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For me, number six would include having the album art and liner notes at hand and not having to search for them on the internet where the information is often incomplete.
Still have about 200 CD's from the '90s ha! Still listen to them. I'm moving and putting together a new system. NR1711, MM7025 need a recommendation for speakers in 2.1 bookshelf's plus sub. Thanks
@ 07:26 Tom Petty went head-to-head with MCA again in 1981 when the label pushed to sell his next album, “Hard Promises,” for $9.98 a pop - a full dollar more than the norm at that time. On principle, Petty refused to release the record, stating that he wanted to keep costs down for his fans.
Just subscribed, Here in the UK, even the "thrift shops" no longer want donated CDs or DVDs they can't get rid of them. Over here most are now destined for landfill.
Number 11. You will actually Own your music, instead of just renting it. I still buy blurays instead of streaming too. Not only is the quality better, and far more consistent and reliable, but I dont have to worry about a particular thing suddenly not being available online anymore. Plus, deluxe edition cd's, and often cd single, will give you extra tracks that you wont find anywhere else. Just make sure if you're using EAC to rip to WAV, I honestly dont understand why anyone would seek out a cd because it is better quality, to then turn around and rip it to a compressed file type, defeats the object
I'm the same way for music because of blue ray 5.1 on my old reference level Pioneer but for movies, my cheapie 4k player became obsolete in just a few years because Samsung stopped updating them to play some newer movies. Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new movie that won't play so I'd rather stream new movies.
Lossless compression doesn't touch the original file in any way, it just finds more compact ways to store it. FLAC and ALAC are lossless and far away from the psychoacoustic Fourier based compression. Think of it like a ZIP file tailored for music.
@@mikafoxx2717 that is often the claim, but I can hear the difference between a flac and a wav, just like I can hear the difference between both and an mp3. Frankly, with the hard drives available today, I dont see the argument for shrinking these files for home listening, if it means I'm losing something. For people who are mainly portable listeners, it may be different
@@shreddherring I would request that you convert a WAV to FLAC and then back, and compare the bits of both. They're identical. It's the exact same bits going to your DAC.
#3 Is absolutely true. In 25 years, I’ve never heard an mp3 or stream that sounds as good as a CD. 5:44 Beyond fun, I’ve decided that physical media is the only thing I really trust anymore. I can’t tell you how much money and how many singles and albums I’ve bought in iTunes only to have the music delete from my device. Then I return to the iTunes Store to restore the purchase and learn that the music is no longer for sale. So when iTunes stops selling it, they steal it back from everyone they had sold it to previously. No warning, no refund. The music is just GONE and unavailable. With CDs and cassettes I’ll always have my music.
I worked at Sam Goody for 10 years until ‘95. Until Best Buy and Circuit City came around, full price CDs were $18 and sale prices were typically $14.99. So, current CD pricing is an absolute steal!
Sam Goody, Strawberries and even Tower Records I feel were overpriced. Newbury Comics had new cds for $9.99 the first week of their release then most of the time they went to $11.99 for normal pricing. I used to love going into Newbury every Tuesday to see the new releases and employee picks
Agree, new release CDs back in the late 80s and 90s were expensive. 18 bucks for a single CD?! That's why I was a member of BMG through that time, as they had "buy one at full price, get 3 free" deals all the time. Occasionally it was buy one get 4 free. Of course the "one" was over priced and they charged for shipping and "handling" but on average it came out to about 7 or 8 bucks a piece. Granted, their selection left something to be desired, and their bullshit deal of if you didn't send in the mailing declining a shipment you got charged for the CD of the month, but overall it was still a good deal and really the only way to build your collection economically.
I know I paid $18 for my first CD. It was either Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. They stayed $18 for a long time it seemed. (And this was back when $18 really was $18 if you get my drift). Was glad when they finally came down to $12 for most.
@@rosswarren436 Those were two of the first five CDs I purchased. The others were Revolver, CCRs Chronicle, and Eagles Greatest Hits. The Beatles CD was $20. Luckily, I had an employee discount of 30% so most CDs were around $12.40 for me.🖖🏼
@@ThePittsburghToddy man, that employee discount would have been freaking tempting. LOL. Good for you! Funny, I think CCR's Chronicle was in the first 10 CDs I bought too. Crazy times. Records were $5.99 so I still bought more vinyl, but the times they were a-changin'....
me too, since about 1985, I don‘t no today the exact year, I bought CDs up to know to have my music for my own. But beside this, my mobil music is for several years now in my car on an USB Stick or phone in compressed AAC 320 and at home on a NAS in FLAC Audio via network. So I can hear my music on every floor and Player in my house. The CDs are stored in a separate cabinet.
Love this! My 14 year old daughter recently bought a decent bookshelf stereo system with CD player, and she has been blown away by the quality. When she fully understood that the cool thing about CDs is that they are HERS, and no streaming service can decide whether or not to carry artists she likes, she was hooked. (I know this is obvious to older Millennials and up, but man. Once more Gen Z kids catch on, I bet CDs will start going up in price.)
I’m 13 and love collecting cds! I started with my parents cd wallet with a lot of used up scratched up cds that still work and then this april my mom took me to the store they got them from and I continued to buy them every once and while from there. And the CD player I use is my old play station 3
@@lucasrem vinyl is too expensive compared to CDs and they takes away from the thrill of collecting. I can usually get an entire catalog from a band on cd for about the price of 2 vinyls.
I've bought about 300 CD's over the last couple of years and I've been buying them for 40 years now. I have 40 year old CD's that still sound as good as the day I bought them. You can't say that about any other medium. 💿
@@j.t.cooper2963 You talk bs, cd's that old all have cd rot, you liar! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Lol, same here...bought my first cd almost 40 years ago, Guns 'n roses - Appetite for destruction and it plays fine as ever! So glad vinyl was out. Now I have some 8000 cd's.
