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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?

pablolie

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Yes except for rare, old or used and sale items. And sometimes they disappear on Qobuz. These were there and now gone.
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Indeed that is my big deal with online media. You own them until... you don't, because of one acquisition (and there are many) or one royalty disagreement. In my Spotify playlists, 2% at any time are no longer playing, even though they were there at some point. Hence, for my fav music, I'll never stop buying the originals - and CDs are a great way to do so.
 

Galliardist

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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... :)
Things I hadn’t taken much notice of here and should have.
Where it becomes painful (and I have had this) is if the back of the disc gets damaged. Then the disc can become unplayable. The back should be a much harder material but as with everything else the standard isn’t always met.
 
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pablolie

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Things I hadn’t taken much notice of here and should have.
Where it becomes painful (and I have had this) is if the back of the disc gets damaged. Then the disc can become unplayable. The back should be a much harder material but as with everything else the standard isn’t always met.
The only CD ever that went unplayable is the one my ex-ex-wife scratched.

None of my CDs ever stopped playing - and they might have had a rough spot here and there. As a physical medium, I think the CD is super resilient. By the time I ripped my fav old LPs, they all sounded like crap despite a very cozy existence. In the end, I replaced the vinyl rips with digital downloads or CD rips whenever I could (if I still cared about the music).
 

makinao

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They’re in the bookshelf of my study area. I pop one out every time I get pissed off by a badly mastered stream in Spotify.
 

DavidMcRoy

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I very likely own the very first CD player to be purchased in my original hometown, Mobile, Alabama, at a highly discounted $475 At Saad Stereo, 40 years ago this month. It's a Hitachi similar to the player in the photo but without the model name on the top. I have hundreds of CDs that I just moved across country from Florida to Washington, but I stream everything now on Apple Music. The first two I bought were a period Fleetwood Mac album and the then ubiquitous early CD release, Toto IV.
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Jim Shaw

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From Wikipedia:
OD Compact disc.svg
The readable surface of a compact disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum.
Media typeOptical disc
EncodingVarious
CapacityTypically up to 700 MiB (up to 80 minutes audio)
Read mechanism780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser (early players used helium–neon lasers),[1] 1,200 Kbit/s (1×)
Write mechanism780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser in recordable formats CD-R and CD-RW, pressed mold (stamper) in read only formats
StandardRainbow Books
Developed byPhilips, Sony
DimensionsDiameter: 120 mm (4.7 in)
Thickness: 1.2 mm (0.047 in)
UsageAudio and data storage
Extended to
Released
  • October 1982; 40 years ago (Japan)
  • 2 March 1983; 40 years ago (Europe and North America)
Media types come and go, but the music plays on. Did I celebrate CD's arrival? You bet. As a musician and classical music devotee, the flaws in the sound of LPs were annoying. One had to consciously tune out the garbage, wow, flutter, clicks and scrapes, and the bookcase-bending weight of vinyl to enjoy a musical performance. I didn't discard the hundreds of classical LPs and boxed sets, but I rarely play them. I do regret losing the colorful and informative sleeves.

I bought one of the earliest Sony players and was enchanted by their musical quality, low noise, and more diminutive form. Yes, I guess that was 40 years ago. Today, I have several hundred CDs. The Sony deck is long gone, probably a victim of an age-dimming laser. Today, I play CDs on a DVD deck with S/PDIF to a modern modem. Splendid!

A few years ago, I tried streaming in high res, and almost never looked back. Never, except for some operas, artists, and record labels that never made it to streaming. For example, most of the Telarc catalog is missing.

As I write this, the young and prodigious pianist, Jan Liseicki is playing Chopin -- wonderfully -- via Amazon Unlimited. The artist, composer, recording, and playback are stunningly beautiful. La musique chante!

I hope Jan is getting paid.

iu


My first CD player.

iu

The current CD rig. The built-in audio output is just awful, but the coax output to my DAC is excellent... and I had this lying around, unused.
Much of my music dates back to Pachelbel and Buxtehude, but it plays on, better and better.
 
