Are CDs still a worthy investment? - Page 5

Get one of those flight cases full of sleeves. It means dispensing of all the jewel cases, but saves considerable space.

Undoubtedly, it's worth buying CD's especially if you like listening to lossless files. If I really like an artist, I always buy his/her CD.

I buy a CD, rip it, scan all the art I want and put the disk away with my others.

 

Somehow I just wouldn't feel the same about my music collection if it were all on a hard drive.

I enjoy perusing the CDs and reading "liner" notes while I listen.

 

This isn't romantic enough for you?

 

  

 

No, a couple of RJ-45 plugs just don't do it for me, even with gayly colored cables.

 

I'm new at this. I have been getting my CDs onto a hard drive. I'm not disposing of the CDs. I continue to buy them. In fact, I'm probably going to buy more now that the format seems to be sunsetting. Some of my reasons:

1. CDs don't get accidentally erased, harbor viruses, get hijacked like hard drives can.

2. Hard drives have an expected product life of five years. I have CDs as old as 1984. Some don't rip due to scratching, but I can fix that with some plastic scratch remover and polish. A hard drive from 1984? Besides the fact that it would take 50 of them to hold a CD, they're either recycled or in a land fill. CD is an enduring format.

3. MP3s do not sound better. The best you can say is you can't tell the difference, sometimes, at 320.

4. The liner notes and album artwork are a part of the experience. I've learned a lot from classical CD booklets.

 

Even if I buy some 24/96 or better downloads, I'm tempted to burn them on a DVD-R also, just for safety. Hard drives crash. There are archival class optical media. I'm going to look into some of those, if I'm actually going to use it for a master copy.

 

That said, it's great being able to click whatever I'm in the mood for, browsing my collection by remote, at no sacrifice in quality over the CD. I'm going to keep ripping, but never surrender my originals.

 

As far as torrent bootlegs go, I feel guilty, and I get a raft of Adware, Malware and worse from sites I've tried. Maybe you folks have better links?

 

Scott
 

I have my digital library on a Drobo, which is similar to a RAID configuration. If a hard drive dies, I pop a new one in and it recreates the lost drive from backups on the other three drives. Snazzy!

I go with CDs. There's this site where I bought Eric Clapton Unplugged for 75 cents. Owned by Ebay? Blanking on the name.

Absolutely... I like having control over the master data.  I can rip-delete and re-rip however I want, lossless or lossy... Its MY CHOICE not Sonys!!!

 

Drives WILL CRASH... eventually they all do, hard or solid state.  Main-stream consumer computing always seems to demand more speed and density.  Product longevity / lifespan, quality and reliability are not seen as value-add.  In my mind the planned obsolescence that drives todays the consumer electronics will always put the CD and vinyl LP on top of any modern alternative.

Edited by kramer5150 - 3/16/13 at 10:14am

Uh...yea.  It's the best sound reproduction you can buy thru mass market.

Does anyone have data on the durability of the mass-produced pressed CD-ROMs you can buy? I know archival-grade CD-R stored in the proper conditions have a claimed life of 100 years and that degradation is mostly due to the dyes that hold the data, but what about the pressed kind?

I use a Drobo and have cloud backup of my collection. If something happens, even in case of my room burning down or whatever, I still have my digital media.

I don't have all the space necessary to store evertything I own have I gone any other way than digital-only. And yes, I do think it is a nice thing to do for the planet, I don't buy books on paper if I have the e-book alternative avaliable. Not judging anyone here, but I don't ride my bike anymore to work, I don't buy only local-grown food, I spend too much earth resources on my hobbies, so it's such a small contribution it is probably hypocritical.

After going digital-only for so long, nowadays I don't have the need to own anything physical. At least 99% of the time. That doesn't mean I understand those who have. This need Whenever I pickup my Bob Dylan Bootleg Series CDs (the few CDs I have kept around) and read the booklet, I think maybe I shouldn't have invested so much in digital only. But everytime I feel this growing inside me I think "hey, if I am going with the physical media fetish, do the full monty and get some LPs". Then I just give up on this madness.

I still buy CDs; artists i really like or boxsets of certain genres to quickly expand my knowledge of that style of music (e.g. 1920s Jazz compilation). Otherwise I will listen via online streaming and if something catches my fancy that's when i'll looking into it more. As for buying online, living in Australia I feel ripped off paying more for content which does not necessarily cost more to distribute to end users.

Compact Discs are still a worthy investment. I find it crazy that people will pay almost the same money for 256 AAC album as they would a Compact Disc which offers superior sound quality and you can always convert the CD to any format you want onto your computer making it far more flexible. I still do not understand why Apple does not allow FLAC files to be downloaded from iTunes considering that they are sent FLAC files, which they then archive, and then publish to iTunes in 256 AAC.