Continuing with CDs?

It’s got to the point now where my Discogs CD sales have clearly overtaken my vinyl sales, even though I’ve got more vinyl listed. They’re flying off the shelves. At these prices, it makes total sense.

It's happened a third time now: my copy of Lal Waterson & Oliver Knight - Once In A Blue Moon is flickering on the last two tracks on the fourth time I played it. This sucks. I doubt this is the last CD I'll encounter this with. Surprised I don't hear more stories about this.

that sucks... that is a fantastic album

Long time lurker very infrequent poster.

Does anyone have a good place to get new and catalogue mainstream/major label CDs online? I usually order from amoeba but am not finding things there lately. I don't want to patronize Amazon. I would be happiest buying from an indie but I'd like a place with a deep selection. Hip-hop is particularly hard to find but I realize a lot of things are not even release in physical formats.

Discogs is pretty reliable I'd say, if you're happy to buy from private sellers.

Yeah good point. I got no problem with discogs and should consider it for these kinds of searches although new mainstream titles are not always added right away. I was also hoping to find a place where I could get a handful of things from one vendor to save on shipping, but there are lots of shops on there now too.

Try importcds. They're on eBay but also have a site. I order from them pretty frequently. No hassles and free shipping.

Yeah, importcds is great. Buying from their actual site is cheaper than buying from them on eBay. I also use grooves-inc.com sometimes.

I have a fear that Amazon will be the last bastion of CD purchases.

half the time on Amazon you're buying from importcds anyway

Bullmoose is great, a mini New England chain.

Dusty Grooves in Chicago (mainly website) is great for CDs still in lots of less-popular niches. Re: msjor labels, some catalogue, little/no new.

By which of course I meant Dusty Groove. Only bought 1.000 CDs there over the years... Yeesh.

https://www.dustygroove.com/

Who do UK users use for buying CDs?

I'm in Canada and pick up the occasional major label CD from Rarewaves in the UK via eBay. I don't know how they manage to be the lowest price available to me.. it's really weird. BuyCDnow.ca is gone... is there anything left around here, online?

Bull Moose seconded, always had good experiences ordering with them.

Dearborn Music (https://dearbornmusic.net/) is close to comprehensive with deep stock across genres. Hours at a time have been spent in their jazz section -- core catalog, new releases, Japanese imports, constant used influx. The website could me more user-friendly, but I've placed orders since March with no trouble. Great people, too. They've been around since the '50s. (Burned a path in the '90s, back when driving 40 miles to a record store, after working all week in another record store, was the only reasonable way to spend a day off.)

Thanks everyone. Dearborn music looks like it has a lot of what I'm looking for at good orices and no shipping charges. Excellent.
Andyk have you bought anything from their download store? They've got a ton of stuff there but the site thinks I'm outside the US so I cannot buy. My IP info looks normal so i will contact them about that.

I'm going to use this space to once again yell AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH at those annoying factory seal stickers on CDs. Just got a couple of older CDs from Discogs, and I can now replace the jewelcase.

like those ones along the top that leave a bunch of sticky residue about 75% of the time when you remove them?

(nail polish remover takes that stuff off instantly)

Yes! Just getting them off is a PITA. Never come off in one piece.

One of many things I love about British imports: No security strips!

use that trick where you pop the bottom hinge off the cover and lift it up, lets you use the two halves of the jewel case to remove the factory seal in one go

While we're add it, I wish Amazon wouldn't have abandoned the pretense of even trying to protect jewel cases when they are shipped. The last two CDs I got from them had absolutely shattered jewel cases. Not cracked or with the middle hub broken, mind you, absolutely shattered.

use that trick where you pop the bottom hinge off the cover and lift it up, lets you use the two halves of the jewel case to remove the factory seal in one go

― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Monday, 6 July 2020 21:53 (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'd never thought of that. Must remember next time.

"use that trick where you pop the bottom hinge off the cover and lift it up, lets you use the two halves of the jewel case to remove the factory seal in one go"

Learned that one watching the staff at Blockbuster Music open CDs so you could listen to them in the store.

Lighter fluid can work wonders on sticky residue left on jewel cases as well.

xp just gotta be careful not to break off the tab on the case that "locks" it in place

Learned that one watching the staff at Blockbuster Music open CDs so you could listen to them in the store.

lol same! sound warehouse though.

Goo Gone is a great product, if you don't have paint thinner. Unless it's a digipak. One recent used Amazon buy brought one with a big barcode sticker. Argh.

lighter fluid otm, also great for LP jackets

lighter fluid is also a viable option if you break the little plastic "teeth" that secure a CD to the tray of a Digipak

i.e. you may as well just immolate yourself

I had a brilliant idea many years ago to make replacement teeth circles. You would break out the remaining teeth and glue my product there in its place. Now that CDs are dying I guess there's no need to be proprietary about it.

I'd still buy those in 2020! but it seems like it would be tough to break them off cleanly without damaging the tray. maybe you could bring a stack of busted digipacks to a record store and pay $1 apiece to have them "professionally restored"

use that trick where you pop the bottom hinge off the cover and lift it up, lets you use the two halves of the jewel case to remove the factory seal in one go

This is what I've used. And any residue leftover should be easily removed by pressing the same sticker down on the residue and yanking it off fast - just repeat until all the residue sticks back on to the sticker as it's yanked off the case.

yeah the hinge pop off or scrapping the stickered edge along a counter is what we did in the record store. and then goo gone and razor blades for extra annoying stickers.

I forget who taught me the pop-off-the-cover trick but boy did that blow my mind when I finally learned it, years too late

i feel like the green rykodisk cd cases couldn't be popped off.

or else they just broke very easily if you tried.

I still have all my CD's, but no easy way to play them, so I haven't in 6 or 7 years!

Yeah the green Ryko cases were really brittle. Once I wrote them and complained and they sent me like six replacement cases though!

mostly what i remember about the green rykos is that they had worse teeth than late-period mark e. smith

Those green cases were (a) gross, (b) made the artwork look off key and (c) were kind of elitist.

I hated those green case, and yes, it kind of f-ed up the artwork. I wondered if any of the high profile artists they once had on their roster (Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Sugar, etc.) ever complained?

I still have all my CD's, but no easy way to play them, so I haven't in 6 or 7 years!

My player as such would I guess be my Blu-ray player, though I have a separate Blu-ray drive for ripping. Which I still do.

I rip my CDs on my home PC, play them in my 5CD changer, and keep them stored in massive alphabetized wallets. which I reorganize by necessity roughly once a year.

i couldn't even give away all my case logic 336s when i got rid of all my cds years ago. A friend is trying to move during the pandemic and is asking me when i got rid of my music /dvds and if it was painful. I am just like ffs. They haven't even touched those boxes since they last moved.

I’ve been using a DVD player for years, I want to get an actual CD player tho so I can program tracks