[macrocheesium]

  For those who still buy cds, where is the cheapest place to do so? Right now I am using a combination of gohastings, ebay, half, and amazon (which rarely happens as they are quite expensive). I want to see if I can find a few albums that are cheaper than $8-10 used that these places are offering. I generally do not pay more than $5 for a used cd unless its something I know I like. Maybe I am just being too stingy.

I always get CDs from Ebay or Amazon used if possible.

 

[Navybsn]

Currently rocking out to Cygnus-X1 and if this isn't metal I don't know what is! Rush is the ****!
 
Glad there's a massive metal thread on this forum - I look forward to scrounging it and finding some good bands I haven't heard before.
 
I'm really into bands like Watchtower, Death, Cynic, Opeth, Atheist, Rush, Soen, Pestilence (Spheres album specifically), Megadeth, Testament, etc.
 
My most recent "find" was a black metal band called Burzum.. the one created by that murderous racist neo-nazi guy who isn't cool but his music is for sure! Haven't listened to black metal before but I now know it's worth checking out.

 
Yes, Rush is quite obviously the greatest gift to mankind ever. I listened to Power Windows once and have been an addict ever since. Worse than crack. Sometimes I think my inner monologue is in Geddy's voice. Maybe I need therapy.
 
Burzum is quite interesting. I never got into them (him). My fave BM albums are Emperor's Anthems to the Welkin Dusk (and if you like Emperor, Ihsahn's solo work is awesome as is another offshoot Zyklon) and Gorgoroth's Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam,. Also, you owe it to yourself to check out Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord.
 

Either way I have been very impatient lately waiting for my wintersun, children of bodom, Amon Amarth, and In flames cds. Its only been 1 or 2 days but I have been really in the mood to kick back, and blast some metal right now, and youtube is not cutting it quality wise.
 
Also what are some Melodeath or melodeath style bands that you guys recommend? I tend to like a bit more modern stuff the best like The Black Dahlia Murder is my favorite metal band so far(which their exact subgenre is not fully agreed upon), and a few other cds I own right now are inflames, children of bodom, lamb of god, Wintersun, Amon Amarth, impending doom, and whitchapel. I understand most of those are different subgenres, but they have a similar sound. I also have some Metalcore stuff I am growing out of. Right now I have been looking into Dark Tranquility, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Ensiferum. I have looked into carcass, cannibal corpse, and a few others that I did not particularly enjoy. What good bands am I overlooking? I am trying to expand my metal horizons a bit (which is quite fun).

 
one word: Spotify. There are thousands of albums on there, and if you pay for the premium subscription, you can set the quality all the way up to 320kbps. Not every title is on there, there are holes in some discographies, but it can be a great way to try out a band before dropping the coin on a CD.
 
As for melodeath, that term means many things to many people. Dark Tranquility is a good starting point, as is older In Flames. I would also highly recommend At the Gates, particularly Slaughter of the Soul. If you enjoy Amon Amarth, I would suggest Bolt Thrower. Those Once Loyal is probably the easiest to get in to.

 

[gamefreak054]

 
 
 
one word: Spotify. There are thousands of albums on there, and if you pay for the premium subscription, you can set the quality all the way up to 320kbps. Not every title is on there, there are holes in some discographies, but it can be a great way to try out a band before dropping the coin on a CD.
 
As for melodeath, that term means many things to many people. Dark Tranquility is a good starting point, as is older In Flames. I would also highly recommend At the Gates, particularly Slaughter of the Soul. If you enjoy Amon Amarth, I would suggest Bolt Thrower. Those Once Loyal is probably the easiest to get in to.

Yeah I just said that term to give a feeling of what I was looking for, as I am not a huge fan of regular death metal. I am generally pretty open minded about metal though, so I will give anything a try. I did listen to some at the gates, but I can not remember if I liked it or not. 

