Continuing with CDs?

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

The shittiest and ugliest thing about Spotify is not the terrible stories of individual exploitation, it's the fact that they have made this model the norm. What used to be a dialogue between artists and listeners is reduced to commodity pricing like gas or electricity, pleasant noise piped to consumers at a market-driven supplier rate. Fuck them forever.

Sometimes I wish this board had a like button

I've merrily downloaded/streamed music in various forms since Napster, but rarely to duplicate what I already have on physical discs. CDs have never felt terribly inconvenient -- least of all while driving. I walk right past them on the way to the car and my dashboard player is seemingly unkillable. Even before considering sound quality, it's hard to imagine how faffing around with my phone would be more convenient when I know exactly what I want to hear. (Which is usually the case.)

I keep 12-15 “core” CDs in the car, and sometimes grab a different one from the house. I can see how if someone wants to listen to a wide variety of stuff in the car, it’s not the best option.

Can dig it.

My own car listening probably ends up being dominated by stuff I've known for absolutely ages (contrasting with home listening which is mainly new and/or unfamiliar music) but it's a rotating selection. Often things I need only hear every few years. eg. when Trugoy died I grabbed every De La Soul CD from my shelf and revisited their entire discography over several weeks of driving. A couple of those discs had possibly been played <10 times post-high school.

i use Spotify around the house for listening to music while cooking or doing laundry or cleaning, it's obviously "convenient" but it's ruined something about my listening habits. and despite having made some discoveries there, my best ones have been made via writers, or Bandcamp, or Resident Advisor, or wherever. i also don't like to be tracked by some kinda algorithm either. and when the first major tech company that isn't fucking people over (both consumers and producers of content) comes along, please alert me.

I just realized that online retailers sell CD players with a USB connection meant to be used in new-fangled cars. We're getting a new vehicle soon and I've been seriously bummed about the lack of a CD player.

I haven't driven since maybe 2008, and I stuck with my family's ancient sedan because it was the most gas efficient car we had. All it had was a radio and cassette deck, so I bought one of those cassette deck adapters that were made for portable CD players and used it on my iPod. That was the maximum level of technical "sophistication" I achieved with an automobile. Now when I ride with a family member, I'm not even sure how they start their cars.

have to chime in as another spotify hater. haven't had an account in years. now when i open it up in a browser window it feels like going to the mall. any time i have to turn to my phone to do something it's like stepping into the sharper image store. it's all such a branded experience or whatever. and such a hassle. i don't want to go shopping every time i want to listen to some music. the next reason i hate spotify is streaming audio quality. the third distant reason i hate it is how it screws over artists, but i mean that's still bad of course.

imo cds, specifically the age of burning / copying / ripping cds, was the pinnacle of recorded music as far as freedom, power and pleasure afforded to the listener.

One of the best things about CDs and tapes in the car is that when you turn the car off and go inside, it starts right where you left off.

If you download the album on your phone and play it in the car, there’s like a 50% chance it will pick up where you left off and a 50% chance it will play the first song alphabetically listed in your library. If you leave Spotify or iTunes or Tidal or Qobuz there’s a chance you will use that app OUT of your car, like listening on walks or dishwashing and, again, lose your spot.

It is such a great feeling to turn on a car and have the music waiting for you just as you left it as opposed to having to fumble with some dumb app and go BUH WHAT TRACK WAS I ON LET ME JUST CUE IT UP HOLD ON HOLD ON

I find myself rarely wanting to listen to a full album these days. I much prefer to put my entire music library on shuffle and have a randomized listening experience. I hear stuff I haven't heard in years and am constantly being surprised by what I hear.

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

― Cone of uncertainty (morrisp), Sunday, 20 August 2023 22:19 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.theonion.com/ironic-porn-purchase-leads-to-unironic-ejaculation-1819565403

A pornography store located in suburban Winnetka, on a street that connects to the one where they filmed “Home Alone” - those guys at the Onion really go the extra mile with the details.

To my amazement, given it's 2023 and I know those of us still buying CDs are freaks, so far I've managed to sell about 175 of the 300 copies of the 2CD set I put out of my own music, via Bandcamp and directly. To get rid of the rest, I'm selling them for $1 : )

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0031873599_71.jpg

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0031873603_71.jpg

https://ianmanire.bandcamp.com/album/improvisations

A constant refrain I heard was "oh I'll play it in my car--the only player I have left". Which is funny, given I despise cars as much as I love music, and haven't driven one myself since 2005. But I do remember playing music in a car was about the only good thing about it all...

For normal people, have they gotten rid of blu ray players as thoroughly as they have CD players? I thought most people at least still had those, but I guess I'm a weirdo still buying physical media for films, too?

all my friends are weirdos with like, laserdisc players, reel-to-reels, and room-sized speakers they got from movie theaters closing down

Blu ray / steelbook / rare slipcover / 4K fans are definitely still buying and collecting blu ray movies. Though it is really shocking how few brick and mortar stores exist that sell blu ray at all, besides the handful of ones at Target or whatever.

