Continuing with CDs?

Such techniques apply just as much to 16/44.1 audio as they do to 24/96 or whatever, so it's not an intrinsic quality of the format.

If you want a valid comparison, use an audio editor to convert HD audio to CD-quality digital audio and compare. If you have a friend who can administer an ABX test, do that too.

It's also possible that the Sonos applies its own EQ curve to HD audio, so I cannot account for that possibility.

Finally reconnected my (secondhand) higher end DAC into the hifi signal chain, listening to some of Autechre’s NTS Sessions and it sounds so good I am just grinning to myself like an idiot

Not sure if this is the best place to post this but I'm having trouble burning FLACs downloaded from Bandcamp to CD (using K3b on Linux). The burn process completes fine and the CD will play but the tracks are silent!

I've just made a comp with a mix of Bandcamp files plus files procured elsewehere and the latter play fine. Very weird. If anyone has any ideas, appreciated. As far as I know they're not high res files.

Not sure if this is essential, but I always convert FLACs to WAVs prior to burning them to CD.

Good suggestion thanks. I'll give it a try.

...and then burn it as an audio CD, not a data CD.

Would imagine the burning software does that routinely anyway but there could be something a little "off" about the FLAC headers which means they don't get unpacked properly.

Here's an old forum thread about the same problem:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=225063

Unpacking to WAV first might be the way to go, as annoying as that extra step is.

xxp

Yeah, I’ve had problems with burns having glitchy spots when I burn them without converting to WAV first.

I always convert first, otherwise it's just putting more work on the computer during the burning process (converting on the fly) that increases the likelihood of burning any errors.

Thanks all, that worked. Never occurred to me to convert a lossless file. Convoluted but worth it.
Michael J - thanks for the link. Glad to hear I'm not the only one.

Bandcamp's great for allowing multiple downloads. I've replaced .flac downloads with .wav, and pulled .mp3s for the car, off the same purchases.

CD news - based on Discogs trends:

https://blog.discogs.com/en/cd-trend-popularity-sales-2022/

Lol so literally just an ad for Marantz

Listening to Siamese Dream in the car today, I realized that I’ve been throwing this particular CD around for 29 years – in and out of dorm rooms, apartments, boxes, bags, CD racks, hot cars – and I can still just slap it in a player, it sounds as good as ever, it’s as “compact” as ever, perfect-y sound forever (or long enough). Good format!

I imagine the popularity of Discogs has increased in that period... really meaningless without vinyl stats to compare with?

yaaa literally an ad, only stated at the bottom. Laaame

Siamese Dream is definitely an outstanding sounding CD

It sounds so good! I was wondering if I should check out the 2011 remaster at some point, but it's hard to imagine it sounding better enough to be worth it...

Nah, I'd stick with the original CD. The 2011 remaster squeezes the dynamics a bit. Not terribly so, but it doesn't improve things either.

can anyone recommend a place to buy digital major label catalogue albums that isn't amazon.com?

so i wanted to hear shadows and light and it's basically the same price for a used cd+postage as it is on itunes/amazon/etc. i'm not complaining, it's just ... big sigh, i don't want the cd but i want to be able to hear the album as i please and not give my money to itunes/amazon.

Qobuz lets you buy downloads too. You can check first if an album
Is for sale there.

Poster ufo steered me toward a place called 7digital in another thread - in the context of major-label releases that aren’t on CD (“7digital is where you want to go to buy mp3s from artists that aren't on bandcamp”).

i think the best way to do it is by going to joni's site. you can click on the amazon link from there in order to make here a little commission in addition to whatever else.

better still, you could get the files on slsk and put the money you save towards a t-shirt on her web store

make her*

i've had success with qobuz. they don't sell mp3s, though, if that's what you're looking for. https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/shadows-and-light-joni-mitchell/0603497922789

Try Dearborn music.net. I'm not sure how it works but in addition to a good stock of physical releases they seemingly offer mp3 downloads of everything.the digital content comes via something called Broadtime Tuneportals. Dearborn Music is a legit business so I assume these downloads are also legit. Btw they also seem to have a cheap DVD of shadows and light. Caveat their search is not the best.

thanks all — got it sorted!

how did you like shadows and light? used to own the album, remember it as uneven but with some highlights

oh, i've always loved it - just never had a proper copy. hejira and mingus have always been my favorite joni so i've just been youtubeing it the past year or so. it's `fusion joni`, but i don't mind the solos - always a pleasure to hear pat metheny and jaco, in any case! and plus, it has an ace meditation on "amelia."

nice, I'll revisit it

listening to the Amelia now, incredible

15 reasons why I STILL BUY CDs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfbzH6gCXp4

Video was way too long. I only made it to reason number one...