I grew up in the age of vinyl, but unlike many vinyl jockeys of my generation, I was deleriously happy when the CD appeared. Before that I was mainly a cassette man because I was NOT able to afford much in my youth during the age of vinyl. The CD was to many of us, a savior. No more pops, clicks, rumble, scratches-endless cleaning and fretting over the medium, and less dynamic range. You think vinyl is NOT compressed? Think again! I bought my first CDP in 1990. A mid-fi Sony that died in 1998. And began collecting CDs. Transitioning from the cassette. I had an AIWA cassette deck, a lower powered Pioneer integrated, and a set of Canadian DB Plus speakers in the late '80s as my first real system. To this I added the Sony CD deck. Later, when I had more money, I bought a set of JBL L80ts and a higher model Kenwood Dolby Receiver (130 watts x 2 @ 8 ohms). And I was off to the races! To this day, the CD remains my primary medium. I don't really do DACs. My two best players are a Harman Kardon HD 990-which can also function as a DAC-has an optical in. And a Jolida Music Van MKIV tube output/input CDP (four tubes, two transformers)-which really warms up that digital sound. Tubes and digital are a wonderful marriage. I prefer to own my music, I do stream, but when I stream I'm less concerned with lossless because it is either to experience some new music, or as background. A good CD can sound great if you have the right equipment. I don't care what the vinyl boys say. I also spin vinyl and my system is more mid-fi there but I don't hear anything fantastic when I'm playing LPs. They sound good enough, but NOT amazing. And, the noise is still usually around.And some records are not that dynamic in range. They don't match the expansiveness of the CD from soft to loud. A GOOD CD that is. The problem? There are a lot of poorly mastered and recorded CDs like there are lps and cassettes.
Yup. We had an event outside at my brother's field near Gatwick airport (England) two weekends ago. Around 40 people attended from 2pm to midnight. I used a pair of Q-acoustics BT3 speakers. One was active the other passive. I used my Sony digital audio player and played lossless (.wav) music using Bluetooth. I have over 800 lossless ripped CDs on my Sony player. There was no WiFi near the field but of course that wasn't a problem. I've also archived all the ripped CDs on a portable drive. Own your own music and be in control.
Vinyl and CD hit different. One is not better in my opinion- they are just different and both great to experience. A lot of the sound is amp and speaker setup anyway.
Randy, thank you for this!!! I ripped my entire cd collection 5 years ago. My friends make fun of me because they feel the music they stream is just as good. Glad to know I was right all along and wasn't wasting my time ripping cd's! One of my friends had a whiskey tasting party at his home and his internet kept cutting out, so we used the ripped music on my phone....yet another advantage!
eventualy over time the quality will match, but you buy a cd for few dolallars and you have permanent right to that music! you don't rent it and pay for it every time you listen to it, or you listen for free and pay for that music with your time because of advertisment that only interupt your listening experience, that's the biggest factor for me to actualy buy cds it's that you own that music piece
My adult son listened to a lot of CDs in his high school years and of course, when he moved out, his stuff didn’t. He had CD wallets with the discs to save space & to be able to transport all of the discs with him on overnight trips. I spent a couple of hours last wk reuniting discs with their liner notes & cases. He probably won’t want these back, but at least they’re organized now.
I've been collecting CDs for a little over 30 years now, and will continue to do so. Same with vinyl, which I've collected for over 25. I like physical media: the experience of opening it up and looking at the packaging, putting the disc on the platter (or in the tray), reading liner notes and lyrics, and looking at the artwork. It helps solidify the experience, so it's not so ephemeral, like you might get with merely streaming. These days, I stream a lot of my music, but mostly because I buy the CD or vinyl copy, and then either use the download card or rip it to my own home media server, and then I can stream it on my PC at work to listen to there. When I'm at home, as much as possible, I like to actually use the media. Other good reason to own media is this: if you like music that is more niche, or like supporting local/regional artists, often times you can buy their CD at a show or online, and who knows if a year from now they'll still be around. I have a fair number of CDs I bought from bands during the MySpace era, and a scant few of those bands ever escaped the mid-late 2000's. Some of that music is not available in any kind of streaming platform, and not even been uploaded illegally to TH-cam. I used to go to a good number of smaller shows, and would try to buy demos and independent releases from bands when I would go, to help support them on the road. Most of that stuff is no longer available online in any format. But since I have the CD, I can still listen to it, or make my own backup copy on my media server.
@@hodumx I bought a lot of demos and indie CDs during the MySpace era, for example. Or a lot of faith based heavy metal and hard rock stuff that goes out of print quickly. Or video game soundtracks that go out of print really fast.
@@joshdieckmann595 man, I’ll keep a lookout for that sort of thing in the discount and second hand stores, as well as the 7 oceans of course. Thank you!
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Hebrews 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. John 3:16-21 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Mark 1.15 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
I have an old Pioneer CD player from the late 80s that still works perfectly and sounds really good. Another good point about buying CDs is to help support the artists that you enjoy that are currently making music.
Roughly a year before the pandemic, Best Buy physical stores were blowing out their CD stock at $3/$4/$5 each, brand new. I scored a ton of Sabbath and other stuff.
Recently joined Discogs and I've been snapping up rarities from sellers all over the world. I'm amazed at the quality of product that was pressed 30 years ago, and more! Some folks have taken great care of their CDs over time. CD singles from the 80s and 90s rarely made their way to my little part of the world but now I can scoop the up. The only downside: you can pay more for the shipping than the disc.
I have been buying CDs since 1986 and have thousands of them. They are still my favorite format despite the fact that I do love vinyl too. Physical media rocks! My favorite CD player so far is the Marantz ND8006 (solid and useful AF and sounds AMAZING) and the second favorite is an Onkyo C-7030. Newbies: before 10 years ago, it was pretty common to find used vinyl for $3. The markup in the last few years is legitimately insane.
#11 - it supports the artist, a lot more than the fractions of a penny they get when you stream their music, especially if you buy new. #12 - it supports the efforts to remaster, reissue, and to otherwise bring old recordings new life. you get audiophile reissues without paying $100+ per LP, and without needing a $1000+ vinyl rig to hear the difference.
New CD sales. The artist still makes pennies on them. Artists always make their money touring. The record companies make a good 85% of the money made on media sales. The Reissuing and Remastering of the media falls to the artist. They are the ones that make the decision to this 90% of the time. Most of them wait until they can buy the rights back from the record company. Then they remaster there stuff to make it the way they wanted it to sound. If it was up to the record companies. They would beat a dead horse.
on a big label they only make $.50 or so per disc. if they publish themselves, as many now do, then the artists gets everything but overhead. it's not much but it's a lot more than they get from Spotify.