My prediction is that physical media for movies and TV shows will perhaps experience a resurgence. It's frustrating how things come and go on the streaming services, people just want to pop their favorite movies in, you know? Not figure out what streaming platform has it, if anyone actually has it. We have gotten used to most things being mostly available, most of the time, I don't think that will be the case forever especially given the current strikes are at least partially about residuals.

I got a PS5 a little while back and it plays 4k which is cool, but I was very dismayed to learn it doesn't play audio CDs at all!

One of the best things about CDs and tapes in the car is that when you turn the car off and go inside, it starts right where you left off.

absolutely! don't get me started on the apple podcast app.

One practice I've enjoyed lately is blind selection: closing my eyes, turning around a few times, and slowly walking until my pointed finger hits the spine of a CD, record or tape — that's what I'm listening to (with occasional rejections of the heard-it-too-recently/too-disagreeable variety).

I've noticed a slight uptick in people just throwing out CDs on the curb or putting them in little free libraries.
What are your best free CD scores?

xxxp that's insane that it wouldn't play CDs, surely a deliberate decision.
The difference between a "4K" stream (aggressive compression, reconstructed artificial grain overlaid on smoothed image) and a 4K UHD disc, is arguably greater than 4K vs blu-ray discs, at least in my experience. I have maybe ... 2000 DVDs/BDs/UHDs? I've been collecting since 2001 (and > half I bought used).

I got a PS5 a little while back and it plays 4k which is cool, but I was very dismayed to learn it doesn’t play audio CDs at all!

One more reason why the Xbox Series X is better, haha! Although I haven’t bothered playing any CDs in it, only the occasional DVD or Blu-ray. And in fact it only dawned on me relatively recently that there’s an Apple Music app for it, and that streams my whole mp3 library.

Techmoan did a video recently where he was pointing out that most currently available gaming players have fazed out CD playback, which surprised me — I had just assumed it was really easy to include, so why wouldn't you do it?

I doubt it's much more expensive parts-wise these days to include CD playback capability in gaming systems, but here's a fun conspiracy theory: they want you to subscribe to their streaming music services instead!

so, what happened with disc drives in consoles, is that Microsoft was going to dump the disc drive, going with an "always on", online only console (what would eventually be the Xbox One). I know this to be true from someone who worked in one of the largest game publishers and was their Microsoft liason.

news of this had leaked out and people -- especially those in rural areas without good broadband service -- were really pissed off about it (the game audience was still very attached to disc emotionally at that point too), so Adam Orth (a then producer at Microsoft) tweeted out some insulting tweets saying people were basically freaking out about nothing (see story: https://venturebeat.com/social/adam-orth-fired-microsoft-xbox-exec-who-insulted-fans-appears-to-have-joined-the-ranks-of-the-jobseekers/), when asked about people in rural areas he (and this is what killed him) he tweeted "Why would I live there?"

This was April, during E3 that summer, Sony makes a big production during their press conference with little shots at Microsoft's no-disc plan and people ate it up. This sent MS scrambling to add the disc drive back in to Xbox One, which was released with a drive.

But IMO that whole incident extended the life of physical game media for several years. Otherwise, MS was absolutely going all-digital in 2013.

xp I think that's true, and I wouldn't call planned obsolescence a conspiracy theory. I think, from a grim capitalist perspective, it makes perfect sense for gaming companies to phase out physical discs and force users to rely solely on big tech and its whims. See: phasing out of optical drives on laptops and eliminating CD players in cars. In some ways, this is merely old technology being supplanted by new technology. The difference afaic is that this particular technology is insidious and arguably worse for the consumer in the long run.

hey want you to subscribe to their streaming music services instead!

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Tuesday, August 22, 2023 9:03 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and yes "games as as service" has been the goal otm

are the patents/fees on CD playback expired yet? for DVDs, I think some of the nintendo consoles were technically capable but they didn't want to pay the DVD association fee, or whatever it was.

xxxp that ‘move to a city if you want to play Xbox’ attitude combined with a marketing strategy that pushed the Xbox One as an entertainment hub rather than a games console pretty much killed it against the PS4 and arguably brought about the nicey-nice-to-gamers Microsoft of today. (Ironically enough, the Series X is very much the entertainment hub they wanted the One to be.)

are the patents/fees on CD playback expired yet? for DVDs, I think some of the nintendo consoles were technically capable but they didn't want to pay the DVD association fee, or whatever it was.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, August 22, 2023 9:32 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that's what led to the little GameCube discs - it wasn't just the fees, but also that part of the fees were going to their biggest competitor, Sony

xpost - yeah that's pretty much it on all counts

Just came across this Gen Z–oriented “aesthetic” CD player (you can also get a Display/Storage Stand – “to make sure that your music experience is satisfying and pleasing to the eye”).