I've spent the last couple of years ripping a lot more of my CDs (around another 1000 classical and jazz CDs) to FLAC. However, I sometimes wonder why I bother.
I've re-discovered in the last months that is it far more enjoyable to just play the original CDs on a CD player, than sending them through a separate DAC.
1. Having a real physical CD, allows the album to be objectified in the mind as a real object. This allows your mind to categorize your music, including where and when you bought the album (thereby associating the music to a specific time and place in your life).
The picture on the album cover also adds to this and helps to remind you of when you first bought the album.
2. Physically putting the CD in a CD player, allows you to pause and focus your intentions on what you are actually going to do - which is: listening seriously to music. Convenience can be a negative thing in this context, as it causes a loss of focus.
Listening to music seriously is like a meditative practice and you should focus on what you are doing.
The CD (or vinyl) format encourages you to focus on what you are doing, while playing on a computer encourages the opposite mentality. The "inconvenience" of the CD (or vinyl) format is also at least a little more similar to the constraints in listening to a live concert, and prevents you from rapidly switching between different genres or albums. Therefore it is more similar to the intentions of the composer, who would expect the audience to wait patiently in a concert hall before the performance.
This is important because music is better listened to distinctly - switching too much between different albums, can be like blurring together paint, creating a muddy mix of colours in your mind.
3. Having and reading the physical liner notes, is one of the great joys of a (at least classical) music collection. Why would anyone not see the loss of them as a huge minus? While the quality of liner notes varies, a lot of them contain excellent and informative writing, which can't be found anywhere else. For example, I particularly enjoy reading the liner notes in Colombia Jazz Albums. While I often enjoy Deutsche Grammophon liner notes for their focus on writing about the particular performance and performers (I can read about the composition in a book, but not about the particular performance).
4. One of the benefits of serious listening is to escape from the distractions of modern life, including the computer screen. A traditional hi-fi system experience can contribute to this, while playing FLACs forcing you back to interacting with a screen.
When I play physical CDs, I find that I'm encouraged to sit down and listen, or even to read a book. On the other hand, with FLACs - I often browse the internet while listening, distracting one's attention.
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Anyone else agree or have other observations, or is this just me?
Essentially: Yes, I agree.
Except I'd switch "listening to CDs" to "listening to Vinyl."
As we can see from the answers in the thread, this is all obviously dependent on an individuals personality and criteria.
I ripped all my CDs years ago, and added Tidal streaming when it became available. It was neato-gee-whiz for quite a while accessing everything on my phone or ipad, but for me it just increased my "digital fatigue-factor" interacting with tons of information on yet another screen. Having everything at my fingertips made it feel more disposable, not more valuable, and I found my attention would drift more since having not only my entire CD collection a finger flick away, but the whole Tidal library, made it more like surfing the internet, and brought on the same sort of ADD "surfing" behavior "what's next? *swipe* what's next? *swipe* what's next? *swipe*. I amassed tons of favorites that I rarely ever went back to because, like the internet, there's always more to discover. It was certainly great for discovering more music, but as I said, the process was so fast and easy I amassed tons of favorites in a way that rarely led me back to them, and also it was much harder to remember all the new artists
I was "saving" because it was "I like this, swipe, saved" with little stimulating the memory banks.
Getting back in to physcial media - vinyl - changed the music collecting and listening experience for me. When I buy music on vinyl it's usually because I've discovered or sought out specific music, had to find it (on line or in a record store), pay for it, when it arrives it's a physical object that I can hold and look at, and which I have to place somewhere and organize. The result makes my music collection feel solid, substantial, and for me it exists in a way that I'm more connected. I can remember far, far more of the LPs I own than the ones I saved on Tidal (or even ripped long ago on CD).
I put on an album and almost always listen the whole way through, something I can't even remember doing on streamed CD or Tidal for years.
I can therefore see why you would have a similar experience with CDs.
For me CDs doesn't do it because I loathe CDs as a form factor. Nothing remotely aesthetically pleasing about them visually or physically or ergonomically and I'm very glad to be rid of them. But, for someone else who likes CDs, I get it!