I am a dinosaur that still buys CDs as my #1 option for acquiring new music. Purchasing used CDs on ebay for around 5 bucks a piece is a great way to grow your collection. As certain albums are sometimes hard to acquire on CD, now that FLAC files are available for purchase on a few sites (like bandcamp) I have become accustomed to buying those since there's not a sound quality sacrifice over getting the CD, and I always rip my CDs to FLAC anyway. Last option is to buy mp3s because I want my own copy regardless. I have no paid streaming plans - my library of almost 10,000 songs is effectively my own streaming service.
@@musestarlight1 Hardly any of that goes to the artists, and at literally any moment they can lose/change their licensing agreement and you lose access to it. It's worth it to me. If I was starting from zero right now it would probably be harder to justify, but my collection was mostly built before these streaming services were even available. Not that expensive to keep adding now.
CD prices are already beginning to creep up. 5 years ago, I used to be able to good used CDs where I live for $1 each or less. Now they're more like $2-$3 each. Still a great value, but they're only going to get more expensive as more people realise how much bang-for-buck you get and millennials get hit with the same nostalgia bug for CDs that Gen X has for vinyl.
I am solidly Gen X and much like many of the other commenters here, I would rather deal with CDs all day long, than vinyl LPs and 45s. I found out from my parents' generation what a PITA vinyl record maintenance truly is. CD maintenance isn't a cakewalk either, but.. no, I'm not nostalgic for scratch sounds.
I like them too, but they're a finicky format that can have problems with laser mistracking, giving a crackly fuzzy sound. I do agree that when the CD player is working properly, even lower-cost players are capable of extraordinarily good sound. I have a 30 year old Philips CD920 that I put a new laser in, and it sounds *great* now for the first time in three decades :) CDs are basically obsolete now because of the widespread availability of solid-state storage such as Micro SD cards, which have no moving parts and are generally trouble free. They're also very compact and cheap. CDs aren't really that compact by today's standards :) I still insist that legitimately-purchased music should be available in a lossless format, but you save it to a memory card and play it on a tablet PC (or other device) connected to your stereo, and you have outstanding sound without the finicky nature of CD players.
Imagine seeing your favorite performer at the airport and saying, "Oh, I love your music! I've STREAMED every album!" I bet they would be really impressed with your dedication.
Back in the day, I had all the club membership, RCA -->BMG, Columbia House, and paid an average of 3 bucks per CD. Bought on sale in bulk. Worked for me. I have 1200 CDs
I bought a McIntosh dvd universal disc player that was a floor model about 15 years ago. I used it mostly for movies and stopped using it for a long time after DVDs were succeeded by Blu-ray. I recently played a CD in it and was astonished of how good it was. I think it’s the best sounding component in my rig. The DVD player has a Burr-Brown DAC. I listen to my cd collection a lot more.
I agree with you and the channel but the real price barrier that nobody seems to address -anywhere, anytime- is how to get around paying big money for an a/v receiver. New ones basically start at $500 and those are low end. The only used ones are either ancient with inappropriate inputs/outputs or in need of repair. I have limited free money and this has been my main barrier for years. Does anybody have any legitimate suggestions here? I wish this channel would address it in a 30 minute video
Hey Randy , about 1984 or 85 I bought a 100 watt Curtis Mathis rack system and it had dual cassette, turn table with equalizer. I had to buy a separate CD player to make a pretty decent two channel system . I bought my first CD at the local Wally World for right at 26 bucks , Boston their first album More Than A Feeling and their was no comparison in my opinion when I cranked Boston up . CD's were a great delight to my ears , the main drawback being at the time they were about 10 bucks higher per album over vinyl. I thought it couldn't any better when it came to crystal clear music. The CD's were high priced at the time and worth it , no flipping the vinyl and best of all everything on one side with no stylus sound just loud clear music. The good old days , I'm 65 years of age now and I still like my tunes played loud . CD's did the trick and still do .
So much good advice here! Exact audio copy is by far the best program out there. The CD has an Achilles heel with the optical part being prone to damage and errors. But EAC fixes that! If nothing else, the CD is a license to listen in your home. Same goes for DVD and your favorite movies. You don't have to pay an online service to watch it, which is going to be the new norm with the masses of the newer generations.
Not only do you not need to pay to stream it if you own it on CD/DVD, they are also not tracking your listening or viewing habits and using that data for marketing and selling it on.
I like CDs because they sound great, they are maximum resolution after all. I don't have to deal with ads, or being profiled or algorighmed, or paying a monthly fee that if I stop playing I lose access to my music. I'll take a CD over vinyl any day. I actually own a physical copy of the music I love forever. I can even pass them down to our kids. And now we can all get them at what should have been the price all along, $5-$10. The only downside really is that the cases are fragile and the artwork is much smaller format, handled by ripping them losslessly to digital media (they are digital to start with after all) and keeping the physical media as the archive copy. Long live CDs!
I remember I used to have CD players that would let you “program” your own track list. I used to like to rearrange the order of the tracks on the cd so that they flowed better than the original track order.
I still collect CD's when I can't find the vinyl version. CD's used is also a good way to build your music collection on the cheap. The physical media is tactile and gives you a sense of ownership. Digital is good but disposable.
I grew up with vinyl. When CDs hit the market, I ditched vinyl and never looked back. Good quality (recorded and mastered) CDs are just as good as good quality vinyl, IMO, and you don't have to suffer through the drawbacks of vinyl records (careful handling, cleaning, and most of all wear and tear). It's a PITA that I don't miss and I'm not inclined to return to. I also agree CDs sound better than streaming. More CDs is a good thing. :)
Still better to have on harddrives You can often quite easily find better sounding masters in digital format so you can actually even store several variants without the hassle of changing discs
Come on you lot getting eggy over different formats, they all have a place in music & suit all today. I have vinyl, tapes, cd's ,hundreds of hi res flac albums on hard drives & usb & I stream. It's about versatility and access to whatever we need now unlike years ago when we could maybe go to town buy the album or single normally one or 2 at a time & treasure the sleeve, reading it back to front & playing it a few times a day until next pay day. Sometimes ordering from abroad waiting for 2 weeks before it arrived. It's nice it's convenient today but not the same excitement. Today its mc donalds fast food style.
