Continuing with CDs?

Just bought a new small stereo for the living room because the CD door on my current model doesn't like to open; it often takes three or four pushes of the button to get it to load a disc, and then I'm worried it'll be stuck in there when it finishes playing. Anyway, this one is about 60W, which is plenty of power for where I'll have it (my neighbors are very quiet and I don't want to annoy them by becoming the loud guy).

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81-rEqo1OyL.jpg

loving the minimalist design of that.

test

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81-rEqo1OyL.jpg

I took this thing virtually everywhere for a few years.

This latest discussion has prompted me to pull out my late 90s CD walkmen, connect them to my Sonos Five and see if they still work.

https://i.etsystatic.com/32862796/r/il/b5d0be/4682707943/il_300x300.4682707943_topy.jpg

(Whoops!)

Just a note, because I'm wondering if they'll even play in older players, but CD storage capacity has increased quite a bit and it's gone largely unremarked. The new John Coltrane/Eric Dolphy live recording, Evenings at the Village Gate, that's out this week has almost 81 minutes of music on a single disc.

yeah, my cd drive would not be happy about that.
anything over the red book rules, and it seriously struggles.
thankfully i have an old HP XP Windows machine that cares not and rips such cds without any complaints but it can't lookup the metadata of course.

I'm a little surprised it hasn't been a bigger story in the music press, though I suspect that the big labels are all fixated on the grotesque profits from vinyl, and their music-journo lapdogs just do what they're told. "CDs are better than ever" is not the narrative the labels want at the moment.

It seems like there's still regard for redbook standards in some quarters. Osees' Face Stabber has a track that runs some 40 seconds longer on vinyl than on CD (most of what you lose is birdlike feedback); they put the full-length version on a sampler CD that went out with some copies of their next album. It feels like the discs that stretch the limit, like individual CDs in huge classical box sets, are almost hoping not to get caught (...in an aging CD player that can't read them, I guess).

Unperson--I looked at that little shelf system, but figured I have multiple pair of unused powered speakers, and so a little portable would work and provide more flexibility (and was cheaper). But I'll be curious what you think of that little system...

Spastic Heritage and Silverfish--had both of those mp3-CD players, seemed so revolutionary. But then within a couple years there were laptop HDD-based systems where you could buy and put in your own HDD, so by 2003 or so I had a 100GB player, which truly seemed inconceivable. Now I carry around a 1TB microSD card, which fits all 8.5kish of my albums, in my phone--which was the fantasy those early mp3 players unleashed: to have at all times ones entire lifetime of album purchases. (Of course, I never conceived of "everything" being streamable, fortunately never went down that dark path...). And I love it--putting 100k+ tracks on random is a remarkable experience, a bizarro "this is your life".

Before all that, I had a 200 and 300 disc Sony CD changers, daisy chained such that they could play on random together without a gap (one playing while the other queued up).

I think listening on random to my own collection was actually really healthy. It helped foster a sensibility where I was more interested in the commonalities and connections between all kinds of music, more than the differences.

Still, more to the theme of this thread--these days I'm really enjoying sitting with one album at a time, beginning-to-end...

When I recently made my first glass-mastered CD of my own music (a 2CD set compiling 3 albums and an EP), I was surprised the first place I was going to use swore 70 minutes was the absolute maximum length they would do--I didn't think the limit had ever been less than 74 minutes, even in the early 80s?

I still ended up having to keep it under 78 minutes, with the better company I went with...

I think listening on random to my own collection was actually really healthy.

totally agree, I discovered so much cool stuff I had overlooked or forgotten about when I did this

Well the circa 2005 batteries had exploded but fortunately it was easy to clean off. My Panasonic SL-SX460 portable player started up flawlessly, Woohoo! I just got a batch of CDs from a friend looking to clear them out, too.

