CDs---Grampa's relics?

[Robin L]

That made me laugh.

Actually belts are becoming more and more difficult to source. Ironically, the original belts don't often fail, they become kinked from sitting still around the motor spindle pulley when not used. All my best machines that are in storage have the belts removed and placed in click seal bags in the box.

Many CD players simply need the square section belts from the loading/chucking mech to be removed and placed in a saucepan of boiling water for 10 minutes to have them revert to a nice 'round' shape. It's the 'kink' that causes the belt to skid on the pulley/s.

Obviously, once they get micro cracks in them, time is limited and you should source replacement belts before they die altogether.

One reason I had to give up the Strathclyde 305m turntable I used to have was not being able to find a replacement belt. Another was really wanting to get rid of my albums---they no longer "sparked joy".

 

[Kal Rubinson]

My guess is CD preference is correlated with classical music preference, which in turn is correlated with age.

Not around here. I am glad to have ripped all my CDs, the vast majority of which are classical and I cannot recall the last time anyone called me young. OTOH, my real preference is not CDs but multichannel hi-rez files.

 

[Robin L]

Not around here. I am glad to have ripped all my CDs, the vast majority of which are classical and I cannot recall the last time anyone called me young. OTOH, my real preference is not CDs but multichannel hi-rez files.

I'd say once the sounds have been turned into digits, the container doesn't matter, the sound is the same. OTOH, I would expect Classical musical lovers would be exposed to more of the defects of LPs and I would expect a lot of new LP purchases are more likely to be some sort of Pop noises, though it looks like a lot of titles being bought now are of old Pop records, many now around 50 years old.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

OTOH, I would expect Classical musical lovers would be exposed to more of the defects of LPs and I would expect a lot of new LP purchases are more likely to be some sort of Pop noises,

True but, also, there have not been significant new classical LP releases in years.

 

[restorer-john]

True but, also, there have not been significant new classical LP releases in years.

So true. The golden age for classical was the 1980s and into the 1990s on Compact Disc.

 

[Chrispy]

Not around here. I am glad to have ripped all my CDs, the vast majority of which are classical and I cannot recall the last time anyone called me young. OTOH, my real preference is not CDs but multichannel hi-rez files.

What are you main sources for multich hires files? Downloading or ?

 

[Wolf]

I am a compact disc spinner, unapologetically so. I still buy them. I am upset when new music is not offered on CD, which has happened a bit. I like the no-needle-drag midrange sound of them over vinyl.

While I have some usb drives to rip some for the car, I doubt I will ever totally convert unless it will hold it all in native .wav in a one-box non-streaming non-network scenario.

Yeah- and I just turned 44. I've been collecting CDs since 1993. I do not own any vinyl. I have some very old cassettes and keep my old Akai single-well for that reason. I will likely inherit my folks direct-drive, linear-tracking Sony table at some point, along with a lot of their vinyl.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

What are you main sources for multich hires files? Downloading or ?

Wherever I can get them. Downloads preferred but ripping discs when needed.

 

[kchap]

I am a compact disc spinner, unapologetically so. I still buy them. I am upset when new music is not offered on CD, which has happened a bit. I like the no-needle-drag midrange sound of them over vinyl.

While I have some usb drives to rip some for the car, I doubt I will ever totally convert unless it will hold it all in native .wav in a one-box non-streaming non-network scenario.

Yeah- and I just turned 44. I've been collecting CDs since 1993. I do not own any vinyl. I have some very old cassettes and keep my old Akai single-well for that reason. I will likely inherit my folks direct-drive, linear-tracking Sony table at some point, along with a lot of their vinyl.

I like CDs but I've converted all mine to FLAC. I found I was not listening to CDs very often but convenience digital files has increased my listening time. I still purchase CDs where I can. I like the idea of owning something tangible but, I will purchase FLAC files if CDs are not available.

In the late 70s disappointment with the microgroove LP had already set in. As soon as the first magazine articles on the new optical audio disc started to appear I could not wait; the day CDs were officially released could not come soon enough.

 

[rwortman]

Everything I have is ripped to files on servers but I am going to be forced to unload all my CDs/DVD-As/SACDs despite any (but very little) lingering nostalgia or any legalistic concerns. When we sell our weekend place, we will be losing all its storage space with no practical options in our apartment. It will just happen.

Move to the weekend place.

 

[rwortman]

I have never picked out a CD to listen to in 30 seconds. More like somewhere 5 and 30 minutes. Browing my collection is much easier with Roon because of the organization and visibility. I still have all my 900+ CD’s because they are my legal license to listen to the ripped files. Selling them to someone else and retaining the files is not legal. Probably no one will ever enforce that but it means something to me that people get paid for the product they produce. I have a few digital transfers of LP’s but they were done when I wanted to let someone else listen that didn’t have a turntable or I didn’t trust them with an irreplaceable old record. Transferring them all just takes too long so I maintain a good vinyl rig for when I feel energetic.

I don’t think a CD player will do a better job than a streamer feeding a DAC. I think they are the same. I have had crapped out CD players in my shop but mine have been reliable. I don’t have a CD only player any more. I have a top end Yamaha player that plays everything except UHD Blu-ray and a Sony player that plays everything including UHD Blu-ray. I doubt if the Yamaha has seen more than 200 plays and the Sony about 5. I stream almost everything. I do wonder if a CD player was loaded and unloaded as many times as it would have to to match my streaming history, it would have worn out.