@@Hirnlego999 No its not. Hard drive is cold convenient music. Like turning on tapped beer when there are special bottled versions to savour. I take it you have never experienced proper music ownership or got a decent vinyl collection started about 50 years ago to treasure to re- visit & bring back memories of those days you bought it. I can picture in my mind where I purchased every album & memories of friends/girlfriends, family, places, age & fashion. Hard drive phewey. Only good for back ups really or in car.
Your video absolutely got me thinking about CDs again. I pulled out my CD binder from the 90s and 2000s. I'm stoked! I was at Goodwill and found brand new CDs from unknown artists that I have never heard of, still in the shrink wrap. I bought Switch Foot, Black Crows, and Verseria (A local Indianapolis Band) for $2 each. I am back on board for CDs! Thank you so much for this video!
This video really spoke to me. I have two 7'-tall CD cabinets, 13 shelves each, each shelf holding about 90 CDs, and maybe another 300 in piles on my fireplace hearth. My vinyl collection could be measured in yards (I'm 64), and when Oppo pulled out of the player market I bought two more used "backup" BDP-103 players, should be set for my remaining time on this rock. I bought my first Apple TV a few months ago, and am just starting to play with Apple Music streaming service, it can be convenient but after my miserable experience with sirius xm in my new 2018 car, I'm glad I have a bunch of CDs.
I still buy CD's! I had 3 delivered yesterday. Until recently, I was playing them on an Oppo BDP-105 but upgraded to a Cambridge Audio CXC transport and an Ares II DAC. To me, the transport/DAC combination is the best way to go as it is easier to upgrade when newer technology appears. I always enjoy your videos and I still don't drink coffee.
I adore CDs! At home I prefer records but in my photographic studio I'm spinning CD's. I'm now doubling up on titles and already the prices are high. I do love how new releases on CD's are in cardboard sleeves. Makes it feel a lot more analogue. Better for the planet too. I'm currently spinning Adore by Pumpkins on CD and its utterly brilliant. The 2011 remaster of Pink Floyd the Wall on CD is also breathtaking.
I also have multiple copies of my favorite CDs! I always keep a couple copies of my favorite titles IN the shrink wrap! ** Unrelated note, regarding Floyd, have you seen that Roger Waters is re-recording DSOTMoon all by himself? .... Something tells me it's going to be a let down .... the man's almost 80, for heaven's sake .....
So funny, my husband and I got out our old CD collection that dates to about 1986 and beyond last week. We had forgotten just how good CD’s sound - much better than streaming- I completely agree, we’re going to start buying CD’s again!
I remember buying my first CD in 87, having listened to vinyl since the 60's. Was blown away! Plus you could access tracks instantly. Physical media still has a place in my life. I do stream a lot these days as I just don't have the room for records and CD's, but if i like an artist I always buy it physically to support them.
Great advice. I own 10's of thousands of CD's and have de-gutted the jewel cases and put them in storage. The paperwork & discs are in hundreds of notebooks holding 200+ pieces. I've also digitized my collection of Reels & cassettes. Those consist of decades of air checks. Never a loss of anything to listen to. All the big bulky equipment along with Monster Cable and Lasserdiscs & vinyl are also in storage. Everything is played thru a Bose Wave Radio, and for the most part, is accurate playback. Really a happy camper. Enjoy listening.
I recently dug mine out from storage (I had about 500 discs) and I’m reripping them at a high bitrate, then putting them on display again. I was nearly at a point a year or two ago where I was going to sell them all!
320kbps was the one thing I always disliked about iTunes/Apple music. I ripped all my cds to lossless as soon as the cost of memory came down to a good value and always buy cd over download.
One piece of advice I have to say, do a bit of research and find the best sounding CD for a particular title > not all CD’s are created/mastered equally
#9: I've had and used the exact same CD player in my main system since the 90s when I bought it used for $100. (It was almost a $1000 retail list when new) That CD player is still working perfectly today with no issues whatsoever. I had opened it up a few years ago to thoroughly clean it, but other than that it's one of the most reliable components I have. Speakers are the most reliable, (as long as you don't blow them!), and VCRs and cassette decks usually require the most maintenance. Anyway, I've also found and bought a few other really decent and fully working CD players used in my local thrift stores for about the same price as a new CD, ($10-$20), just so I have a couple of good quality backup players just in case my main one ever dies or needs to be fixed. IMO, buying used good quality vintage equipment from reputable brands that is still in good shape and working condition is a MUCH better value overall than buying any of the (usually either majorly overpriced if good quality, OR super cheap quality, if inexpensive), brand new gear! Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, CDs will always be the overall best music format, and I will always buy as much of my music collection as possible on them throughout my life, especially since I've been collecting music on CD since I was in high-school and I'm now in my 50s with over 40K CDs in my music collection, in just about every genre, and from all over the world, and from all eras, from the 50s up until today's latest releases, and I will continue keeping up with the latest music throughout my life, as music exploration and enjoyment is one thing that helps keep you young, due to you always keeping an open mind to new experiences!
I have over 900 CDs, and many were purchased through the the record clubs back in the '90s, such as BMG, Columbia House, and Musical Heritage Society. I haven't bought any physical music media probably for 20 years, but last night I did order a double vinyl album of Frank Sinatra from Walmart. I'm just getting back into it, and at one time I was going to get rid of my CDs but luckily didn't. I did that back when I got more into CDs and gave away a bunch of vinyl that I wish I still had.
IMO, if you choose any single way to enjoy your music, you’re backing yourself into a corner and there is significant compromise one way or the other (price, availability, sq). I find it better to pull and enjoy from some streaming, some vinyl, and yes for me mostly CD. Lastly, considering the recent MOFI analog controversy you’re wasting a lot of time hand-wringing over the format when you can just enjoy your music. CDs will not be dying any time soon. Good video as always!
@@geraldmartin7703 I have one MoFi album, bought it because it was half price from memory, and a good deal. It does sound very good, to me anyway, but my ears are shot, and while I appreciate and enjoy high quality music, I don't need the best of the best of the best. I wouldn't pay stupid prices for their stuff, but for the right price I'd definitely buy more.
