Continuing with CDs?

I also like to create mixes that involve my recent additions. xp

i don't think it's ever occurred to me to PLAY a CD in my laptop before!

speaking of which - in my experience it's cd players that tend to conk out and stop working sooner than the cds themselves. I used to have an almost masonic ritual I would go through when putting cds on my old AIWA stereo - 'You have to put the cd in, press on top of the CD drawer until it spins while holding down the ff button or else it won't play'.

I use binders. It was an incredible relief to throw out all that useless plastic. If I hadn't, I'd have to have another room in my apartment by now. Anyway, there's always digipaks to use for conspicuous display.

I have plenty of '80s CDs and have not noticed any of them getting quieter. Some were quieter than vinyl to begin with though, as mentioned above due to mastering. For example my Exposé 12" singles are way more booming than the Exposé CD from 1987. Manufactured CDs did get louder across the board around 1990 - maybe that's what makes '80s CDs seem defective?

Was at a party the other day and the host had cassette and boom box. Putting the tape (The Bangles' All Over the Place) in the box and pressing play felt like using a Victrola!

I have a Marantz CD+FM+DAB+streaming receiver thing now (with a turntable and "Smart" BluRay-player plugged in) and I guess its use breaks down as something like 10% vinyl, 10% CD, 20% TV, 20% radio, 40% Spotify (whether direct or AirPlay from my phone app - sometimes the former doesn't work and the interface for the latter is better).

I have a bookcase of 200+ CDs* next to the couch, all my vinyl in Traby units underneath the speakers and a massive drawer unit in the bedroom with everything else in it (1000+ CDs, MiniDiscs, DVDs, etc). This seems to work for me now.

CDs aren't getting quieter, you're getting deafer.

That asterisk was supposed to say something about it being purely alphabetical (got the bookcase before the drawer unit) rather than a curated subset. It's A through E, basically. I'm fine for Eno and Autechre.

xp

Oh, and in theory I could AirPlay anything from my iTunes library (assuming my external HDDs were plugged into my laptop) to the stereo but in practice this doesn't work. AirPlay icon goes amber, disappears. Which means I'm missing out on entire episodes of Hancock's Half Hour and dozens and dozens of "Track 1", "Track 2", etc untagged scree.

I have a Sonos now and it is mostly great, apart from my internet connection being shit. Overall though for a small room it's got a real wallop to it.

My parents lovingly stacked all my CDs and vinyl in cupboards in my old childhood room, it was a nice thing to come home to at Christmas despite not being able to play them.

don't understand the act of "ripping it to digital" right away.. are you doing this so that you don't have to physically handle the artefact? so you can listen to it on your computer/personal device?

I do it so I can play things on my portable FLAC player, which I mostly use to do a radio show - the station no longer has a cassette deck.

idg how this applies to an mp3 - though it's a reason i'm not down with streaming - but my "physical possessions begone" isn't a principle of optimism as literally a comment pertaining to clutter in the home

― lex pretend, Thursday, April 23, 2015 2:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seriously not trying to pick a fight, but you wrote i feel like society moving away from physical possessions is only a mark of progress.

omg stop being the worst kind of pedant srsly

"society" encompasses quality of life as well as macro socio-economic factors as well u know

i'm sorry i misunderstood your statement - usually when people talk about "moving away from possessions is great for society" they don't just mean "less clutter" so i pointed out the flipside of that optimism.

yes i was exaggerating for effect, perfectly understandable if you didn't get it seeing as i've never exaggerated before

why are you mad

you explained what you meant and i apologized and explained what i reacted to. do we really need the "fuck you for not getting it right out the gate" talk?

you do it quite a lot and it feels like a spillover of those twitter dudes who feel the need to pedantically factcheck the most innocuous tweets ppl make

I think this case is a pretty understandable misread though.

i'm sorry our previous interactions have you on the defensive - that factors into why i said "honestly not trying to pick a fight"

"i think it's great as a culture we're moving away from owning music" is statement i've heard from plenty of people, most memorably jace clayton in an interview. it's not an obvious absurd exaggeration, it's a common idealistic sentiment.

yes but you see being needlessly pedantic after that phrase kinda negated it, as it usually does

xp

also i don't believe in the slightest you actually misunderstood for more than a second

i'm not sure what i did to make you this contemptuous but you get a third sorry and i'm leaving at that

leaving it at that, rather. not stomping out of a benign thread about cds or anything.