 

[suicidal_orange]

  For those who still buy cds, where is the cheapest place to do so? Right now I am using a combination of gohastings, ebay, half, and amazon (which rarely happens as they are quite expensive). I want to see if I can find a few albums that are cheaper than $8-10 used that these places are offering. I generally do not pay more than $5 for a used cd unless its something I know I like. Maybe I am just being too stingy.

Personally I go to the little independent record shop in town - at any time there are about 1000 randomly organised used CDs in a rack so it's not a quick way of doing it, but priced at £2.50 each (~$4) or 5 for £10 it's usually worth the time.  Sometimes there's nothing but cheese, other times it's nearly all classical but recently I've found many of the albums I had downloaded (illegally, and mostly in 128kbps mp3

) while at uni many years ago.  This method also has the advantage that you don't have to pay or wait for shipping!
 
Are these shops really so rare these days?

 

[gamefreak054]

  Personally I go to the little independent record shop in town - at any time there are about 1000 randomly organised used CDs in a rack so it's not a quick way of doing it, but priced at £2.50 each (~$4) or 5 for £10 it's usually worth the time.  Sometimes there's nothing but cheese, other times it's nearly all classical but recently I've found many of the albums I had downloaded (illegally, and mostly in 128kbps mp3

) while at uni many years ago.  This method also has the advantage that you don't have to pay or wait for shipping!
 
Are these shops really so rare these days?

I have 1 good shop, they even have a whole room dedicated to metal. What sucks is their pricing. They take ebays pricing and add $1 or $2 on top of that. They hardly having anything below $6. For example they wanted $18 for Children of bodom tokyo warhearts. Its a cool store, but hell they should be 10% lower plus shipping fees below ebay. Though their holiday sales are decent (buy 1 get 1 50% off), they also are the only store I have seen with a decent electronic and dubstep collection. 

 

[wrathzombie]

I can not stress how awesome Bosse-de-nage's III was last year:



Stream on Bandcamp

This should have definitely received more press attention like Deafheaven did this year..

 

[markm1]

  For those who still buy cds, where is the cheapest place to do so? Right now I am using a combination of gohastings, ebay, half, and amazon (which rarely happens as they are quite expensive). I want to see if I can find a few albums that are cheaper than $8-10 used that these places are offering. I generally do not pay more than $5 for a used cd unless its something I know I like. Maybe I am just being too stingy.
 
 

I buy CD's and I'm always gratified to discover I'm not an anomaly-old school!
 
With my medium fi system (I don’t have a record player) I still  think it sounds better than straight digital even lossless or whatnot. Then, again I don't have all the latest super duper high end DACS etc to make my digital sound as good as I'm sure it could. Digital sounds decent, but CDs generally still have the edge for me w/ a good recording on my dedicated components. Irecently purchased a Rotel integrated amp with a pretty nice Wolfson DAC for digital sources-and it does make a difference with streaming sources for sure. I can stream now and not want to punch a hole in my stereo at least.
 
Anyway,I'm lucky to have a local new and used CD and record shop in Baltimore not far from me called Record and Tape traders. These kinds of shops still exits in urban markets. They'll often have great sales-buy 2 get third used CD free. It's great for older stuff and sometimes you get lucky. I've been buying a fair amount of non metal and to grab a bunch of rock, jazz, etc. I've been amazed at the sheer volume of great music I've been able to score for $30 or so. With  the various discounts, each CD might only come to $3-4.
 
Now if you want to get a bunch of classic older stuff-good way to go. Problem with metal is most of us want new releases. 
 
I also buy a lot from Amazon and often will wait until the prices drop. For me around or under $10 is decent. If I can get something for $12 or less (at a storefront or w/ shipping from Amazon), I think that's pretty good. You're not going to find something relatively obscure in metal hot off the presses for $5.00. But, I just ordered some new metal at good $ on Amazon for Ocean, Agrimonia, Oranssi Pazuzu (thanks Modular for the suggestion-really looking forward to this one) and Ken Mode.
 
