Continuing with CDs?

Agreed ^^. I dislike those wallets. I suppose I have the privilege of a reasonable amount of space.

I use an old Denon "universal" player (DVD-2930) which was cheap used and does a good job with CDs - and plays HDCDs, SACDs and DVD-A as well, should that be yr bag

Had a Discman hooked up in my home system til I randomly found a cheap Tivoli wooden player locally (the sound is not any better)

There's no way in hell I was ever going to have storage/display room for 2000+ CDs in their cases is the long and short of it. I might have to start taking a Sharpie to the ones with really anonymous-looking CD designs, though.

And of course the vast, vast majority of those have no resale value whatsoever

Last time I moved (3 years ago), I decided to dump most of my CD packaging in the recycling skips at the back of my building. It was a bit spooky* to see 25+ years of stuff just tossed in the trash like that. (* - Don't worry, I have Spooky on vinyl). I filled a couple of binders with the discs but, as Simon H says, I flip through them now and have no idea what some of them are. I had to Shazam one the other day.

I still have a couple of racks of stuff I kept intact. Most of the comps, cos they're impossible to navigate without liner notes.

yeah, I kept some of the box sets and things with cooler packaging intact

I've been doing the discman plugged into my stereo thing for a while and have been wanting to upgrade to a nicer player, but have been having a surprisingly annoying finding players that (1) have a digital display and the traditional stop/track advance/play/pause CD player buttons on the front, (2) are less than 100 bucks, and (3) dont look like complete shit with some kind of weird bulging black plastic 2002-ass boombox design. Frustrating that there are so many cheap DVD players like that $7 one at walmart that would work perfectly fine, but they all either have no display or just one single button on the front or something. Its a tough life.

I went the Craigslist route and ended up with a very durable player.

"There's no way in hell I was ever going to have storage/display room for 2000+ CDs in their cases is the long and short of it."

Yeah I can sympathise. I'm lucky that I do have the space for that. I enjoy browsing.

you threw away the packaging and not just the case? yikes.

that said, all the binders i've looked at had big enough pockets for the square booklets but not quite enough room for the longer back bits (where the tracklisting normally is) or jcards from cd singles.

(thinks of all the things i bought because the cover was interesting...)

Cover Flow was the best digital method of browsing album covers I've seen so far, so of course Apple ditched it.

Yep, I think I started down the the route of prising open the jewel cases and retaining the rear card (ignoring the problem of where to fit them) but after about 50, I thought "sod this". I kept some booklets but if it was *that* nice, I kept the whole thing. Same with DVDs/Blu-Rays; I think I kept all the BFI stuff, intact or booklets.

xp

I think at one point i had just the discs and booklets upright in shoeboxes so I could just flip through them like vinyl.

I kept a few booklets but tbh most booklets are shite and I didn't feel bad about ditching them

About ten years back (crazy to think of it!) is when I did my mass reduction, either donating a slew of CDs or putting them into CaseLogics, along with their booklets. What I kept as-is were pretty much any/all compilations (due to the liner note question, though a few went straight to the CaseLogics like the Have A Nice Day discs I had around, things that weren't 'standard' CD packaging and anything that was straight up CDR, as I had a lot from the psych/drone underground that fit that category in particular. That's about where it's stayed since though I've adjusted as I went; I have one big CD rack still, purchased when I got to SF, but since I had about ten or so before the reduction it's still a reduction. There's a little spillover but that's mostly small boxsets that can literally stand on their own, things like the Prince reissues, the Fall Peel Sessions set, etc. I do a little fine tuning here and there as I go. (As for DVD/Blurays that's all straight to the CaseLogics with just a couple of exceptions.)

Time for a new link to https://spacesavingsleeves.com/ - I junked my jewel boxes for them many years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40hd2-IXpdI

I do keep my Criterions in their packaging since they actually do hold a bit of value.

that said, all the binders i've looked at had big enough pockets for the square booklets but not quite enough room for the longer back bits (where the tracklisting normally is)

Yup. Has anyone found binders with pockets that will accommodate the back bits?

I have a couple of vintage curio cabinets that I got from my grandmother's house years ago, that I use to store special-packaging CDs (box sets, CDs in metal tins, odd sizes, wood boxes, CDs that come in books, etc.) Even box sets can be unwieldy (i.e. the Alice Cooper Old School box shaped liked a classroom desk) but you kind of have to keep them intact.

I would think with the back bits you could just fold the spines underneath and slip in the same envelope as the booklets. Or cut the spines off entirely.

(you all realise, i hope, that if you resell or give away the actual cds then you aren't legally the owner anymore so shouldn't be listning to your rips...)

don't think i've ever got rid of a single cd. oh, actually, i had some duplicate 'free 4ad sampler with purchase' things (and my spare sarah singles) that got swished.

and this is why i can't move in my flat. (i'm still using the big black ikea carousal that mike helped me lump back from wembley that one time)

looking to buy a bigger condo mostly so I can have an extra bedroom to use as a media room, CDs clutter up the joint and personally I just don't like my living room having a TV in it, the focal point should be a fireplace.

no way am I getting rid of my CDs or their cases though! I'll jettison my vinyl first, most likely.

