Robin L
Master Contributor
I dumped my LP collection before moving north to Washington State. I knew that whatever place I was about to move to, there wouldn't be room for it. On top of that, after years of transferring analog discs of all sorts to digital media---had a little side hustle doing transfers for other people---I gave up on that particular physical media. Don't cry for me, I don't miss it.
I hung on to most of my CDs. I also ripped most of what I want to hear out of over 2000 CDs. Because of storage issues, I've been trying to get rid of them. I'm finding used stores don't want to buy them. I've given some to the library, where they hang out on the $1 shelve week after week. I gave some away to folks I play music with. And they really haven't played much of them at all.
Say what you will about the moral issues around reselling stuff, that's not the issue I'm pointing to here. It's that CDs are currently relegated to the market position of 78s. When I was a child, 78s were Grampa's and children's records. I don't know if there's kiddie records anymore, there's probably internet gaming filling in the space once occupied by little, multicolored 45s and 78s. CDs appear to have become Grandpa's discs, now that the owner of said discs is a grandpa himself. It really shouldn't feel quite so strange, I'm not playing the CDs myself, I'm not lecturing about loss of potential sound quality via streaming because I've noticed the quality of streaming constantly improving, at least with the type of music I usually listen to. Still, it's very strange contemplating that discs I thought to be worth collecting turn out to be close to worthless on the open market. I thought I was a collector, when all along I really was a hoarder. All I can say in my defense is that back in the early 2000's, when I got the bulk of my discs, streaming wasn't really an option.
I hung on to most of my CDs. I also ripped most of what I want to hear out of over 2000 CDs. Because of storage issues, I've been trying to get rid of them. I'm finding used stores don't want to buy them. I've given some to the library, where they hang out on the $1 shelve week after week. I gave some away to folks I play music with. And they really haven't played much of them at all.
Say what you will about the moral issues around reselling stuff, that's not the issue I'm pointing to here. It's that CDs are currently relegated to the market position of 78s. When I was a child, 78s were Grampa's and children's records. I don't know if there's kiddie records anymore, there's probably internet gaming filling in the space once occupied by little, multicolored 45s and 78s. CDs appear to have become Grandpa's discs, now that the owner of said discs is a grandpa himself. It really shouldn't feel quite so strange, I'm not playing the CDs myself, I'm not lecturing about loss of potential sound quality via streaming because I've noticed the quality of streaming constantly improving, at least with the type of music I usually listen to. Still, it's very strange contemplating that discs I thought to be worth collecting turn out to be close to worthless on the open market. I thought I was a collector, when all along I really was a hoarder. All I can say in my defense is that back in the early 2000's, when I got the bulk of my discs, streaming wasn't really an option.