But yeah I still buy CDs. Partially giving up on vinyl. Prices have got ridiculous and I'm running out of space. I still have room for about 150 more CDs though.

Spotify sucks but I'm begrudgingly sticking with it to check out new music (and buy what I love) plus listen to songs I love but don't own.

I really hope the much vaunted CD revival doesn't happen. I love picking up gems for peanuts. Long may that continue...

I recently replaced all my jewel cases with sleeves (https://spacesavingsleeves.com/) and reduced my rack space by about 50%. Now I don't feel the pressure to sell stuff every year to make space for incoming CDs.

I wish those plastic sleeves had been around 25 years ago bc I went straight from jewel cases to binders, in the process discarding all the back cover inserts from my collection. With the sleeves it's easy to keep those.

I want to get those, but most of my shelves are set up in a way that I have the CDs stacked horizontally, rather than vertically (I know, I know, it is what it is until I can replace all the shelves too). I'm not sure those would work well stacked horizontally, but maybe I'm wrong.

No, they'd all fall off the racks as they're pretty slippery. My only complaint is it's harder to see the spine when you cram a ton of them together (and even when you don't as they fold inconsistently).

Yeah, that's what I figured, and why I've held off until I can upgrade my shelves. But good CD specific shelves are harder to find.

Yeah the cost of vinyl is too ridiculous for me to take it up. I may buy audiophile releases, specifically SACD's, but that's still a very niche market that doesn't always cater to my tastes, so in total it ends up being less than 10 discs per year. (I think I bought only three or four audiophile SACD's last year.) The rest of the time it's mostly $5-10 used CD's.

Sleeves are tempting, but I decided against moving in that direction for a good reason. I used to have two cases of CD's in sleeves sitting open next to the shelves, and I listened to those discs a lot less than the ones in jewel cases on the shelves. Unless I was actively looking for a specific title, I wasn't going to pull it, but if I'm scanning the jewel cases spines and come across something, I usually think "oh, I'll listen to that too." What I've done since is keep the main collection in jewel cases and reserved the sleeves in the cases for reference CD-R's, stuff I wanted to hold on to but didn't consider to be my primary listening. (Second-rate bootleg recordings, compilations for artists I should have just because they're somewhat notable even though I don't like them, etc.)

May have posted in this very thread already--but in 2021 I finally found durable (non-MDF), dismantleable/reassembleable, not terribly ugly, high capacity, relatively affordable CD shelves:

https://theatlanticstore.com/maxsteel-multimedia-rack-gunmetal/

If you shop around you should be able to find them for under $100/per. I tried to comission custom non-built-in shelves but had two people flake on me, so gave up and then found these. They're a little "industrial" but they work very well:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbgqYLTX0AUyGQF?format=jpg&name=large

xp Ha, if we all disclosed our unique approach to picking what to listen to, half of us would be candidates for serious OCD meds!

Now that's a room I could spend some time in, very nice!

yep that's what I have and I love it xxp

Damn fine sight! (Love the Bergman and Varda box sets, good picks!) That's actually the setup I'd want to have and did at my last place, but unfortunately, lack of space and too much shit breaking up my current walls meant switching to towers. It does save a LOT of space, but I feel like Indiana Jones navigating a columned tomb of ancient culture.

how do those wire racks handle nonstandard CD cases? like stuff that's an inch or so bigger/smaller than a jewel case?

it can accommodate the larger sized digipaks (those "LP replica" sleeves) but those are only like 1/4" taller than a jewel case. However, the shelving can be adjusted to give more height to each row if you want.

that’s crazy, I had that exact same style of rack in high school (smaller of course!)

Yep the shelves slot in at 1" height increments, and so set up for CDs there's about an inch of extra clearance over a standard jewel case (similar if you set up shelves for blu ray). LP style, small box sets, etc. all fit fine. Technically there's room to get one more shelf of CDs than what comes with a unit, so if you can buy spare shelves or multiple units you'll exceed the capacity per unit they indicate.