Spot on video! My collection of music consists of vinyl, CDs and streaming. Been collecting vinyl since I was a teenager and CDs since the early 80s. My favorite format is CDs and I have a collection of over 4000, snd I still buy CDs. After years of messing around with different components I finally have a setup I love and makes my CDs sound amazing. My system makes CDs sound warm, full and open and it's now my preferred way to listen to music. Thanks for another great video!
About CD sound quality- A lot, and I mean A LOT of music that came out in the hay day of CD, mostly the early to mid 90's, was not re-recorded for digital streaming. A lot of it was "ripped" into a computer system and then converted using software many years back. This can work ok, or it can work pretty lousy depending on the age of the conversion and software used. Obviously old conversions used old software and it left a mark. Sometimes the bass sounds like it is playing out of a speaker with a towel over the woofer, or sounds like the speaker was underwater, or playing through a pane of glass. For a listener that never heard the music when it was "new" back then or heard it from physical media, they might not notice. Sometimes the drum beats become blurred, or "sharp but muted" if that makes sense.... sound levels can be out of whack..... it is pretty noticeable on certain music side by side. Plus, physical media is a thing. And by that I mean, EVERYTHING is going to "as a service" which means they want you to pay them money every month and then STILL buy titles. Except when you stop paying every month your stuff is locked. They are doing this with video games, even options like heated seats in cars! DON'T LET THEM LOCK YOUR MUSIC COLLECTION BEHIND A MONTHLY PAYMENT. Get physical media. Get NON BLUE TOOTH players for your media. Why non blue tooth? Amazon Sidewalk. Look it up if you don't know what it is. I recommend thrift stores for CD players. Local GoodWill has given me a dozen "old" CD players for less then $5 per. 2 of them didn;t work right. One of them was missing a power cord. All of them cost at least $150 when new, the most expensive one I found was a JVC 200 disc jukebox style that worked perfectly($499 new). 1990's big name brand CD players, well, a few had crappy DAC(Sony was hit and miss) but a lot of them had top notch and if they still work, they work. I have enough to last the rest of my life and it cost me like $60. Much harder to find old players for Vinyl at the thrift.
#3: Yes, very much so. It's kind of sad that many self-releasing artists have given up on releasing their albums on CD over the past 5 years at least. At the moment, I've got quite the wishlist of music that is not available in lossless sound. 10 years ago, I used to write to artists and /or indie labels directly, if an album that I want has not been released in anything other than mp3 or vinyl (read: not on CD) to ask them if I can buy a lossless copy from tthem directly, with the goal to burn my own jewel case CD version of it for my home stereo. And every time I got a reply to that, it was a positive one and we had a deal. Due to being busy with work, I rarely get to do that now, hence the workload. For example, I managed to write to an artist with that intention only once this year. And the album in question that came out in 2015 is really beautiful. Also, in the used CD store in town (in Germany), I've never seen as many great rare albums on CD for very affordable prices than I have done this year. The advantage of CD over streams is that you don't need to have a safety copy because it is supposed to "last a lifetime of listening enjoyment", as it said on the original packaging in the 80s, and that streams can disappear without prior notice for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Downloads do not have a booklet with information on who plays what on the album, whereas CDs mostly do. The names of the musicians playing the good stuff usually have been the kind of information to look for that's very useful for my new music discovery process. Whereas the self-learning algorithms of streaming sites recommend you stuff based on your prior input, and will thus not broaden your mind musically, following favorite musicians and producers playing on other people's CDs will, because often, these musicians will branch out into musical styles that you are not familiar with yet. Also, there is so many great music out there to enjoy!
I have a nearby thrift store that charges only 25 cents for used CDs. Needless to say, any good ones they get go fast. Another one is at 99 cents (80 cents on senior day for those who qualify) and gets a better caliber of discs and they stay around a bit longer. To me the great thing about the cheap prices is being able to expand musical horizons into jazz, world music, reggae and anything else that might seem interesting.
With vinyl making it's comeback, the CD market is really good. Sometimes cheaper than buying a digital copy, been buying them on mass to build up my music library. Exact copy in it's report also tells you how much the song is peaked, telling you if the song is a victim of the volume wars.
Great video, Randy! Physical media is the way to go! I recently downsized my music collection to CDs, along with Minidiscs, and Cassettes. I recently sold off all my Vinyl to downsize and make our move to Mexico a lot easier..... I have had CDs since 1983, back when they were about $20 a piece. Before moving, I bought up a bunch of CDs from Amazon to replace what I had on vinyl, and prices were amazingly cheap sometimes, with some discs selling for as low as $5.00 (NEW!). There are many albums that have been remastered and re-released by many classic rock artists, and sound better than they ever did on vinyl. I have the Audiolab 6000CDT and Teac Tascam Pro CD recorder as well for backup; I also have a Pioneer universal disc player for my SACDs and DVD-Audio, that still works really well. My CD collection is hovering around 2700 discs, so I think I'm good for a while, and I do my fair share of streaming as well.
Lots of great points. I also think buying high quality downloads (like FLAC) and burning to a CD is also a good option for those CDs that have gone out of print and are ungodly expensive. Always important to have back ups. Sometimes albums just get removed from streaming services.
Qobuz is a great service for buying FLAC. I have purchased hundreds of albums from them and you get the hi-res for a low cost. As a nice service, they let you stream the albums you buy for free too. No subscription required.
@@tomflanagan3889 Early on, I used Tidal but was unhappy with the music discovery. Another thing I wasn't fond of was the almost exclusive promotion of hip-hop over other genres. With Qobuz, they push the classical, jazz, rock, country, hip hop right to the front and allow you to toggle a preference. I'm hooked - it's a great service. I have found so many cool new jazz artists and some indie rock I never would have otherwise stumbled on.
Sometimes tracks are omitted from soundtracks on streaming services. I couldn't listen to "Greased Lightning" on the Grease soundtrack recently on a streaming service. I ran into a similar problem with the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack.
