Today is exactly 40th anniversary of CD in EU/US. Is that a reason to celebrate? How many have you collected? And how do you store your treasures?

[Galliardist]

Here are a few well designed jewel boxes:

Top: Booklet style, cardboard exterior, thick cardboard hinge, plastic insert holding CD glued to cardboard. Removable booklet inside. Pros: easy to access CD, and CD is securely held. Cons: there is no mechanism to keep the container closed, so the booklet falls out easily.

Middle: Booklet style, two plastic inserts glued to cardboard, with a cardboard hinge. Pros: CD is held securely. The two plastic halves are able to lock. CD and booklet are secure. Cons: that cardboard hinge might tear if it is abused or gets wet. I keep my CD's very well so it still looks good.

Bottom: Booklet style, cardboard construction. Booklet integrated into cover, CD's (2 of them) held within cardboard sleeves. Pros: very compact for a case that holds 2 or more CD's. Everything is secure and nothing will fall out even if you turn it upside down and shake it. Cons: a bit difficult to remove the CD. Nothing to protect the cardboard from scuffs.

Top: not too bad. If you have a large hand but a small fingertip and can push very hard, it might work. I've got a couple of that type where the plastic came unstuck, though I could reglue them.

Middle: has the old jewel case centre, one of the worse parts of that design. What's more, because it is stuck on, you can't replace it when the teeth inevitably break. Usually there is no support behind that centre making it harder to push. Some of that type do support it. (Edit - you can remove it carefully, but the only way to replace it is to take one off another sleeve)

Bottom - more than "a bit" difficult to remove the CD. The bottom of the disc appears to be sticking out. Split by trying to get the disc out of that damn sleeve? You've listed the other faults. If that's your example of a good holder, spare me the bad ones.

I have a couple of discs from a box set where the cardboard sleeves damaged the backs of the discs enough to make them unplayable. The disc case remains an unsolved problem as far as I'm concerned, unless you are careful handling them.

 

[JaccoW]

I have started collecting second-hand CDs again and haven't bought many LPs the past couple of months.

Especially with some of the music I listen to coming from the UK and idiotic Brexit the recent Portico Quartet Ensemble – Terrain (Extended) release costing me €46 and being hit with another €20 in import taxes.

 

[restorer-john]

I have started collecting second-hand CDs again and haven't bought many LPs the past couple of months.

Especially with some of the music I listen to coming from the UK and idiotic Brexit the recent Portico Quartet Ensemble – Terrain (Extended) release costing me €46 and being hit with another €20 in import taxes.

Ouch, that is seriously expensive.

 

[restorer-john]

until you have to deal with those horrors that held two or three discs. I'm with @MattHooper on those.

Yes, the original fat box two CD cases used two backs (practically unbreakable and I have literally hundreds of replacement backs) and a double width central piece. The later 'double' hinged twin cases were a serious compromise, although ingenious. If there's three CDs- forget it, that is an accident waiting to happen.

I saw the writing on the wall with quality cases and order several hundred high grade original cases from UMC (universal) when we sold CDs. I think they were, IIRC, about 24 cents each for clear three piece and 28 cents for grey tray three piece.

 

[Mnyb]

I have started collecting second-hand CDs again and haven't bought many LPs the past couple of months.

Especially with some of the music I listen to coming from the UK and idiotic Brexit the recent Portico Quartet Ensemble – Terrain (Extended) release costing me €46 and being hit with another €20 in import taxes.

You may not want to know ....

Terrain (Extended) - Live in Studio One, by Portico Quartet Ensemble

3 track album

porticoquartet.bandcamp.com

There is a lot with Portico Quartet on bandcamp

15£ for the CD and 8£ for the download . I bought the download the added cost was Swedish sales tax nothing more

 

[JaccoW]

You may not want to know ....

Terrain (Extended) - Live in Studio One, by Portico Quartet Ensemble

3 track album

porticoquartet.bandcamp.com

There is a lot with Portico Quartet on bandcamp

15£ for the CD and 8£ for the download . I bought the download the added cost was Swedish sales tax nothing more

I bought the vinyl from Bandcamp. I have almost all of their music on vinyl and as a digital download through there but I just like putting it on in dimmed light and just enjoying it in silence with some tea sometimes.

 

[Mnyb]

I bought the vinyl from Bandcamp. I have almost all of their music on vinyl and as a digital download through there but I just like putting it on in dimmed light and just enjoying it in silence with some tea sometimes.

yep you pay for the vinyl

 

[tmtomh]

Hmm, I do see two of my favorite albums featured...

Well now I have to ask - which ones?

 

[tmtomh]

I really like this stylish arrangement of cd's. Can I see well, some cd's are in special extra bags?

Thanks! I have outer plastic sleeves for the cardboard digipak and "CD-LP/wallet" style cases - is that what you mean? I'm generally not a huge fan of those kinds of cases because they seem to get shelf wear after a few years even if you hardly ever touch them, and I find the sleeves prevent that. When I started growing my collection again (along with some small purges along the way to keep the collection size under control and help fund new purchases), I found that one can get bulk packs of those sleeves on eBay very inexpensively.