Hey this CD player

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F083DsDX0AAiU6v?format=jpg&name=large

is pretty nice, so far. Sounds good. Display is nice. Build quality is obviously not an all-metal Sony from 1999, but it's not bad, and not as massive as I asssumed (though much chunkier than the best players were). And no fakey "brand name" on it, so feels less cheesy than most current Chinese electronics, in that regard. For $55, I bet you could do a lot worse, these days...

dammit the word is out

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/08/19/gen-z-collectors-love-the-cd/

Just a note, because I'm wondering if they'll even play in older players, but CD storage capacity has increased quite a bit and it's gone largely unremarked. The new John Coltrane/Eric Dolphy live recording, Evenings at the Village Gate, that's out this week has almost 81 minutes of music on a single disc.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, July 14, 2023 1:49 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, my cd drive would not be happy about that.
anything over the red book rules, and it seriously struggles.
thankfully i have an old HP XP Windows machine that cares not and rips such cds without any complaints but it can't lookup the metadata of course.

― mark e, Friday, July 14, 2023

the professional CD players at my radio station, which are now at least 15 years old, refused to play that disc

(i found the receipt for my Technics CD player the other day. £89.95, July 97)

weirdly, today, my second external optical drive died.
been a bit dodgy re ripping for a few weeks now, but today absolutely no response when connecting it to the laptop.
thankfully, replacement via 'zon are not too pricey and my demands are a lot less these days now that my cd archive has been ripped so it sjust about the charity shop purchases now.

Hey this CD player is pretty nice, so far.

Someone recently recommended this one

From that WaPo article —

Tabby Bernardus, 22, a recent college graduate from Los Angeles (…) pops them into her car stereo — the only CD player she has anymore, because the multi-disc player is long gone — and listens to the entire album in its intended order.

Tabby Bernardus OTM (perhaps she has driven by me, a very not-recent college graduate, doing the exact same thing for the same reason)

(meant to block-quote that 2nd paragraph)

Really getting back into CDs lately, myself. The expense and overall feeling of.... fomo obligation? to buy reissue vinyl is losing its appeal. I'm always in my car and can enjoy a physical media object while driving. Plus it's more about finding things than the price. I don't look at my CDs and think about the value because there isn't any haha. Vinyl collecting these days is all about value and having perfectly sharp corners on the sleeve.... barf.

My main reason for having spotify is it's stupid not to for checking out new releases or pulling up something immediately or whatever. But I find no joy in it.

I recently picked up a no frills, no bonus tracks, not remastered Village Green Preservation Society ($2.25), the same way I heard it originally and connected with it MUCH more than the fancy ass mono/stereo vinyl reissue I have or the 3 CD bonus track stuffed version I used to have, and way more than hearing a random track on a playlist.

The low price point is part of the appeal for 20-year-old Veronica Fuentes. Fuentes began collecting because she thought it would be funny to purchase a Lindsay Lohan CD she found at a thrift store. Since then, she’s established an assortment of mostly ’90s alt rock, which she uses in part for decoration.

I love the idea of starting something ironically and then falling into it for real

I love the idea of starting something ironically and then falling into it for real

Careful, now; that first Burzum album will put you on a very slippery slope.

I was at a friend’s birthday gathering a few weeks back, which included people she used to work with at Spotify. This one Spotify guy was practically sneering with derision when I said I like to listen to CDs in the car because it sounds a lot better to me than streaming. He straight-up rolled his eyes and was like, “Just download the album to your phone!”

Doesn't he have a point, though? I don't stream in the car either, but I have 15,000 320Kbps mp3s on my phone which I bluetooth to the car's speaker and which sound fine to me. If you insist on CD sound quality then do flacs rather than mp3s.

I get so fucking tired of turning to my phone for everything. It feels invasive and so far I've managed to keep it more or less away from my music listening. My brain can handle stacks of CDs/records better than I can an endless list of everything I own, even on my Sony Walkman. That's still nice for some things, but I love sorting cds and having them arranged in a way that manages my listening. Could I do that with a phone? Probably, but that's more time on a piece of technology that I already spend too much time with.