Been picking up amazing finds at op shops and thrift stores for years and years. Get a dedicated cloth buff for a drill if you have a good vice. I use Vonax plastic polish to the buff out any bad scratches. Top scratches can usually be fixed with a black paint marker pen. Always be on the look out for quality CD players. The lasers are like the Nexus 6 from Blade Runner. They have a life span but have a pot adjustment to tweak as the laser gets weaker with age. Good luck if you accept the mission. This message will self destruct in.....
Another reason to buy CD's--the booklets. I loved the liner notes found on vinyl from the 50s and 60s, but it began to disappear in favor of artwork. The artwork is still very noticeable on CDs and the CD booklet brought back the liner notes for a while. Lots of great information about the artist, lyrics, the whole bit.
Yeah, now for music that's intended really only for streaming, the "cover art" is designed with the same philosophy as an app icon...super simplistic and easy-to-read as a small square among many others on a screen. It's kinda sad.
I liked how Def Leppard would write a personal "what we've been up to since the last album" message. At least they did in Hysteria. Metallica wrote personal messages, too (had the same managers as Def Leppard).
CDs are 40 years old this year. Pretty amazing. They have lasted longer than any other physical medium other than vinyl. As the advertising on some demo CDs said in 1982, "Hear the light..."
I own thousands of the things, collected since the dawn of the CD era. My only frustration is the technology is four decades old and the disc playing time still 78-80 minutes. Why not audio only DVDs with multiple hours playing times with same sound quality?
@@geraldmartin7703 would have required a new schema (how the full-bandwidth audio tracks are laid down and the information of how to play them) for DVD or later Blu-ray for audio only. I guess no one was willing to take the chance on it. Any manufacturer would have had to get "buy in" from some of the record labels, and labels generally hate having too many formats to deal with (and advertising costs). So, such cool ideas died on the vine. But yeah, imagine a whole "box set" on ONE disc, with even static covers, lyrics, and band photos that would be displayed on a TV while the music played. I think after the death (non-adoption) of the better sounding DSD based SACD both the labels and manufacturers were happy to just stick to CD and vinyl, something consumers "understood" and wouldn't need education about. I remember all the confusion (and misinformation) regarding SACDs. Many wrongly thought they were "20-bit CDs" and didn't have a clue what DSD was all about.
@@geraldmartin7703 There were attempts in the early 2000s yielding the DVD-A and SACD formats which were in competition with each other for the next new format. I liked the sound of SACD so didn't pay much attention to DVD-A. Evidently most people didn't pay attention to either due to the rise of the MP3, which was a much more convenient format. Besides, I always thought albums made when LPs were the prevailing format were better: 44 minutes of carefully curated music > 79 minutes of the same plus whatever else fit on the disc. By the time you hit track 14 it started to get tedious. To hear hours of music by one artist, just listen to more than one album.
@@charlienyc1 lol, all I do these days is overpay for old SACDs and DVD Audio's. Rarely buy CD's cause I can just stream but not in surround. I'd be embarrassed to say what I paid for Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic but when I got it...it was worth every penny. So glad I finally discovered hi res surround. Better late than never
@@davidwald2938 Yup, I started buying them again once I realized they could be ripped. Then I bought some music on NativeDSD because evidently I hadn't spent enough yet!
I never deserted CDs. Still using an old Technics SL-PS900 CD player. The MASH DAC in that sounds far better than running the signal from the player's optical out into my Denon receiver. The Denon's DAC is screechy in the treble. The Technics sounds open and well balanced. I'll know shortly if a Schiit Modi 3E DAC produces better results.
The number one reason for me to have CD's around is there are some things that just aren't available on streaming services. Mostly it's random b sides from a single CD, or super indie releases, but there are also records that for some reason are just not available to stream. For example I really love the debut album by this band The Real People and even though it was released on Sony I've never been able to find it streaming anywhere. I do have my CD copy though.
RIGHT ON, AUDIOPHILES! I just laugh at the fact that I pay a monthly subscription to TH-cam MUSIC. And yet, I can't download any Jimi Hendrix albums! Meanwhile, my CD collection has a great set of BEST OF collections. Yup, THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE happens to be one of those 💿!
@@mrmuffer69 you guys think there is only the decision between physical media and streaming? I ditched physical media long before I had a Internet connection
I just started rebuying all my old music as CDs again. I learned one important lesson about used CDs though. Make sure you are purchasing the latest, remastered copy of classic albums. Huge difference!
@@madmuselle Technology improved, so sound quality is just better and the remaster cleans it all up and improves separation. I have some old CDs from the 1990s which sound awful. The Brown album by Orbital springs to mind. I have even copied it to software and cleaned it up myself and the difference is amazing.
I'm right there with you brother. I love my CD's. I have every CD I have bought since 1984. I bought a new CD player around three years ago, and it sounds great through my old Pioneer SX950 that I bought new in 1978. I will always prefer the sound of a CD to streaming. Thanks for the video. Really enjoyed it.
I bought two, used Pioneer DV 563a to play my CDs. One is connected to a vintage Pioneer SX-780, and the other to a Reissong A-10. Both of them sound great. I have lots of CDs to play. As I’m relatively new to audiophile stuff I always had plenty of records and CDs.
Yes, I agree. My CDs sound better than streaming Amazon HD through my Bluesound Node (VPN fed) and both going through the same DAC. That's my experience and it's consistent.
@@jn3750 I'm a musician first, audiophile second. I like album art, the conceptual side, lyrics, credits, etc. And all in one handy place when I put the album on. And I often listen to albums instead of songs. Having said that I stream a lot now just because of the convenience.
With a collection of over 2000 CDs, bought over the last 35 years, I agree with your assessments, especially #3. Yes, I spend more listening time with streaming, but that is for convenience and discovery. And I don't buy CDs much anymore, but I do with special albums and artists. The CD format will be around for a very long time yet to come.
I've also been collecting cds hard Rock and metal for over 25 yrs slowed down alot a few yrs back now only get 1 or 2 a month if that. Have over 3000 albums. When people see my collection for the first time they say haven't you heard of Spotify.
Number 1 reason I keep buying CDs is because of their leaflet, love reading the extra information, sometimes they have amazing artwork. You can’t get that by streaming and vinyls normally do not come with one. I do them all nevertheless. There is also another level if you do have a Super Audio CD(SACD) and a SACD player.
@@DavidslvPT When buying or streaming music albums at Apple Music it may include a digital booklet. The Angel Olson album "All Mirrors" is an example. The booklet is a PDF file.
