Why CD's suck and why I am angry!!!

[jpr703]

I've been using a program called Exact Audio Copy (EAC)to make perfect digital copies of all my CDs in .wav format. They take up a lot of disc space if you don't compress them, but hard drives are cheap.

Eventually I will batch encode my CD's to high quality (320 kbs constant bit rate) MP3s using LAME and transfer them to an iPod. However, I do plan on always keeping the .wav files as a backup.

With a high quality blank CD-R and a good burner, the .wav files are indistiguishable from the original CD to my ears.

 

[Bill Ward]

Having lived through the Golden Age of vinyl, I don't think I'd want to go back. I started collecting CDs when they first appeared, lured by the convenience and the promise of longevity. Like others here, I own discs that are 30 years old and in pristine condition. I don't think the format is to blame for scratched media. My audio collection is an investment, a significant one, and I try to handle recordings appropriately. I have some defective discs, but in every case they were damaged through user error.

It's disingenuous to complain because a product fails to survive abuse for which it was never designed. The problem is in the mirror, not in the media.

BW

 

[Waarg]

jpr, you may want to consider encoding your cds to .flac instead, it's a lossless format, but is ~60% of the size (if i remember right) so you will retain the quality but save on disk-space

 

[Riordan]

there's one thing about cds that i hate with a vengeance: the utterly stupid, moronic, unbelievably shoddily engineered and produced jewel cases that most come in. it's not always user error scratching discs - in some cases it's the case, or, more specific, the holding mechanism.

 

[GirgleMirt]

.

 

[OneMalt]

I also have a CD collection that goes back to '85 or '86 and not a scratch on any of them. I think that maybe those of us that grew up handling our vinyl with TLC are probably less likely to abuse our CDs.