Ripping it to digital allows you to take it with you on your commute, at the office, etc.

i rip to a network storage device, which means i can pump the mp3s into my amp using the Sonos Connect gadget.
the quality is seriously so much better than using your audio output of your laptop.
also means i dont have to dig through my 5000+ cd collection to play anything, i just select it in the sonos application, and off it goes.

love it.

also, i have got some original vinyl pressings, and the equivalent (normally remastered) cd.
and having done a like for like comparison, for quite a few situations that i have this for : ELO, Cabaret Voltaire, The The, Madness, ABC, Human League, Foetus, ZTT, etc etc,

i definitely know which i prefer.

yes, i know it's probably due to limits of my entry level record deck (pro-ject debut), but still ..

Well, I just got a new CD player (the old one stopped working; I did um and ah about it a bit, as 99% of my listening is now mp3), so yeah.

My logic was a little shaky though: I need a new CD player so my thousands of old CDs aren't a complete waste of space, even if I barely listen to them, because I can't bring myself to get rid of them, especially now they're no longer worth anything to sell. And I worry that CD players may be getting less reliable and more expensive to replace. My father bought the family's first CD player in 1990 and it still works. My last CD player lasted just a few years. The new one is pretty plasticky so who knows how long it's got.

I don't get vinyl. Not for albums, anyway; I used to love buying a handful of 99p 7"s by bands I'd barely heard of every week, or getting admittedly childish "in on a secret" thrills from finding an obscure 7" with a sheaf of fliers for other obscure records/zines or a cryptic barely-labelled electronic 12". But LPs I used to buy only because they were cheap, for all the reasons 誤訳侮辱 said, and now they are not cheap: most of the new LPs in my local record store are at least £18-20 or even more, and they're not even any better pressed than the things I bought only reluctantly in the 90s to listen to on my cheap record deck through a veil of mysterious noise which might have been ground hum or surface noise or a dodgy stylus (though it never went away when I replaced the stylus) or a billion other things.

OK, that was my equipment's fault and not necessarily vinyl's, but I suspect the student-aged people I see buying vinyl are playing it on cheap gear or not at all, too.

lol yeah, they are using the download code and mounting the unplayed record in a frame on their wall

(shakes fist at cloud)

XXP sonos is great
I buy CDs if I like a whole album (rare) because my car is old and only has a CD player. I even make mix CDs for it!

i have no idea whether it's a more accurate or clear sound or whatever, but i love the sound of old records - authenticity fetish, lifestyle choice, whatever. i find it warm and pleasant. i can see my CDs going before I stop playing vinyl - the number of albums I love that aren't on streaming or easily findable on used LP relatively small, and while it sucks on principle that stuff gets lost in the cracks, there's only so many hours in the day to revisit them anyway

i was playing CDs in the car but my number of commutes dropped recently so i've just been flipping the dial on sirius, so currently the cds are just there for security and posterity, with records played if i'm chilling and reading and streaming played if i'm at my laptop

sound-wise, CDs have just gotten better. just in time for nobody to listen to them. some of the crazy dvd-audio CDs i've heard, man oh man, it's like listening in 5D. it really is the way to go with electronic music. and electro-acoustic music.

yeah someday i'd love to have all music i listen to coming through the same awesome system (that i don't currently own). until then any assessment of formats is filtered through the shit speaker they're coming out of

it just makes sense to listen to laptop music on your laptop. new digital studio recordings on CD or DVD. old analog recordings on vinyl or reel-to-reel tape. in my opinion. not that i listen to reel-to-reel tape. but in a perfect world. i think a well-made cd is the happy medium though. you are more likely to hear a satisfying recording that way. vinyl can involve a lot of trial and error to find the right pressing/copy and obviously most people don't want to go through all that. and if sound quality isn't your first concern, than streaming/MP3 makes sense too.

so when will the CD revival happen? 2025?

it's already begun with me! i find great used cds all the time now for cheap. and so much of it is already out of print. random reissues and old rap and metal cds. now is a good time to go through the cd bins.

plus, the PS1 i use as a cd player is the best cd player i've ever had. i love playing stuff on it. first cd player i've ever really enjoyed! i'm back to the future....

scott tells the truth.
as i have said elsewhere, cd bins/charity shops are fantastic at the moment.
i live in a small little town, and people are offloading their cds to the local charity shops at quite a pace meaning i am stocking up for little ££ outlay.
long may it continue.

i was learning some Zulu today on CD. language instruction CDs are big in our house. you can find them in book stores now for nothing.

somewhere I read that those PS1 things have really good DAC circuitry, I should track one down

that 'somewhere' was probably scott on another thread.
i had no idea until he mentioned it here.
i have since been asking people i know if they have an old ps1 they want to bin/donate to a worthy cause !

I feel like people are speaking at odds through some of this thread though. Depends what genres and styles, different releases are directed to different formats. This is an obvious point, but the idea that there is Platonic ideal of a record is a fiction. These things are technically accomplished in specific ways, and that can also mean that there are artists who are not striving for an ideal of CD high fidelity. It's an obvious point, but I still feel like it needs to be said.

just looked on Craigslist and PS1s are $10-$30, totally gonna get one

Is that original PS1's or do PSOnes count as well?

