Why buy or use CDs when streaming is more convenient?

[Pancreas]

I have a box with maybe 50 CDs and I NEVER listen to them. They're just collecting dust in the closet.

Also, the internet is so large nowadays that even if you lose your CDs or they stop working, you easily buy a a replacement for cheap, download a FLAC copy, legally or illegally, etc.

So what are you really collecting? They're not rare or sparse, quite the opposite, they take up space

You can access any song at the click of a button, if you like lots of music, you'll have hundreds of CDs in your house.

Apple music app does 192hz, that's superior to CD

 

[Joe Smith]

True, but...since I live in a large house, with plenty of storage, my LPs, CDs and tapes aren't going anywhere just yet.

I am more selective about what I buy these days, it has to be something that I think will get many plays...

I also enjoy maintaining and using the source gear (TTs, cassette decks, CD/SACD players).

These days, no one needs to collect media, but not having it does lock you into paying a monthly fee..."forever"...yes a good deal for most, but it is like renting an apartment, at the end of the lease term, you don't own anything.

I think the vinyl resurgence, while it's not completely rational, shows that for a lot of people, the physical way music is played has a psychological effect and hopefully putting a system together and curating a music collection is still a net positive. Of course, that can be carried to extremes, as we all know, and then it's kinda scary.

 

[egellings]

With a physical copy of the music, you can hear a song of your choice any time you want to. With streaming, you may wait quite a while to hear a favorite.

 

[fpitas]

I have the CDs. Also, a lot of the music is not found online.

 

[Hollywood_Bob]

I agree with the statement that you don't own anything from streaming, and take it further; the cost of streaming will always increase, and when you stop streaming from a provider, you lose everything in your library that you have built up.

Everything.

Also, you really don't need access to all the music that is continually coming out, in fact it's overwhelming.

Reading about and researching music is half the fun in finding new music.

And finding low cost CD's.

I recently purchased a new Toumani Diabate, The Mande Variations, from Discog for $0.10 plus $6.00 shipping, and other discs like Jon Hassell, Fascinoma, Arooj Afar, Vulture Price, and Irma Thomas, My Heart's in Memphis, from ebay and even Amazon each for less than one month of Amazon Music. I recently found a remastered 2 disc set of the Buena Vista Soical Club for less than $15.

And I recently found 3 free months of Apple Music through my PC Optimum points card, and get at least 3 months of free Amazon Music every year through my Amazon Prime account, which I also use for music research.

Finally, as a senior on a fixed income, EVERYBODY tries to get me hooked on a monthly fee for something I usually don't need. Like paid for music streaming.

 

[Prana Ferox]

We really need to have some sort of pinned thread on this.

When you own physical media, you can be sure some contracting dispute doesn't make the source disappear, you can be sure what copy and processing of the master you have, etc. You also pay once and have the music forever, instead of having to pay over and over.

 

[Purité Audio]

With a physical copy of the music, you can hear a song of your choice any time you want to. With streaming, you may wait quite a while to hear a favorite.

Yes sometimes it’s half a second particularly if I miss the ‘play’ button first time.
Keith

 

[Purité Audio]

We really need to have some sort of pinned thread on this.

When you own physical media, you can be sure some contracting dispute doesn't make the source disappear, you can be sure what copy and processing of the master you have, etc. You also pay once and have the music forever, instead of having to pay over and over.

You can actually rip your physical media, modern world.
Keith

 

[egellings]

You can actually rip your physical media, modern world.
Keith

Part of the charm of physical media is the handling of them, and maybe reading notes on the packaging.

 

[Purité Audio]

Amazingly some streaming services actually have those credits, discography etc etc, I didn’t find looking through racks of cds/vinyl charming at all., tedious yes.
Keith

 

[fpitas]

A friend has ripped his entire collection to FLAC. That I can see doing.

 

[Prana Ferox]

You can actually rip your physical media, modern world.
Keith

Exactly, which depending on your setup gives you most of the benefits of streaming along with the benefits of physical ownership. I'd even lump "MP3/FLAC bought and downloaded onto a NAS from somewhere like Bandcamp" in with this.

 

[Svet Angelov]

Part of the charm of physical media is the handling of them, and maybe reading notes on the packaging.

