Continuing with 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.

when you say fail do you mean it was completely beyond repair/no way to salvage at all?

Pulled me up short to think back and realise that the only physical CD I’ve bought in the last 2 years was a small/local thing from a shop in Tokyo, March 2023. I haven’t been 12 months without buying a CD since 1987.

One upshot about expensive vinyl is that it’s made it easier to buy nice gifts for people. There was a long stretch where getting music for anyone I know wasn’t going to be met with an enthusiastic response, but now I can just buy a brand-new reissue of an album they like that they otherwise coveted but didn’t want to splurge on.

just to give you an idea of the allovertheplaceness of what i sell online when it comes to CDs. these are some from this week. all $10 and under except for the KLF which was $35.

Ken Nordine - Colors: A Sensuous Listening Experience

Jontavious Willis - Spectacular Class

Catherine Russell - Inside This Heart Of Mine

Adrian Belew - Op Zop Too Wah

Roberta Flack - First Take

Stratovarius - Elements Pt.2

Meredith Monk - Turtle Dreams

Bob Martin - Midwest Farm Disaster

The KLF - Chill Out

Turtle Dreams is so good, almost as good as Dolmen Music

That Ken Nordine is classic!

I went to the local used record store yesterday to patch some holes in my Reprise-era Sinatra, and I had the choice between a VG vinyl copy of September of My Years for $20 or used CDs of September of My Years, That's Life, Sinatra-Basie, and It Might as Well Be Swing for a grand total of $13. I went with the 4 CDs.

September of my years for $20!

I kind of thought Frank was one of the reliable holdouts as far as cheap vinyl, him and emmylou and Poco and Stephen stills or Graham Nash or stills and Nash

*crosby and Nash!

Yeah, I'm no longer shocked to see that kind of stuff for $20, it's par for the course now at my local record store. They have a copy of Fleetwood Mac Rumours on the wall for $50! I mean its in great condition, but those used to be always under $10.

Rumours will always be a dollar bin record in my mind

I sell Rumours for $20. that has been my set price for the last 5 years or so. Tapestry I sell for $10. they have to be VERY clean though. but what the hell things change. you know? people still come in and think ECM jazz records are going to be a dollar. I have to tell them that it is not 1992.
ELO prices have gone up. I have noticed. Out Of The Blue can be $20 now.

People don't want Tusk for $20 though. which is SAD. its worth its weight in gold.

i thought the Rumours frenzy would have gone away by now but it really hasn't. i could sell a hundred copies a year if i had a hundred. i still stop myself from buying new copies wholesale for $20 though. i don't know why. i could totally sell a new copy for $30. just feels wrong...

a profit is not without honor, they say

I hate digisleeves, I almost don’t even want to bother buying a cd released this way

specifically the small ass ones with no gatefold

ditto. as someone who typically stores CDs on a bookshelf, my policy is no spine, no sale

of course, the artist or label gets the last laugh because if I want it bad enough I'll just buy a vinyl copy at 3x the price instead

i thought the Rumours frenzy would have gone away by now but it really hasn't. i could sell a hundred copies a year if i had a hundred. i still stop myself from buying new copies wholesale for $20 though. i don't know why. i could totally sell a new copy for $30. just feels wrong...

― scott seward,

I read on Medium a few years ago a record store owner claim that he could pay his rent on how many copies he sells of Rumours monthly.

I think someone said it here before but Rumours is a great barometer record for a store. If it's $20 and in nice shape you can generally extrapolate that the store itself will be reasonable on the whole. And yeah, we sell them within 24hrs of putting them out, easily, without fail. But, like scott said, it's a bummer that the Rumours tide has not lifted Tusk at all. Perfect album, just sits and sits.

The new Jessica Pratt CD is particularly disappointing, not only one of the thinnest digisleeves I've ever seen but the CD itself was thin too! Borderline CDR. Going to think twice about buying a CD from Mexican Summer in the near future.

I thought this piece a touching analysis of the Fleetwood Mac phenomenon:

https://slate.com/culture/2024/04/fleetwood-mac-stevie-nicks-rumours-taylor-swift-stereophonic-daisy-jones.html

Old man question here: what’s the deal with all of the odd sized packaging for what I assume is k-pop cds? There’s a section of this at Barnes & Noble and Target, and all of the random sizes stress me out, as a person that wants uniform packaging.

the digisleeve thing really needs to end

I like them. They are more like vinyl lp packaging. Lighter and less bulky than jewel boxes or digipaks. no plastic to break and clog landfills. I hate when the spindle breaks in a digipak and it won't hold a CD.The spines are legible if they are not packed too tight.I prefer when there's an inner sleeve as well so sometimes I add a paper sleeves.

if it’s a nice mofi miniLP style digisleeve sure, yes, but no the other kind just give off cheap “random friend’s vanity project” vibes to me and the CDs get scratched because they’re too small to fit any inner sleeves inside.

go past his blahblahblah to 9:54 when he puts the needle down. sounds awesome! i do have really nice speakers in my bedroom though. but still. sounds awesome. i'm convinced that's a $2,000 turntable with $368,000 worth of gold on it though.

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

i'm gonna throw away my records and just make CDrs of youtube videos. sounds way better than Spotify. don't know about Tidal.

Wow. I can't believe how obviously the quality of the LP and system come through on a YouTube video. The soundstage was instantly there and everything is smooth and lush..Thank you for the experience.

Whooooffff! Superb sound, easily noticeable even on YouTube. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it. All the high detail but no sibilance, weighty and detailed lows. Best I've ever heard and I'm a SD fan. Excellent review.

my barometer for used vinyl had been (until lets dance jumped up several years back) the 80s bowie records.

my new one is randy newman.

obviously this is the best comment:

"GEEEEEZ! Porcaro is da epitome of perfection punch and subtle nuance dynamics and leads the energy like driving the song like a bus steady as she goes"

or maybe this is:

"i like your humor, greetings from switzerland"

i don't know how all the audiophile/classic rock dweebery hasn't killed my enjoyment for steely dan. they must be unkillable. i can talk about SD here on ilx and NOWHERE else. like, the very idea of a real life discussion fills me with fear, loathing, dread, hate, etc. even on social media. they are an asshat magnet for sure. and i do feel for the people who hate them. people probably should hate them.

Same, the fucking virus of awful Steely Dan internet meme joke crap hasn’t diminished my love either