But, I also buy a good bit from Best Buys. I have about 4-5 Best Buys in the fairly large metro area I drive in. I'm always looking. Now, again, you're not going to find the latest BM that's or something really underground. But, this year I purchased Carass, NIN, the new Black Sabbath, the odd popular DM-Cattle Decapitation....you might find BDM, maybe the new Dark Tranquility or that other DT band Dream Theater or Killswitch-that kind of stuff,  and really obvious classic/hard rock-picked up some old AC/DC, Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and stuff. But, if there's a hot metal album that's getting a lot of play you might find it. I've been surprised.
 
FYE in my area also has used CDs-but their metal selection isn't great. I'll check them out. Some of the stuff you mentioned is older. If I was looking for some older melodeth, I'd deff cruise by FYE or something equivalent.

 

[Trogdor]

I buy CD's and I'm always gratified to discover I'm not an anomaly-old school!

With my medium fi system (I don’t have a record player) I still  think it sounds better than straight digital even lossless or whatnot.

markm1, you do understand that bit for bit, they are the same thing? i.e. 99% of the time, the Bandcamp release is EXACTLY the same set of bits as the CD.

Is the issue you don't have a good digital playback system? i.e. you can't get the bits out of your computer through a decent DAC? But even so, I would buy the Bandcamp release and just burn the CD since bits don't go bad!

 

[SoupRKnowva]

markm1, you do understand that bit for bit, they are the same thing? i.e. 99% of the time, the Bandcamp release is EXACTLY the same set of bits as the CD.

Is the issue you don't have a good digital playback system? i.e. you can't get the bits out of your computer through a decent DAC? But even so, I would buy the Bandcamp release and just burn the CD since bits don't go bad!

I almost always buy CDs still. Be it at Best Buy(which happens alot) or from the band directly, or sometimes very rarely from amazon. I just really like having the physical copy, plus then i dont have to burn a copy for the car

 

[gamefreak054]

 
I almost always buy CDs still. Be it at Best Buy(which happens alot) or from the band directly, or sometimes very rarely from amazon. I just really like having the physical copy, plus then i dont have to burn a copy for the car

Exactly, I drive an chevy s10 and it does not have any auxillary ports. So I need to use CDs for listening to music (I have a 45 min drive to school everyday one way) and having the original copy is nice. Also you can not buy digital music used of course. Granted that is not really supporting the band. I do buy brand new cds when I know I like certain bands to help with record sales.
 
@Markm1: I was actually surprised at how much metal the bestbuys around me carry. I have bought both TBDM Everblack (they also had nocturnal and maybe ritual there) and Impending Doom Death will Reign in which I always thought was a obscure band, and was shocked they were carrying it.
 
I guess I am not into the fully digital thing this era is trying to push. I always feel like I have to own a physical copy, granted this could be the sickness carried over from having a large video game collection as well.

 

[mpawluk91]

Everybody rejoice!

This thread has made it to page 420

This calls for a certain kind of celebration

 

[suicidal_orange]

Everybody rejoice!

This thread has made it to page 420

This calls for a certain kind of celebration

Interesting observation, not least because this is page 840 841 for me, I don't remember changing that setting so I guess they changed the defaults sometime in the past five years... weird.
 
But hey, if you want to celebrate go for it!

 

 

[Deicide3]

anyone here got the alpha dog and can confirm if they are unforgiving with poorly mastered\recorded bleak metal?

 

[Navybsn]

This weekend's playlist:
 

 
If you liked Akercocke, this is the project by 3 members of that now defunct band (minus the singer). Blast beats reign down like water!
 

In Solitude - Sister. Has received a ton of good reviews.
 

 
Portal - Vexovoid. This has got to be weird considering their last few records.
 

 
And finally, not so much metal (more like prog) Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing. I love all things Wilson and have heard a bit of this already. Should be great.

 

[MorbidToaster]

anyone here got the alpha dog and can confirm if they are unforgiving with poorly mastered\recorded bleak metal?

They're pretty forgiving due to their smooth highs. Excellent cans, too. Really a step above the Mad Dogs.