I was just about to comment on the physical media part of it.

The sound quality of digital + the "touchy feely" aspect of vinyl is the best of both worlds for me. Streaming still holds a strong 1st place, but sometimes I want to whip out an album and just stare at the art a bit. Or read some of the liner notes.

 

[Joe Smith]

I agree with the statement that you don't own anything from streaming, and take it further; the cost of streaming will always increase, and when you stop streaming from a provider, you lose everything in your library that you have built up.

Everything.

Also, you really don't need access to all the music that is continually coming out, in fact it's overwhelming.

Reading about and researching music is half the fun in finding new music.

And finding low cost CD's.

I recently purchased a new Toumani Diabate, The Mande Variations, from Discog for $0.10 plus $6.00 shipping, and other discs like Jon Hassell, Fascinoma, Arooj Afar, Vulture Price, and Irma Thomas, My Heart's in Memphis, from ebay and even Amazon each for less than one month of Amazon Music. I recently found a remastered 2 disc set of the Buena Vista Soical Club for less than $15.

And I recently found 3 free months of Apple Music through my PC Optimum points card, and get at least 3 months of free Amazon Music every year through my Amazon Prime account, which I also use for music research.

Finally, as a senior on a fixed income, EVERYBODY tries to get me hooked on a monthly fee for something I usually don't need. Like paid for music streaming.

Isn't that Buena Vista Social Club a great album? I bought that remaster when it came out, never knew about it when released in the 90s. So good!

 

[Hollywood_Bob]

I do rip my CD's and put them on my phone so I can listen to them when driving and out for walks, or cutting the grass, etc.

 

[NoMoFoNo]

With a physical copy of the music, you can hear a song of your choice any time you want to. With streaming, you may wait quite a while to hear a favorite.

? Not true.

 

[Vive la dissonance!]

Except for the storage space, which is frankly perfectly manageable even for my collection of some 3,000 or so CDs, I find playing CDs more convenient, not less.

I prefer to not have to fire up a computer and monitor, launch an app, scroll through what is often for classical music a poorly cataloged mess, possibly not find what I'm looking for and have to settle for an alternative, possibly endure an intrusive commercial, and hope for no issues with internet latency and that the service isn’t flatly incorrect about the playback quality.

I'd rather make my selection from a rack or shelf, which is far nicer for browsing than anything online, and place the physical disc on a tray. I like program notes. I like flawless playback and the same quality every time. I like zero intrusions from commercials.

And it should be clear to everyone that with all streaming services there is zero guarantee that your favorites will remain available. For me, with music, this is simply not acceptable and never will be.

 

[Joe Smith]

You can actually rip your physical media, modern world.
Keith

Did that once long ago with iTunes circa 2008...never listen now to that stored AAC library. Not really anxious to do all of that over again.

 

[DVDdoug]

I have a prejudice against subscriptions! Perhaps irrational but I try to minimize subscriptions. (I have a free Spotify account, but my Internet is a bit slow and I only use it to check-out music that I might be interested in.)

I have about 1000 CDs (I haven't counted them) but I own more than 18,000 tracks. (I'm not bragging... Lots of people have bigger collections.) Most have them were acquired before streaming became common. They are all ripped to MP3 and I have copies on multiple hard drives and computers and on my antique iPod Classic which lives in my car, connected to the stereo. I've got an "extra" laptop connected to my home theater system and the 4TB SSD also has around 100 movies and around 100 concert videos.

And I'm old, so I own most of the music I'll ever want. I did buy a few new CDs recently by "old" artists. My "favorites" playlist on the iPod has about 2000 tracks that play randomly unless I'm in the mood for something else.

...Perhaps unfortunately, I started ripping to MP3 a long time ago and I really don't want to re-rip them all to FLAC. But, every time I've though I was hearing a compression artifact, the CD has turned-out to have the same "defect" so the quality is perfectly acceptable.

you easily buy a a replacement for cheap, download a FLAC copy, legally or illegally, etc.

Most music is NOT available for download both losslessly AND legally. If you want lossless legally, usually you have to buy the CD or other shiny disc format.

 

[Purité Audio]

Yes me too, what a pain it was, but back then there wasn’t lossless streaming, only spotify and napster if I remember correctly.
Keith