Audio CDs. Do you keep them?

[Mike Martin]

I've got a decent sized CD collection but as we've been doing some major projects around the house I'm wondering at this point if I should keep them. I can't remember the last time I listened to an actual CD outside of whatever discs are that have been in the changer in my car for the last 10+ years.

 

We have Apple Music, so most everything is there. It feels like a crime to throw any of these away. I could take them to a used shop and maybe get a couple dollars for them, or donate them.  Do any of you still have your CDs? If you've ripped them into your collection what is your preferred bit rate & format? M4a? 

[jerrythek]

I'll answer your last question first: I rip them Apple Lossless for playing from my computer. I used to also rip copies of them at M4a 320k for listening on my iPod (remember them?). I later moved to using those 320k files on my phone, plugging it into my vehicle.

 

One might say that as a form of archiving I should have ripped them all as AIF for a more universal backup.

 

I checked around about selling them, and the local used CD shops said they'd only give me maybe .50 per disc, which is just a ripoff. Now that I'm more settled I'm thinking of listing them for sale, something like $5 per disc, 2 for $8, and 4 for $12... But making up a list of everything I have for sale keeps me procrastinating.

 

Jerry

 

 

[Dave Bryce]

Yes, I keep and use mine quite a bit.  Simply put, they’re full res.  Like Jerry. I did my initial digitizing at 320 kBps, and I don’t wanna take the time to rip hundreds of discs at full res.

 

Also, playing a CD is still like playing a record.  I listen to it from end to end, then take the time to select and play another.  I enjoy this process.

 

I even (gasp) still buy new ones.

 

I also have a whole bunch of DVD-As, SACDs and Blu-Ray discs.

 

 

Note - the Beatles ones at the top do not contain LPs.  They’re box sets with surround versions.

 

dB

[Ivan May]

I still own about 500 or so CDs, and I still buy used CDs. I would never get rid of my CD collection, because I'd miss it too much.

[David Emm]

I've retained some out of nostalgia or convenience, but I have far more ripped material from beloved cassettes processed with modern plug-ins for better effect. Nothing major, just a smidge of EQ or stereo spreader. Its become a mass of WAVs and MP3s over time. Its far easier to manage.

 

I've also tired of CDs that deteriorate to a point where they sputter and skip. I had thought CDs would last for decades, but what's holding up best? TDK, Maxell and Sony cassettes, with very little Weiss domains effect in evidence. When a 30-year-old cassette still triggers your bass bin... 🤔

[Joe Muscara]

I (we) have kept all of our CDs, and sometimes buy more direct from the artist when we can. Then I let them double dip in a sense because if their music is on Apple Music, I stream it. I know it's not much for them, but it's something I guess. There have been occasions where I rip a CD into my Music Library so I can listen to it on all my devices when it's one that's not available on Apple Music. Otherwise, I never listen to music that isn't ripped or streamed.

 

Our CDs are in one bedroom of our house that's the "library," along with our collection of books and the stereo system we don't otherwise use. We're still hoping to set it up as a listening/reading/guest room.

[KuruPrionz]

I have a couple of boxes of CDs and haven't listened to any of them for a LONG time. 

I should probably just donate them to the thrift store, they slowly but surely get a couple of bucks for them although I've bought CDs at thrift stores for 25 cents many times. 

 

I will keep a few select discs - I've got set of 3 DVDs with early Benny Hill shows on them, classic. And some live CDs of bands I've been in. 

 

I could probably get the accumulation down to a couple dozen or so and not miss anything that went away. 

[RABid]

I had about 300 Video Laser Disks, the 12" size that looked and sounded better than early DVD but still didn't make it on the market. 4 or 5 years ago I put them and a player up on Ebay. The offers I got was not worth the shipping and I put them in a dumpster. Now I am wondering about my CD collection. I have a few thousand. Some things cannot be found on Apple Music, like my Brazilectro collection. I'll keep those. Actually, I may gather my favorite 100 to keep. Probably give the others away.