@@DavidEVogel To be honest with you, I don't see the booklet on Apple Music, but I have noticed the booklet icon on Qobuz, thank you for pointing that out!
I love CD's as much as vinyl. Been a collector of my favorite bands' hard copies ever since mid '90s. I do love to own material in my shelves. Not bought that much music lately - but whenever a new must-have comes by, I surely buy it as a hard copy. New albums do come quite cheap - it's the old hard-to-find collectables that cost. Even live bootlegs can cost quite a bit - whenever find what you still do nlt own.
I'm glad I got ahead of the curve on this one. I've been getting back into collecting CDs over the last couple years and I'm up to a collection of about 300. I've paid $1 each for most of them and I have a vintage Onkyo CD changer with an amazing built-in DAC that I picked up for $30.
300 isn't that much given that I collected 200 from 1991 to 1999 where I stopped to use physical media when I can have my whole library on a hard drive with dozens of backups spread all over the country
@@Harald_Reindl you're right, for a lot of people it's not that many, especially those that have been collecting for a long time. But considering I had maybe 20 at the start of 2021 I'd say it was pretty explosive growth.
Remember in the early 2000s when Microsoft accidentally deleted everybody's Zune libraries? That was reinforcement enough for me to decide to never ever sell my CD collection. Which sound better than any streaming service anyway.
Great segment! And couldn't agree more. My current collection of 1300ish disc's is right there at arms length in my studio. Won't ever get rid n if them. Especially when there's no liner notes for digital media. My knowledge of music , artists , recording etc is heavily influenced by all that reading!
Since the early seventies I have always copied my purchased media for the car. It began with my 8-track tape recorder. A few years later I switched to cassettes. I copied my factory CDs to cassette tapes up until the advent of recordable CDs in the nineties. Now, there is streaming and the ability to rip CDs to an iPhone. But you are correct, it is fun. After all I have been doing it for 50 years.
Nice video... One subject that most people don't discuss is "CD rot"... or the fact of bronzing, which greatly reduces the shelf life of CDs. I recently gave away my CD collection (3,000+) to a close friend, who I know will make good use of them... He and I both noticed that every so often, one of the CDs had become blotchy and glitchy, basically unplayable... I live in the tropics, so I can attest to the reality of CD rot - high temps/high humidity will definitely put the hurt on your CDs, after an extended period of time. This being said, it might behoove anyone, who's personally invested in and takes pride in their CD collection, to make an extra effort, when storing their CDs... "Discs last longest when stored in plastic cases in a cool, dark, dry environment. (NIST recommends that for CD's and DVD's, relative humidity should be in the range of 20%-50% and temperatures should be in the range of 4C-20C). Because gravity can gradually bend the disc, storing it upright like a book is best for long-term storage." Having access to "streaming" has really softened the blow of my giving away my CDs, but just as Mr. Cheapaudioman mentioned concerning the tactile aspect, I do miss having them filling up the room in a way...
I haven't experienced rot at all, but I live in a dry climate. one thing I'll note though, all disc readers are not equal. and price is not the separator here, it's more research and trial and error to find the ones that can read anything you throw at them.
It is fun making mix CDs. Like the jcard of days gone by, I make CD outer sleeves using heavy weight card stock and print up some cool artwork and fold it up like a mini album cover to hand out to my friends. I like to use Verbatum's Digital Vinyl blank Cds, I print custom labels and it looks like a tiny 45 record. ps. I still make mixtapes.
I have an older Epson printer that holds printable CDs (if they are even made anymore) and with the software, you could make pretty cool CDs, plus the software will print jewel case labels that look commercial quality.
As a Gen Y, I started out with cassettes as a kid, and my parents had records, which I had some exposure to. Got my first CD when I was all of 7 years old (1992) and even then I realised how amazing CD was compared to anything else that had come before it. I've been buying CDs ever since, and have a massive collection. Also have some iTunes purchases, but never bothered with streaming, CD has mostly been and will remain my main method of acquiring music. Cheap, no monthly fees, no worries about losing access to my music if I don't pay the bill/internet goes down/company goes bust/record label drops the contract/etc, and they're simply the best quality thats accessible to ordinary people.
In 1983 I bought my first CD in Tokyo Japan when I was flying a mission for the USAF. Rolling Stones Tatoo You album . An EMI release, it was one of the first selected to become a CD ! Ive gor it! 40 years later, the Stone's Tatoo You album is re-released on vinyl. Full circle.
I started my first CD collection three years ago with a DVD player; I pay £2 max inc postage for a CD, £3 max for a double LP. I was vinyl for years and then went to mp3 for the sheer portability. It's quite something to listen to LP's in their entirety after all this time.
My main reason for buying cds for me is to avoid a situation where an artist only offers a remaster digital, I still have my old Megadeth cds before all the remaster/tinkering and literally no other way to hear the originals without my cds. It’s like having the original star wars on vhs where Han Solo shot first
@@pauln6803 yeah I recently re ripped all my cds to lossless, and was thankful I hung onto all my collection I amassed during the 90s and 2000s. There is always a headache with some of the purchased digital tracks as well, freaking iTunes has errored out on me thinking some tracks aren't available in my region. With my cds/files I dont have to deal with any of that bs.
@@Blahmanwhysoserious Let's be honest, remasters are usually a way to milk more money from fans. The Metallica remasters are barely distinguishable to the originals and I've already expressed my disdain for what Dave and his ego did to Peace Sells, So Far, and Rust In Peace. But... I have to say the Relapse records remasters of the Death albums are excellent as they were remixed to give the instruments a bit more separation without losing any of the aggression. Plus there's extra liner notes and the addition of lots of demos and live performances. I too spent weeks of ripping hundreds of CDs, and polishing the now hard/impossible to come by ones I'd mistreated in my teenage years! Don't do iTunes, won't do streaming and if I can help it (price/availability) I prefer not to give Amazon any money because they're too big and I don't like the way they treat the employees. My money tends to go through Bandcamp these days as I can purchase a recording, the artist (or at least the label if it's not self published) gets a decent share and there's no DRM or proprietary formats to stop me copying the files to any storage or using playback device I so choose. If it wasn't for the difficulty and expense of obtaining non mainstream CDs here in post brexit Britain (I used to import a lot from the EU, Switzerland and before the shipping got ridiculous, the US) I'd probably still be buying CDs.