I recently read about sex toys that use the phone as a controller. And you know, it's the same sort of thing. I don't want to turn to the phone when I'm ready to get busy.

exactly, it's a different way of interacting with music. it's less distracting as you say and it's also a more "lean back" experience. in which dare i say you live w your choices

xp Depends on who's in control . . .

i totally get the 320 vs flac/wav thing.
but over last few years i have upgraded my digital solution from 256 to 320 (hence the death of 2 optical drives).
there is no way i can start all over again.
also, i would need to double my NAS drive storage from 4Tb to 8Tb.
hence i have got used to 320 as a good enough compromise.

sometimes there's a nice feeling knowing that your listening isn't being tracked and logged by some giant tech firm

which I bluetooth to the car's speaker

All I can tell you is, there’s not even a hint of comparison if you’re talking about Bluetooth (and even directly plugging in doesn’t sound the same to me, no)

yah bluetooth has garbage sound quality regardless of how hi-def the streaming source is, it's like playing an MFSL pressing on a Crosley turntable

Vinyl collecting these days is all about value and having perfectly sharp corners on the sleeve.... barf.

I recently picked up a no frills, no bonus tracks, not remastered Village Green Preservation Society ($2.25), the same way I heard it originally and connected with it MUCH more than the fancy ass mono/stereo vinyl reissue I have or the 3 CD bonus track stuffed version I used to have, and way more than hearing a random track on a playlist.

I get so fucking tired of turning to my phone for everything. It feels invasive and so far I've managed to keep it more or less away from my music listening.

*massive round of applause*

dammit the word is out

yeah I despaired when I saw this article. it's been a buyer's market for so long now

Is sound quality really that important in the car, though? It's not like being at home where you can sit back and luxuriate in CD quality. There's loads of other sounds around and I'd have thought that if you're driving you don't want to be 100% focused on the music anyway.

xps

sometimes there's a nice feeling knowing that your listening isn't being tracked and logged by some giant tech firm

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

massive agreement.
also, the lack of a need for an internet connection.
which for some of us in the outer regions of the uk is still a thing.

xp all I have to say to that is GRIM REAPAH

Only a matter of time . . .

https://shoppress.dormanproducts.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Beatle-HFH.jpeg

The car is my main venue of “active listening,” and sound quality is indeed v important to me there! (I promise I can still hear honking and sirens or whatever)

I also just can’t really enjoy music if it sounds shitty, whatever the venue

the vinyl market is so oversaturated and beyond a few labels it's hard to know what's even worth the money. almost none of it is anymore, really. i've also been getting back into CDs even more than previously, just enjoying picking up some old grunge CDs and 90s soul/R&B and country and rap, digging into my old Orb and Orbital albums, etc. it's a great experience to just drive around and let a specific album flow on repeat.

also feel like buying a used CD leads to just about as much trickle down income to the artists as listening to the album on Spotify.

for a whole lot of regular people eg. not ilm posters (and maybe even some of us too) their car stereos - with all those sound-absorbing soft furnishings - are higher quality than anything they've got going on at home

I am honestly elated and a little surprised when a new release I want comes out on on CD these days

my car stereo is not great by any means but its good enough to make CDs sound better than streaming over bluetooth. and it's more about, here's the 2 cds I brought with me and I will listen to them in their entirety, rather than wading through the music trough trying to decide what _content_ I'll wind up skipping through most of anyway

I love the idea of starting something ironically and then falling into it for real

― Cone of uncertainty (morrisp), Sunday, August 20, 2023 5:19 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is literally how bronies started

I was at a friend’s birthday gathering a few weeks back, which included people she used to work with at Spotify. This one Spotify guy was practically sneering with derision when I said I like to listen to CDs in the car because it sounds a lot better to me than streaming. He straight-up rolled his eyes and was like, “Just download the album to your phone!”

― Cone of uncertainty (morrisp), Sunday, August 20, 2023 5:30 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

If I was invited to this party, I couldn't guarantee I'd be invited to the next one haha

Spotify guy sounds like a right dick tbh

also feel like buying a used CD leads to just about as much trickle down income to the artists as listening to the album on Spotify.

― omar little, Sunday, August 20, 2023 6:23 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've heard people make this argument to defend Spotify payouts, saying that artists don't get anything from a used CD, yadda yadda yadda, but at least with a used CD you know that someone at some point paid retail for the thing, which theoretically will still net 99.9% of artists more money than a decade's worth of Spotify royalties