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Chrispy

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Been a fan since I suppose is most succinct. Sure changed my gear/media habits.
 

DavidMcRoy

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Why would anybody name a hifi shop Saad Stereo. Surely it would make more business sense to call it Haappy Stereo.
Family name, of course. But, yeah, the competition made not-very-clever jokes about it.
 
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dadregga

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I see. The way you worded your post made me think that you had ripped your SACD's. I have quite a substantial collection of them so I got kind of excited.
It has been (relatively) trivial to rip multichannel SACDs for several years - I've ripped ~100 of mine with a $35 Sony player. If you want to do it, go for it.


 

Scytales

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CDs (and accessory SA-CDs) are still my sole music format, apart from listening to the radio or streaming online on the computer when at the bureau.

As the CD/SA-CD player works fine and is payed since ages, I do not bother to switch to another format or dematerialize my music. I have had bad experiences with loss of data due to Windows crashes or obsolete softwares or disappearing online resources...
 

bkatbamna

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My first player was a Magnavox FD 2040. Case and tray made of metal. Quite heavy. Great sound. CDs were revolutionary because no matter how clean records were, and how good the system was, there were always extraneous noises on classical music on records.

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nugget

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Yes except for rare, old or used and sale items. And sometimes they disappear on Qobuz. These were there and now gone.
Sure, but that's a different topic completely. I was just talking about discovering new music similar to how one used to in physical record stores. I feel like the streaming services -- especially when viewed through the lens of Roon's UI -- does a very good job at that task.
 

Timcognito

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Sure, but that's a different topic completely. I was just talking about discovering new music similar to how one used to in physical record stores. I feel like the streaming services -- especially when viewed through the lens of Roon's UI -- does a very good job at that task.
Agreed, but in context of what was said, it is not same as discovering something at a thrift shop, Goodwill or Tower Records that was mentioned. Plus now one has it as long as they want. Streaming is better in many ways and faster, as you can listen to some or all of it and with Roon get lots of info and links to other stuff.
 

coonmanx

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How does a person store CDs? Simple. You throw them in a pile. The ones you don't really listen to much anymore go on the bottom. Also there is a store here in town where you can trade in the ones you no longer want. You don't get a whole lot for them but it is better than them just sitting around. Also CDs are so cheap these days that it is easy to experience new music by collecting a few CDs.

Also... almost all CD players sound the same. Listening to a Scott CD player right now in the bedroom. Some Keb Mo that sounds wonderful. In the living room I have a JVC CD player that doesn't get much use anymore and a Panasonic portable player that I use sometimes while cooking. All of them sound great...
 

Descartes

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It has been (relatively) trivial to rip multichannel SACDs for several years - I've ripped ~100 of mine with a $35 Sony player. If you want to do it, go for it.


I don’t have an intel base computer but a Mac. So I am not sure these will work?

I heard there was a company that used to do it for you for a very modest fee?
 
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bkatbamna

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Thank God I joined BMG music club and ended up with over 300 CDs. In an age when they are censoring books of authors that are dead, I am glad I'm not streaming(I have all the music I want to listen to and don't have time to "discover" new music). I've ripped all my CDs as well just in case and have 3 duplicate drives that contain the music. They are stored in different locations. I also have a bunch of hi-res and CD res files in addition to the flac files of my CDs but after I bought a ultrasonic cleaner, I've got great sound and satisfaction from the LPs that I have.
 

nugget

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Agreed, but in context of what was said, it is not same as discovering something at a thrift shop, Goodwill or Tower Records that was mentioned.
I disagree. I think the Internet is perfectly capable of approximating the discovery process of a brick and mortar store. In the context of rare or back catalog content, the Internet is clearly superior to any venue which has to contend with limited physical space or regional availability constraints.

Plus now one has it as long as they want. Streaming is better in many ways and faster, as you can listen to some or all of it and with Roon get lots of info and links to other stuff.

Whether a discovery leads to streaming listens or a purchase is unrelated to the topic of artist/content discovery. Both purchase or streaming are available to consumers who use Internet sources for music discovery.
 
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