Time for a new link to https://spacesavingsleeves.com/ - I junked my jewel boxes for them many years ago.

I've been eyeing those sleeves for quite some time! I have a question though. I'm assuming you've got to store those vertically, right? I ask because the way most of my shelves are built, I have to store the CDs horizontally (stacked on each other) since they aren't specifically designed for single row CD storage. I'm assuming stacking these would crush the spine side of the tray card and defeat the purpose, but I was curious. I'd love to reduce the space though, I just don't have the budget for all new shelves too.

not sure i want to buy anything from Jazz Loft.

(oh, he's only the youtube uploader. still...)

Fwiw, as I understand it, the current place to buy them online is no longer Jazz Loft.

https://spacesavingsleeves.com/

I seriously considered going that route instead but tbh I couldn't justify the expense for an innovation that while neat would simply not save *enough* space for my requirements

space is a consideration, but for me the burden of a collection is mostly mental, this thing that requires curation and attention, etc.

(i'm still using the big black ikea carousal that mike helped me lump back from wembley that one time)

Oh wow - that was... 21, 22 years ago?

I went from crates to purpose-built bookshelves-on-wheels to a wall of Ikea shelving to a row of glass-fronted cabinets. That's where the rot set in. The cabinets were behind the couch, so opening the doors fully / getting to stuff on lower shelves was a pain. Stuff would just sit out for months next to the stereo.

i have those sleeves, and they do save tons of space. I have all 600 or so of my cds on a rack which used to hold less than 200, I think. I kept a few in jewel cases and all mine which were in digipacks

they aren't perfect, mainly because they are formless enough where it can be hard to get them to stand so that you can read the spines easily.

you can't stack them on top of each other, after 5 or so they will just start to spill and slide all over.

i used to have one of those large Boltz cd racks. It seems so silly spending hundreds of dollars on something to nicely hold cds now. That thing was so heavy.

The space-saving gatefold sleeves seem popular, as I've had many post-sale enquiries from Discogs buyers asking where I got them from. I also prefer the way they protect the booklets: Say Goodbye To Teeth-Snarl Woes, etc.

> 1000ct CD SLEEVES
> From $169.95

holy cow. and i'd need more than one of those...

actually, i don't. the existing shelves are fine, i'd just need enough make enough space to house the overflow, probably a few hundred.

and then there's the dvds...

(yeah, 21+ years. have been in london since '99 and it was before that, but i'm not sure how much before.)

Those sleeves look OK but a good 50% if not more of my CDs are digipaks. I really don't think I would get that much benefit from swapping half of my CDs into that format - it would just make them look weird next to all the others.

it also seems kinda hard to make out the spines...

Yeah, those are the reasons why, though I've considered the sleeve option, I'm fine without it.

all these de-packaging solutions sound like violence :-(

Seriously. "If you tear the covers off your books, you can fit more books on your shelf!"

also that way I can't judge them

but seriously, it's just stuff. for the most part I could lose it in a fire or flood and I'd be over it within a week

but seriously, it's just stuff. for the most part I could lose it in a fire or flood and I'd be over it within a week

if i grabbed my NAS drive en route out of the house, then yeah, otherwise, absolutely f*ckin not.

I was considering those sleeves but they're way more expensive than I remembered. Wanted the paper sleeves too (apparently they give more protection? But how?) but that's probably just too much. Maybe I don't have as many CDs as I feared.

I don't even get the point of owning physical media if you aren't going to keep the packaging. Why not just rip it all to flac or whatever and get rid of the discs too?

Seriously. "If you tear the covers off your books, you can fit more books on your shelf!"

That's.... not at all what this is like though. Those sleeves are specifically just to eliminate the jewel case - they allow you to keep the liner notes and the tray insert. I wouldn't use this for anything in a digipak or in any other kind of non-standard packaging. I wouldn't feel like I'm losing anything, and it's totally reversible if you ever want the jewel case again.

For what it's wroth, I'm not going to invest in these myself, but I totally get the appeal.

A revolving tower design of shelfs (with a lazy susan as the base), say about 5 feet tall, is an easy way of storing over 1000 CD's without taking up much space. The only catch is, since's it a greater concentration of media within a smaller space, it's also heavy AF, so once you fill it, don't expect to move it unless you take everything off the shelves again. (Also make sure you leave enough space around it so that it can rotate without bumping into any obstacles.) A good one can be expensive, but they're also easy to build if you've got the basic tools.

*shelves not shelfs

*since it's - sorry I need to proofread these before I post

The biggest reality is that I just need to cull my collection.

all these de-packaging solutions sound like violence :-(

― brimstead, Wednesday, 8 July 2020 20:28

This ^^ I can get it if you've absolutely no space. But it seems to defeat the purpose of owning physical media. I think I'd rather go totally digital before getting rid of cases etc