Continuing with CDs?

One thing I've been enjoying is checking out CDs from the library, ours always has interesting selections

I'm jealous of this. Our otherwise excellent library has an absolutely terrible CD selection. They've got a great DVD/Blu Ray selection, but they appear to have given up on CDs about 2004. When I first moved here in 2008 it already appeared to have been ignored for several years and it hasn't been touched since. It's so disappointing. The jazz section that remains is decent, but only about 20% of the CDs I've checked out have been playable, they are either scratched to absolute shit or the anti-theft strip they apply to the top surface of the disc itself renders them unplayable in most of my disc drives.

Yeah, I get a twinge of jealously when I see people talking about local libraries with great and well curated CDs.

And not just local - Seattle and King County both have great online catalogs and will deliver for pickup at your local. One of the reasons I donate to them.

yeah, PF, fopp. i was hoping to do it from the sofa though, avoiding the great unvaxxed.

i always forget about upstairs at fopp. downstairs is full of dvd goodness, but i never think to go up.

Picked up a tall IKEA CD storage unit left out on the pavement today. There were two but I could barely carry that one.

uk online option : music magpie.
free postage no matter the price.

Koogs, surely you can order online from Fopp?

Maybe a dumb question but how does one use a Discman or similar device with external speakers without losing one of the stereo channels of the CD mix?

if your current cd player is losing a stereo channel when connecting to external speakers that means you probably have a bad connection or are using a mono cable instead of a stereo cable

ok but if there’s a single output on the Discman and a single input on the speaker how do you get stereo out of that?

1/8 inch headphone out is a stereo connection iirc

yeah the headphone out on a discman is TRS or a stereo jack. older discmen have a separate line out jack (i.e. no volume control) that you could connect to a preamp or receiver with volume control

Here’s my situation. I have a circa-2000 Panasonic discman that only has the headphone jack output so I use to use that to play thru an external speaker but it only played one channel. Later I acquired a late-‘90s Panasonic that additionally has the separate line out jack, but I still have the same problem going out of that jack. Still just one channel.

what external speakers are you using?

it sounds like you're plugging a mono 1/8" into that jack, not a stereo one - there are both versions

make sure the plug of the wire you're using has a stereo tip:

https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-6stteikkyf/product_images/uploaded_images/stereo-vs-mono-plugs.jpg?t=1602102561&_ga=2.189390443.157792817.1601837151-826071131.1599170371

^^^

Ah OK, that could be all it is, thanks

And at the other end you need to send one channel to one speaker and the other to the other speaker.

Right, but the speaker I’ve been using is just a single speaker (designed for iPods actually)

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ab2c68a32f2e5ece753428fc7b400b00-c

you can get converters for mono sources to stereo earphones, just feeds the same signal to both poles. i guess something else is available for the opposite. although i'm kinda surprised that it isn't designed to take stereo and just deal with it (effectively mixing it down to mono).

fopp famously has no online shop - it only has a few stores as it is.

hmv.com is ok, but there's one local to me so i can just pop in (plus i have vouchers and they don't take them online)

Yeah, I just found that I do have a stereo plug in the house… which splits into two plugs at the other end… but then I also have an adapter thingy that takes the two plugs and channels them back into one plug so I can input that into my speaker. And it works! Now I can listen to “Purple Haze” and finally hear a vocal along with the instrumental part.

sounds like it probably splits into rca plugs (i.e. red/white plugs)? if it works, it works! but you could always get a 3/8 to 3/8 stereo aux cord, they're quite cheap and available pretty much everywhere. https://www.radioshack.com/products/3-ft-1-8-stereo-plug-cable

Yep that’s what it is, and yeah I figured there must be a single cord to use instead of going thru the adapter. Thanks!

*you mean 1/8” cord tho I assume

ah yes 1/8"

spent the past three months collecting & finally got a hi-fi sorted this week. thrifted for £100. i need a shelf!

https://i.imgur.com/uXv9yG0.jpg

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

slick!

Still buying CDs. Just ordered some late '60s/early '70s out-jazz titles in fancy mini-LP sleeves from Japan:

Stanley Cowell, Brilliant Circles
Andrew Hill, Spiral
Oliver Lake, NTU: The Point From Which Creation Begins
Charles Tolliver, The Ringer

And ordered the new Iannis Xenakis 5CD box Electroacoustic Works straight from the label in Germany.

nice maelin
always cool to see Teac

I recently picked up a cd of Joe Chambers excellent 1974 album The Almoravid, reissued on Joel Dorn's 32 Jazz label which uses the fairly rarely seen Q Pack, instead of a jewel case or digipack
https://img.discogs.com/7rcu0J-p9Lh92itKXwmJPe4XZzE=/fit-in/600x539/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3362060-1553861765-3956.jpeg.jpg

I remember these being used by Bar/None records for a while. It's very sturdy feeling.