 

[jsrtheta]

There are only two people on earth I would loan a CD to. My father and my best friend. They are both as careful with CDs as I am. My best friend after a few drinks- not so much.

Remember how it was with vinyl? Every time I loaned out an LP, I knew that I either: 1) would never see it again, or 2) would get it back with new scratches on it.

With CDs, only 1) might happen.

 

[Chrispy]

CDs can of course be damaged....like it falling out of the car onto pavement : Most of mine have been damaged that way, the rest of use has not done such

 

[tmtomh]

I long ago got rid of all my VHS tapes, all my music cassettes, all my DVDs, 95% of my LPs, and probably 20-30% of my books, and I've scanned every last bit of paper in my possession and have shredded or recycled everything that used to be in a file cabinet (except the original of my marriage license, car title, and so on).

But CDs are the one physical medium I've held onto, and that I still actively buy and collect. The reason is that CD was the medium of my teens. I started collecting music when I was 12, buying LPs - but I really came of age musically starting when I was 15, and I got my first CD player in March 1985, for my 16th birthday. And while CDs had been around in the U.S. since 1983, it wasn't until 1985 that they became widely, dependably available at record stores, and before late '85/early '86 new albums came out on LP and cassette months before they came out on CD (at least in the U.S.) because of severely limited global pressing capacity in the early years. So because of my age and the moment CDs became truly viable as a primary collecting format in the U.S., CDs are the medium of my musical identity in a very powerful way.

I've never had a huge collection and for the past 30 years have periodically sold off a small percentage of my collection in order to keep it from growing out of control. Today I have a little over 500 titles, and the entire collection takes up about 2 square feet of floor space, so even if I decided to collect 2000 more CDs, the space occupied would be inconsequential.

I do find myself listening via my computer streamer a lot more of late - but that contains all my CDs, ripped to lossless files. And most importantly, I discovered many years ago that having CDs around, and listening to the actual discs at least part of the time, enhances my enjoyment and engagement with my music, even when I'm listening to digital files. The reason is that CDs keep me much more focused on album listening, rather than infinite shuffling of individual songs. And I discovered that listening to albums is far more fulfilling and absorbing for me than shuffling.

As for CDs' future, I agree with the folks who are saying that CDs will likely make a comeback, but that it will be much smaller than the vinyl comeback. Ironically, the strength of CD that @restorer-john mentions - and I agree with him! - is also its biggest weakness: CD is lossless digital storage, and for that reason it's identical to what you get in a digital file or a lossless streamed file (and in practice it's functionally identical to what you get in a high-bit-rate lossy digital/streamed file). So unlike LPs, there's no unique sound and there's no fundamentally different playback approach (analogue vs digital). So there's much less fascination with CDs because they're less of an alternative to digital files/streaming than LPs are.

On the other hand, the current state of affairs means that 70-90% of CD titles ever released are available dirt-cheap. An almost uncountable number of albums is available from thrift stores for $1-$2 apiece. You can rip them to lossless files, retain a fairly bullet-proof backup in the form of the CD itself, and be financially ahead of the game compared to buying lossy files from Amazon or wherever. And as for streaming, I hate to sound like an old fogey, but I have no interest in renting my music and having to keep paying for it monthly forever or else lose it. Not to mention, I don't want the streaming company to choose which masterings I can listen to, and I don't want to log on one day and find that one of my favorite albums or artists has just disappeared and I still have to pay my monthly fee. Not for me.

 

[ThatM1key]

When it comes to streaming it was fine sacrificing mastering & audio quality for convenience. Nowadays you still sacrifice something for FLAC streaming, the mastering. You know the FLAC streaming services still sucks when a early Time Life/Eric Records CD can sound better.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Move to the weekend place.

We are cutting back, not dying.

 

[jsrtheta]

We are cutting back, not dying.

Too right!

 

[threni]

I am a compact disc spinner, unapologetically so. I still buy them. I am upset when new music is not offered on CD, which has happened a bit. I like the no-needle-drag midrange sound of them over vinyl.

While I have some usb drives to rip some for the car, I doubt I will ever totally convert unless it will hold it all in native .wav in a one-box non-streaming non-network scenario.

Yeah- and I just turned 44. I've been collecting CDs since 1993. I do not own any vinyl. I have some very old cassettes and keep my old Akai single-well for that reason. I will likely inherit my folks direct-drive, linear-tracking Sony table at some point, along with a lot of their vinyl.

Depending on how much you have, you probably can fit it all on a single usb drive. A 4TB drive holds a lot of FLACs (well over a year of continuous music). Having a drive for the car, one for your home etc is one way of ensuring you have multiple full backups.

 

[Snoopy]

No, disc rot is only a thing for a limited number of very early CDs. I'm saying that LPs are currently in fashion now, and eventually they will go out of fashion. There are more collectible aspects to LPs, they are also more inconsistent pressing to pressing, so a very limited number of LPs will have outrageous pricing. But most of what's being churned out now will be of little value because LPs are mostly a fashion statement as of 2022.

I had multiple criterion BluRay movies (Sony made them) with disc rot

 

[Wolf]

Depending on how much you have, you probably can fit it all on a single usb drive. A 4TB drive holds a lot of FLACs (well over a year of continuous music). Having a drive for the car, one for your home etc is one way of ensuring you have multiple full backups.

1300 or so.....