[LevA]

Yes, definitely!!

I was in the same situation with all my albums in digital up until 5 months ago.
now into classical music and decided to build a cd library. already have 70 albums and plan to reach around 300~400 cds.. it's costing me a bit but I like to own a nice collection. most fun part is trying to find good recordings and interpretations of classical pieces, so its a slow progress with lots of searching and reading reviews.

my only problem now is that I will be moving back to japan after 2 years in the US and how I'm going to carry them back...keep them in jewel cases or get a cd wallet like slappa's?? hmmm.....

 

[hockeyb213]

Yeah I am going through my library and taking any good cd's that are not in lossless and just buying the cd's my list keeps growing lol I just really like a hard backup if anything goes wrong with digital storage. Plus it looks wicked cool having a bunch of albums sitting on a rack for any visitors you may have.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Do it! I might start keeping Red Book on a server, but I won't give up the collection. I'm not going to mess with various DRM schemes or having to re-buy downloads. I'm going to keep the physical discs around.

Aside from used record shops, be sure to visit garage sales, thrift stores, pawn shops, junk shops, flea markets, swapmeets, and similar. I usually hit the W6TRW swapmeet every month. The going rate for CDs is about $3, but you can negotiate for less if you buy several.

I still hunt vinyl, but the digital pickings have gotten a lot better over the past year or two.

 

[hockeyb213]

Yep I like to use the online used stores as well as go to a couple local shops but finding used stuff you want is a crap shoot. The cash is not the worry for me it is the quality of the cd I hope I never have to deal with a cd that skips or is unusable.

 

[hockeyb213]

And off I go! Just ordered 13 cd's therefore, beginning my cd quest.

 

[nakedhand]

I strongly advice you to buy more CDs! Its great to have a physical library. You might also find yourself lusting for releases that are impossible or hard to find as files.

Take a look at discogs.com too, some very high prices there, but also a lot of great deals and a wonderful resource for rare and out of print stuff.

Happy collecting!

 

[DavidMahler]

Yes....you should

 

[hockeyb213]

Hmm so I got my cd's without an issue. I have it all on my iphone 3gs at the moment which I absolutely love using as a player without a amp it sounds amazing straight to my jh-13's. My issue is that lossless is gigantic in alac (I am hitting over 600mb a album quite often) do you guys think if I bumped down to 320 for my phone I would be missing out? I would do a double rip one in lossless for computer and classic and one for the iphone specifically.

 

[Wiza_Gab]

320 AAC will sound perfect in your setup (actually in most setups).

 

[mteorman]

I like CDs for their price, the packaging, and sound quality. Welcome to the wonderful world of album collecting!

I would say go lower bitrate for your portable device (I actually used mp3's compressed with -V 2, but 320 AAC is great if you have space for it), and of course you have your CDs to play when you really want to sink into your album.

I forget if this has been mentioned already, but what's your source for CDs?

 

[hockeyb213]

For actually playing the cd's? Nothing really as I never have the need to but I use a McIntosh music server for my theater and my rips on my computer. I want the cd's mainly to actually have a copy of what I rip for the most part.

 

[moogoob]

My apartment was broken into last week. If they hadn't left my external drive (they did, thankfully), I would have still had my CDs to re-burn... so for the backup alone I'd say it's worth keeping them.

 

[Sherwood]

I despise CDs. If there was any way to reliably get lossless music without them, I'd do that. All my stuff is backed up on an external, and an offsite. I'm really looking forward to the day when we no longer are tethered to the idea that a series of digits needs to come in a box.

Cover art and lyrics sync to my iPhone via remote. Liner notes are easily found and enjoyed through the same device. I have no fondness for physical media.

 

[Coltrane]

Physical media is just plain ridiculous at this point. It is dying off, and if you listen to things digitally there is no reason to buy cds. Of course, you need slightly different ways of acquiring lossless if that is a requirement. However, the vast majority of people will only need V0 or 256, which you can get easily enough. 320 is even a waste.

I would argue that you ONLY get vinyl if you want physical stuff, and then just find the digital version on the net. Afterall, that is hardly copyright violation if you get the vinyl version.

 

[hockeyb213]

Well if you want lossless unless you want to acquire it in a illegal method you are basically forced to get cd's. Speaking of which buying used cd's is cheaper per song then actually downloading the garbage from itunes by album.