[Dave Bryce]

24 minutes ago, RABid said:

I had about 300 Video Laser Disks, the 12" size that looked and sounded better than early DVD but still didn't make it on the market.

 

I don’t have quite that many - only around 200 - but I still have them all.  Never watch them, mind you…they’re just comfortable where they are, I guess.

 

A few of them may be a bit valuable.  I have a Japanese pressing of Disney’s Song Of The South… 😎

 

dB

[RABid]

In hind site, I wish I had kept them and used them to cover a wall. That would have been a nice effect for a movie room.

[NewImprov]

I've worked at a CD/lp store for most of my adult life. Needless to say, I have a huge collection of both. My process for the last decade or so was that I'd get a new CD, digitize it into iTunes (now Music) as a 320k mp3, and put the disc into a box in a closet in my studio. I didn't like getting rid of the original CD's, because at one point, due to bad data backup practices, I had to re-rip my entire collection. And I want to keep the original artwork and original discs.

 

My wife retired from her career as a librarian at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and my disorganized stack of boxes of CD's rather irked her sensibilities, so one of my large projects over the shutdown was to buy 2 huge card filing cabinets from the local university surplus, these have shallow drawers, just about an inch deeper than a CD spine-side up, and each cabinet holds about 1400 discs. I alphabetized everything by artist, regardless of genre, except classical, which was by primary composer, and collections or soundtracks, which were by title, but all mixed together. I also got rid of several hundred CD's. 

 

My system has room to grow, besides, most of the material coming into my library over the last few years has either been via downloads from BandCamp or on LP. There are some artists, like John Zorn, for example, who only releases material on CD, so I still get physical copies of his work.

[Doerfler]

5 hours ago, Dave Bryce said:

Yes, I keep and use mine quite a bit.  Simply put, they’re full res.  

 

I even (gasp) still buy new ones.

 

 

 

 

moi  aussi  

[Dave Bryce]

58 minutes ago, RABid said:

In hind site, I wish I had kept them and used them to cover a wall. That would have been a nice effect for a movie room.

 

Nice idea!  Hmmmm…. 🤔

 

dB

[Dave Bryce]

14 minutes ago, Dave Ferris said:

II just like the physical product, reading the linear notes, and just listening to the order of how the CD/LP is arranged.  It's as old school as you can get but it's how I grew up and connected with listening to music in the first place. I'll never change in that respect.

 

           

 

For me, the biggest difference is that when I put a record or CD on, I listen to it (especially the records).  When I turn on iTunes, it’s pretty much just background.

 

I do listen to my iTunes collection in the car, and when I walk my dogs.

 

dB

[Daniel Liston Keller]

I only keep them if they're of some sort of "special value" to me....autographed, out of print, , reference CDs, something I've worked on myself...oh, and a full set of Beatles CDs.

At one time I owned several hundred LPs. I also had about 20 boxes of 2-inch masters, about 1000 CDs, and boxes of ADAT and DA-88 tapes. I got tired of moving it all. Now I have boxes of hard drives. Not sure it's an improvement. 

[RABid]

When I was young and listening to LP's I would get aggravated that songs sometimes ran together. One fading out as another started. I thought every song should have a clean beginning and ending. Now I listen to downloaded versions of those same LP's and I get aggravated that there is a gap between songs.

[dmitch57]

What a provocative set of questions.

 

I have well over a thousand CDs. I never listen to them; I've ripped the stuff I want to listen to, losslessly (ALAC, FLAC, doesn't matter). Once a CD is ripped losslessly, my take is that I safely own those original bits forever. Disc formats come and go, CDs rot, hard disks die, but my music collection gets backed up and moved between machines often enough that the bits are safe. Every bit that was on the original CD, I can listen to anytime.

 

I listen to the ripped versions of CDs because it's so much easier than dealing with physical discs. I use JRiver for playing ripped and downloaded music all over my house.