You've got me wondering wth even happened to my original ps1. It seems to have just disappeared.

do you have it hooked up to a tv and controller to use the PS 1 as a CD player?

i use a ps2 as a cd player cuz i like the goofyfuture spinning colored cubes that represent each track

my ps3 is my in-house cd player and i'm not happy the ps4 reportedly doesn't play cds

nope, hooked up to my receiver. it has rca plugs.

x-post

i've actually been thinking about getting good slightly smaller new speakers to put on top of my olde tyme speakers and listen to digi sounds on those. if that makes any sense. my old speakers make records sound amazing, but i think i could optimize my cd listening with speakers designed for digital.

I've read everything in this revive and have a few things to add:

1. All "portable" music is expendable. It's expendable because it should always be a copy. When i was young i copied my records and discs to (high quality) cassettes and took those mobile. Today; slide what you want to listen to onto a CD-RW or MicroSD, and take it mobile. Lost or otherwise ruined -- a new copy awaits back at home.

2. 8-Tracks really do suck. Unless it's the only piece of audio equipment in some remote cabin or lodge; there audio bleed-trough and track re-ordering leaves little beyond kitsch to appreciate.

3. Flac is an oxymoron. If it lacks the lesser footprint of a mp3 but you like it well enough to seek the higher audio quality of the format; bit the bullet and get a bonafide copy.

4. Mp3 players hooked into the aux jack of your car stereo. Most medium to low end players need and receive a tremendous benefit from a headphone amp -- spend about $100 and rock-out to your hearts content. Oh yeah, and skip the shitty earbuds as well.

5. The vinyl resurgence is awful? This is a short view; while inflated pricing and quality issues are currently evident, the increased popularity in wax further validates the longevity of the format. I began buying LPs in the 70s and bought a TON of second-hand stuff in the 90s when prices were cheap. Having a new generation jump on the bandwagon keeps manufacturers making new gear and will also lead to another buyers market when the folks who bought into LPs as part of a fad get out of the medium and, in turn, bolster the second hand market.

6. Will CDs retire with the Time/Life generation? It took grandma and grandpa a long time to accept CDs into the music realm; today their death-grip is assured. Sure, i still buy them as i fell confident that i will still be able to easily listen to them 20 years down the road. All of my CDs are well-cared for, and i'm proud to say that i've only abused and ruined a couple of them in my lifetime. All my custom-burnt CDs are on high quality branded media, and other than the requisite mis-burnt coasters, have none that have faltered do to excessive "shelf-wear".

7. Streaming doesn't float for the non-metro crowd. Not living in a large metropolitan area, while i do have DSL and wi-fi, struggle to get a 4G signal at my home. Again, going forward with my first point (that all portable should be expendable) it will still be some time before streaming, even though completely acceptable, will become a part of my day-to-day. Metropolitan areas always get the newest and fastest tech (even though the increased user-base may make it crawl) but they all seemed trained to need unlimited data plans, subscription music services, pay TV, and even more-so, an avenue to broadcast their comings-and-goings via their online up-to-the-minute presence. I've tried all the streaming services and satellite stations and haven't yet found one that's satisfying beyond the short term -- i'll take my fave local programs, podcasts, blogs, and review sites to keep my interest reliably piqued. BTW; i use the descriptor "metro" very loosely -- in rural america if you're more than a couple miles from a small town or major through-way, your chances of getting reliable and affordable high-speed internet remains very dubious.

8. It all comes down to storage density. Having a better mp3 compression regime may make those files sound better, but, frankly, i find today's mp3s very listenable when played through better hardware -- even though i still prefer the "full audio product" for my permanent collection. For me to forego the traditional physical media will require significant maturation in storage tech. My guess is that it will need to be in 5-10 terabyte range of capacity, completely removable, and be no larger than a deck of cards; that you "plug-in" to your central stereo system (media station) and access from wherever your corded or or wireless hotspot allows. The more significant linchpin is the interface; i've yet to use any audio device that replicates the feeling i get from flipping through an actual collection. A tablet-style interface could certainly satisfy my cover art and liner note needs, but it will take some fairly visionary software to make me enjoy the experience enough to ditch the real stuff.

9. Short answer: No, yes, yes.

Streaming doesn't float for the non-metro crowd. Not living in a large metropolitan area, while i do have DSL and wi-fi, struggle to get a 4G signal at my home.

Good obvious point that makes sense, considering I've a friend who lives in north central Florida and switched from dial-up to DSL eighteen months ago – and he could've afforded the switch years ago.