32 Jazz was somewhat legendary in jazz circles for slapping the most hideously 1990s cover art imaginable on everything they reissued. That one is a perfect example. I mean, here's the original cover:

https://img.discogs.com/8jj64rEsHb2CGncrJ6-FhYdnxW8=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1202485-1200414367.jpeg.jpg

Now That's What I Call Spiritual Jazz! Vol. 1

graphic design was their passion

f^ck.
now the "revival" has gone mainstream.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/cd-revival-compact-discs-rob-sheffield-1284487/

i must have ~150 discs already, after three months. scored so many pop & indie gems from charity shops for peanuts. i could have never afforded that many records in the same amount of time. it's been such a pleasure to just sit and play them through, not be tethered by my laptop or phone, not skip tracks, know that it is full fidelity. excited to actually be able to afford to press my own music on disc soon, too. there is nothing to lose here.

after three months. scored so many pop & indie gems from charity shops for peanuts. i could have never afforded that many records in the same amount of time. it's been such a pleasure to just sit and play them through, not be tethered by my laptop or phone, not skip tracks, know that it is full fidelity. excited to actually be able to afford to press my own music on disc soon, too. there is nothing to lose here.

so long as this is not a p£ss taking post then welcome to the nu-old world order.

We've repressed exactly one CD title in the last half decade, and that's for a band with over 1M monthly listeners. Most of our new CDs struggle to sell out of their meager initial pressing, which is why we've more or less abandoned the format. The CD revival is a myth.

— numerogroup (@numerogroup) January 19, 2022

if it's a myth why has every music outlet published nearly identical articles about it over the past 3 months

Numero pvmic

CDs full of old 45s nobody wanted to begin with ;-)

I don't really want to un-debunk the notion that the CD revivial is a myth but the vinyl revival of course started with old stuff long before it was about actually pressing stuff up again.

Or un-debunk the notion of the CD revival, rather.

I've got a lot of love for Numero Group and I'm not doubting their experiences but, at the same time, I'm not going to look to a label that stopped selling CDs half a decade ago to have their finger on the pulse of what is selling in 2021-22.

I think it depends on genre or label, seems like a lot of metal or stoner leaning labels still do decent CD numbers.

i think it's kind of a shame — I'd hold up Numero as a label that actually shows how appealing CDs can be.

personally i have been having a great time scooping up numero releases during their periodic CD sales as they clean out their stock.

idk at some point it comes down to your definition of "revival" but imo while its a great time to be building/maintaining a CD collection it doesnt seem like a lot of people are exactly rushing to pay retail for new discs (even if that "full-price" is only $10.) while there are certain niches and scenes that obv move more new CDs than others, to me that doesnt spell "revival" so much as, well, "niche format".

It was a shame, to be sure. Numero had some great CD packages and I was really bummed when they gave up on them.

serious "sour grapes" vibes from that Numero post

sorry you pressed too many back in the day and took a bath on them, but maybe it's time to reconsider

like, if they repressed that fucking Unwound box on CD I would buy it in a second, and (almost) forgive them for the absolutely garbage job they did on the vinyl versions

i think it's kind of a shame — I'd hold up Numero as a label that actually shows how appealing CDs can be.

― tylerw, Wednesday, January 19, 2022 5:28 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is absolutely right. all their old soul label comps were great CDs--a little disc with 20 or so fun obscure songs that fit on a shelf. i don't really need a 3xLP box and full size book of pictures for that but i guess enough people do.

i bought more CDs last year than i did the last decade combined. looking for used CDs can be more fun/fruitful than looking for used records these days... i went into amoeba and searching for vinyl there is completely useless at best and actively aggravating at worst. but i bought CDs of janet jackson's entire discography for like $18 total. they were basically begging me to walk out of there with them. now all i need is a way to play them, lol. but it's worth it for getting the booklets alone... esp CDs from the CD era, there's so much info and personality in the booklets that you can't find online. some of them basically qualify as historical literature at this point imo, should be in the library of congress