 

Occasionally I find stuff in my CD collection that I haven't ripped yet but I want to listen to, and I rip it then. (I just did this the other day, with Warren Zevon's incredible cover of "Back In The High Life Again".) It's mainly for this reason that I can't imagine getting rid of my physical CD collection. There is also artwork and documentation that comes with the CDs that, sadly, is often unavailable anywhere else. I confess to sentimental attachment to my CD collection too. Totally illogical, I know. 🙂

 

I sometimes buy CDs, but that's kind of complicated. First off, I very rarely use streaming services - I prefer to own the music I listen to free and clear, rather than renting it. (Any bets on whether Spotify/Apple Music/etc. will still be around in 20 years? No? My digital collection has been growing since the invention of the CD format. It will probably outlive most of today's streaming services.) My first choice when buying music is high-res downloads (24 bits, 96 KHz, from e.g. HDTracks). If music I want isn't available in that format, then my next step depends on how important the sound quality is. Most music, I'm OK getting from the iTunes Store, AAC at 256 Mbps. That usually sounds pretty good. But sometimes I want the best sound quality I can find, and that's when I buy a CD (if I can't get a hi-res download). If a new Peter Gabriel album comes out and it's not available in hi-res, then I'd certainly buy the CD. I can tell the difference between AAC and CD quality if it's recorded really well. I can also tell the difference between CD quality and hi-res if it's recorded really well. With really well-recorded music, I go for the highest resolution possible.

 

I'll also buy a CD if I want to hear something that is unavailable in any other format. Some music hasn't made it to iTunes or Spotify, but artists sell the CDs. Some music is out of print and is unavailable anywhere except for used CDs on Ebay. If that's the only place I can find it, and I want it, I'll buy it. And rip it, losslessly.

[Notes_Norton]

I keep them. I don't do streaming.

 

I even have LPs.

 

Some of the songs I have on those collections will never be available on-line.

 

Notes ♫

[Nowarezman]

I've still got 700-800 CDs.  We will be moving in a couple of months, so this is a current question.  I've decided, for now, to keep them, but I'm transferring them all to storage binders.  Once you get rid of the jewel cases, which are a pain anyway, you can store an immense number of CDs in far less space using binders.  The paper artwork/text thingies fit right in front of each CD.  

 

I'm not 100% convinced that all this free streaming will last forever.  Maybe, someday, somehow, musicians and other creatives will get their respective acts together and learn how to stand up to the rapacious middle-men and the world will learn that, no, I'm sorry, but all this stuff other people have created is not just yours for free as if by right.  

 

There is stuff I have on CD that I can't find anywhere on any streaming service, so far at least, 'tho I don't hunt for these particular albums obsessively as I've got them on CDs anyway.

 

There's also this - I prefer to have control over my own music collection.  I've digitized all the CDs, got them organized on USB and hard drives - all uncompressed, ready to listen to.  I've made dozens and dozens of playlists, folders, etc.  No wifi to fart with, no bluetooth pairing that works/not works/works/not works, no streaming service to navigate, no ads, no unasked-for content starts playing, no cludgy streaming interface, no outages, no internet.  Just me and the playback.  Ahhh!   Serious listening time.  Couldn't live without it.

 

I do stream, I must admit - but mainly I use the streaming service to find new stuff to listen to and for background music. 

 

nat

 

 

 

 

 

[Stokely]

This reminds me I need to get a'rippin', though I don't currently even have a player in the house to read them I don't think.

I honestly don't listen to music much these days...at the gym I'll pull up stuff on youtube or listen to an audiobook.

[ksoper]

On 11/27/2022 at 1:41 PM, Dave Bryce said:

Yes, I keep and use mine quite a bit.  Simply put, they’re full res.  

 

This is why I keep/use mine.  A more important reason is that my wife will only listen to cds. If I threw a digital format at her she'd quit listening to music altogether. She won't read a book on her tablet either and prefers dvds to streaming.  It really doesn't matter to her how much room the media takes up as long as she has something she can physically see and use.  

