK doesn't seem to have any massive shipping charges. Same with musicMagpie. Why is that? Do vendors like them have some kind of deal?

I just bought a CD from a UK seller on discogs, cause this particular compilation was the cheapest way to get a song I wanted. And at $11 with shipping, his was the cheapest copy for me (in the US). Seller then refunds me $2.50, cause after going to the post office it was even cheaper. CDs for me, CDs for you, CDs 4 life

have any ilxors catalogued their collection in some sort of database? i see that discogs has a barcode scanner, i might just do that. also, furniture racks/boxes suggestions?

i'm still contemplating a setup, too. i mostly listen on headphones, so having a small player with a good headphone amp inside would be ideal. drooling over this thing, but it's about 400 dollars outside of my budget. https://hifi-express.com/products/smsl-pl200?variant=44221400252660

I bought a barcode reader a few years ago with the intention of cataloguing all my CDs on Discogs and tbh I didn't end up using it much. It seemed to not scan a lot of discs, and a lot of different pressings of albums that have been reissued a thousand times have the same barcodes, so depending on how meticulous you want to get, you'll still find yourself trying to decipher matrix and mastering codes etched into the CD rims and stuff. I also have an unusual number of CDs without barcodes for some reason. I started just entering them manually and there was something meditative, even a little fun, about that

smartphone barcode apps have gotten much better if you want to go that route

I have an old DBF file that I use to update my CDs. Nothing more than the basic info and I started tracking year purchased in 2000.

My buddy went to the effort of scanning and determined exactly which pressing of all his LPs he owned. Way too much effort for me but I see the appeal.

It's especially appealing if you ever want to sell anything

Does any CD player actually sound better than another? I’ve been using an abandoned DVD player because I assumed it’s all 1s and 0s.