Something I also really like for the CDs that come in the paperboard cases is the Japanese rice paper half-round inner sleeves. They are very thin and go directly over the CD, so it doesn't get scratched by the raw paperboard when you take it out and put it back in. A lot of recent-issue discs, especially 2-disc sets, fit very tightly in those sleeves and it's almost impossible not to scratch them - in fact, most come from the factory with small scratches just from having been initially inserted into the sleeve. Of course the scratches don't actually hurt anything, so it's kind of OCD - but hey, it's a hobby, those little inner sleeves are cool, and a 50-pack is only about $10, so...

 

[SIY]

Well now I have to ask - which ones?

Beatles and Magnetic Fields.

 

[tmtomh]

The history of the CD - The 'Jewel Case' - Research | Philips

When the technical development of the Compact Disc was virtually completed in 1981, the packaging and marketing activities were started. And since the CD was a totally different product from the LP, a completely new packaging had to be designed.

www.philips.com

Compact Disc Jewel Box - Designer Peter Doodson - DutchAudioClassics.nl

DutchAudioClassics.nl - Peter Doodson, designer of the CD Jewel Box

www.dutchaudioclassics.nl

In my opinion, the jewel case is a brilliant design. The originals were practically unbreakable, even if dropped. The parts were all interchangeable and allowed front, rear and spine artwork along with completely protecting the all important disc at the same time supporting and elevating it from the tray.

But I get it, some people hate them, but not me.

I'm sooooo with you on this. In the early to mid-'80s the jewel box looked so modern, even futuristic, enhancing the sense of wonder at the CD technology itself. Also, when CDs first started to be available widely in record stores in the US, the vast majority were packaged and displayed in two ways, primarily to be properly displayable in the LP-sized racks that record stores had: cardboard longboxes, and clear plastic long cases. The latter were positively evil to open - BUT they came with the front booklet separate from the CD, so in the racks you saw both the cover art, and the CD itself in the jewel case - in other words you could see right through the jewel cases' clear lid. This would not have been possible with an LP-style sleeve, and it really amped up the cool factor of CDs.

I also agree with you, John, that the earlier cases, up to about 1987-88 I believe, were thicker and therefore much sturdier. Modern cases are much thinner, but on the other hand the clear parts are more transparent, and they have added something to the plastic to make them much less brittle so they don't break as easily. But there was a period there, I guess in the '90s through maybe the early 2000s, when the jewel cases got a lot thinner and lighter but did not yet have the increased flexibility they have today - and those are dreadful. They break so easily.

It's all subjective of course, but I do think some of the animus towards the jewel case is based on a little bit of historical revisionism - they were very cool and made a lot of sense in the context of the CD's introduction as a new format.

 

[tmtomh]

Beatles and Magnetic Fields.

Cool! That Beatles in Mono set was a very lucky purchase: I forget where, but several years ago an online vendor was selling them in new/sealed condition for $43 (and it is a legit copy, not a counterfeit).

 

[Adaboy4z]

My Favorite CD player is my Technics SL-P555 from 1989. It brings back memories opening a new CD and gently laying it in the tray. The First CD I listened to on a Teammates Sony Discman was U2 Joshua Tree and my Sony Walkman was never any good to me after that.

 

[thewas]

Although as a young tech enthusiast I was one of the first who had a CD player in my age group I never got to love the physical format despite buying a couple thousands of them (while I loved my later vinyl collection - not from sound point of view) so I was happy to replace them with rips, downloads and stearming in the last 2 decades.

 

[AdamG]

Boxes in someone else’s Basement. I either gave them away, tossed in the recycle bin or donated a large amount to the Veteran Organizations and the VA Hospital.

 

[tmtomh]

Intreguing the The box set!

it's his Hanky Panky album - a surprisingly good tribute/reinterpretation of Hank Williams songs. This box includes a 2nd disc, which is an EP of a few other Williams covers plus one other old country cover. Because this is a somewhat niché release - and because Matt Johnson and The The remain criminally underrated and overlooked - the box often comes up on the used market for only a few bucks more than the cost of the two discs themselves. I'm not a big collector of special editions and such, but when it's an artist I really like and the special version is cheap, I'll often pick it up!

 

[jhwalker]

I had Tower Records one block down the street from me in Chicago in those years. Heaven.

We had one in our neighborhood, as well. MANY hours spent on Sunday afternoons browsing the pop / rock section (my husband) and classical / jazz (me).

 

[pablolie]

We had one in our neighborhood, as well. MANY hours spent on Sunday afternoons browsing the pop / rock section (my husband) and classical / jazz (me).

That is one thing I miss: browsing through new releases in a place like Tower Records... also miss book stores. Yeah, they still exist, but they feel obsolete and the selection is super limited...

But it was great to just check out what's new, then you'd recognize the name of the producer or a musician, sometimes you could even listen to it (in hindsight, those headphones were yuck :-D)...

Now you do it all from home, and then at the end of the day you wonder "hmm i am kinda bored, haven't been out all day"..

I can't even imagine being a kid these days, spending the day playing computer games, and have your parents drive you to soccer or to a playdate... I just rode my bicycle over to where my friends were and our parents were lucky to not know (prolly they suspected) what we were up to... except when they treated our wounds. :-D

 

[threni]

this is a somewhat niché release - and because Matt Johnson and The The remain criminally underrated and overlooked - the box often comes up on the used market for only a few bucks more than the cost of the two discs themselves.

One of the downsides of the band name - no-one's ever going to find it in a google search...

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

...who said nostalgia was a thing of the past...I've no time for physical media, and I'm ancient.