 

On the rare occasion I rip it's to wav format. Storage is cheap. 

[Anderton]

23 hours ago, The Real MC said:

Am I the only one who still uses AOL CDs for drink coasters?

 

They also made good roof tiles when you were getting hundreds a week. 

 

As to the original question...I have a lot of CDs. I hope to be able to find the time to rip them to mass storage, then load them on a server that I can access from anywhere in the house. 

 

It's damn hard to contemplate getting rid of them, though. The rules for various streaming services are already in flux. I have some movies on DVD that I don't believe are streaming anywhere, and I know for sure I have CDs that aren't streaming anywhere, either.

[Greg Mein]

I'm sure I have less than a couple hundred CD's and about as many LP's. I put my wife's Bose radio out in the garage when we moved here with the idea that I would play CD's while working out there and I did, but after a while I became more aware of streaming and that is just easier. Now if I'm out there I gravitate towards listening to 'modern new wave' on Spotify using my iphone and a bluetooth speaker.

A local guy, who is a drummer, gave me a record player and at some point I'll listen to some old records when the mood is right but as long as I have the storage space I'll keep all that stuff for nostalgia or posterity if nothing else.

[Jeff Leites]

I spent about $1,000 for the Sony CDP-101 after waiting years for CDs to come to market.  Now I can't remember the last time I listened to a CD but I have no intention of getting rid of the ones I have.  I also have 2 or 3 video laser disks that I never opened.  I bought them in anticipation of someday buying a player, but I never did.

 

If you want to get rid of them, I suggest donating them to a library.  You can probably write them off.

 

[KenElevenShadows]

I guess I'm keeping most of them if only because I'm not selling them and haven't ripped them to MP3s.

 

Also, at least half of my CDs cannot be heard on streaming services. If I want to listen to my international collection, independent releases, experimental music, weird dub stuff, field recordings and so forth, it has to be CDs. I think for most people, this is not an issue since you can always find the music on streaming services, but for me, it's an enormous contributing factor.

[Mike Martin]

Well, per the advice here (Thank you all) I've been ripping away. Only keep those that are very personal or those where my name is on them somewhere.

The rest will be going away. 

[Notes_Norton]

Anybody want to get rid of them, send them on down to me :D

[bill5]

I have everything on the PC as MP3 and I don't have nearly as many CDs as some of you and never play them anymore, but I do have a stash in a box somewhere.    And don't give em away (unless you're feeling charitable) or get pennies on the dollar for them...as time goes on they become collectibles and will be worth more than you paid for them, some maybe even a lot more. 

[Notes_Norton]

Basically, I don't throw out anything that is music. I have a 'linen closet' full of music books, and a file cabinet full of sheet music.

 

I'd like to scan the music books and sheets and put them in alphabetical order to make certain songs easy to find, but I haven't got the time for that.

 

Notes ♫

[16251]

I am not an audiophile with respect to how I listen and for that matter my live sound. I have been ripping for years and have a back-up drive and many CDs that I've been wanted to sell. I have already moved most of my collections like Complete Bill Evans collections. I just recently parted with my prize possession, The complete Bill Evans on Verve, the 18 CD set in the rusted metal case. It is a little weird not owning any longer but the memory (and rips,) is fine. I also had a pretty good vinyl collection but I've sold most of that along with my turntable.  (I do appreciate those people who take being an audiophile seriously.) I own a decent small receiver and speakers but most of my listening occurs on PC speakers I got with a 20 year old Dell desktop long gone.

 

I have a small number of sentimental keepers of CDs and records,, but the rest I will continue to figure out how to sell.  Flea markets are viable except my collection is mostly jazz and you need to have tables, bins, etc., moving them back and forth each time. Schlepping is something I try to avoid.  I tried to sign up to Amazon but could never talk to someone in customer service about the problems I was having so I gave up.