I have always had some CD's, but have recently gone all in. Started with buying a few SACD's to see what, if any difference there was. I thought they were great. So I bought myself a new Yamaha SACD/CD player for my setup. Wow! I wish there were more rock SACD'S out there. But I do find that the transport and DAC in the Yamaha are really good. CD'S sound better than through my old Sony 5 disc Blu-Ray player!
#3 True! Record the output, load into audacity or something to see that the streaming has a cut at 15 KHz range, just like crap mp3's from the 90's (and people pay money for it!). Not to say that, if you loose your connection (for whatever reason, no streaming for you). #4 Not so much, there are better options than EAC like CUETools (has EAC plugin) and fre:ac, it extract and convert the track with the exact same quality among other features, like access to MusicBrainz (music database).
My parents had a record store in the late 70s to mid-80s which meant collecting music was in my blood so to speak. So I never stopped buying music, in the same way, I never stopped buying books. Not even when streaming/digital formats became prevalent. I did go through the phase everyone went through and stopped buying vinyl for several years. In fact, quite a few of the artists I listened to in college released a lot of their catalog on CD only at the time. I'm in the process now of replacing lost CDs that mysteriously disappeared even though I have quality digital copies of them. And my primary reasons are sound quality, enjoying the physical copy in my hand, and collecting or completing a particular artist's catalog. I still stream but really for background listening purposes and to preview particular albums to determine if I really want to buy them (either in vinyl or CD). And for some artists, I may purchase lossless downloads because I want to support the artist but am not really committed to buying the physical copy. The funny part about some vinyl purists is tying themselves in knots justifying paying $20+ for repressed vinyl of artists' recordings that were never pressed on vinyl to begin with. Buying new vinyl pressings of new releases also isn't a guarantee that the vinyl will sound better than the CD format. A case in point is the latest Calexico release. The vinyl copy I have sounds muddy on some tracks and no amount of cleaning will fix it and I have a nice phono set up so I know it's not that. The digital download sounds much cleaner and I can hear nuances lost in that vinyl pressing I have. But I get the nostalgia factor of buying vinyl for new recordings because vinyl can add warmth to a recording and because you want all the extras that come with a nicely packaged special pressing. I do this for CDs as well. In the end, though it's all about enjoying music. I mean that's really why I endeavor to upgrade my hi-fi system is to make listening to music that much more enjoyable and give new life to my music collection.
I just recently decided to return to CD after two years of only streaming.( Wiim mini I bought after your review and it's good) As you say, there is a satisfaction getting the cd out of the box and put it on the tray. So today I've got out to the daylight my old dvd player and will connecting it to the zen one dac through coaxial cable. Back in the day only bought techno and r&b. Now I listen to alternative rock, vocal jazz and indie/ folk. So I have to buy some CDs for a small collection. I started with the first albums of Guns&Roses and Oasis just to try the sound. Omg it sounds better that tidal. CD has higher bitrate at 1400 kbps than often lower then 1k on tidal at hifi tier.
I’m still buying CD’s and get excited over a thrift store bin full of them. A good DAC makes all the difference. Still run across some that are poorly recorded but no big deal to just chunk them! Went to a thrift store yesterday and found some nice records but they were all overpriced. They had no CD’s 😩
Our local Goodwill has priced used CD's upwards of $8.00, they all used to be $2.00. Savers thrift is still at 1.99 for most CD's. but their vinyl prices are 3.99
It's the same way with movies and films! The streams are very compressed and discs offer better quality. I can't get everything but I make sure to get my favorite CDs and Movies on physical.
I really appreciate this. I Love music & I love physically holding an album in my hand. It’s just special to me. I still buy cds, cassettes, & vinyl…& I’ll never stop. Of course I like all 3 but cassettes & cds are my favorite. Everything you said is so on point & pretty much my exact thoughts & feelings on the subject. Great video.
Really accurate and wise post. With 1500 CDs virtually all in pristine condition I'm definitely not ditching the format and all 10 of your reasons show why. For me the advantage is (still) the range of current or back catalogue - especially. Anything at all left-field for classical music is not streamed. Vinyl was smaller market place and 3x price and $600 minimum kit and the medium is delicate. In UK there's a company making a CD ripping and storage bit of kit. £600 but that buys you kit that outputs Flac files as well as MP3. Outputs optical, HDMI and analog. Stores up to 4400 albums on its 2Tb disc. Lots of clever stuff re indexing and a box which is just 8" square Its the Brennan B2 - and no I don't work for them.
I like the limitations of CDs -- as long as it's good enough, I'll play it in the car for a week or so and get to know it forwards and backwards. A really good cd will last two weeks (on replay!) Fwiw I don't stream music -- I discover "new" [mostly old] music mainly via TH-cam. Digital I buy via Bandcamp if possible (I'll almost never buy mp3)
There is something to be said about listening to an entire album. There's a feel to the album as songs transition from one into the next, and in my experience, I have come to appreciate MANY songs from albums that weren't released as singles and didn't initially appeal to me, only to have them become my favorites.
Congratulations Randy on the most sensible audio video I've seen in a long time. I go back a long long way and, apart from a rocky beginning, CDs have always been my media of choice. Vinyl is a pain with the setting up of tone arm and cartridge and still getting unavoidable tracking distortion on the inner tracks, not to mention the snap crackle and pop and lack of dynamic range. I HATE streaming, physical media makes you connect more with the music and not only that, IT DOES SOUND BETTER it really does. Apart from all that CDs are a bargain buy these days, I can't believe how cheap they are compared to way back when, so thanks again for the video, I couldn't have put it better myself 👍
I am getting back into them because they are approaching the same nostalgia my albums did. Plus I found my first CD player, a Magnovox boombox with built-in CD player (big deal in mid to late 80s). I want to get a bunch of my cassettes too because the tape player sounds great too, it has a 5 band equalizer and both speakers have a volume control !!
I have a big CD Collection, ripped as FLAC on a NAS and on a SD-Card as MP3. Almost all CDs are in a very good condition. my old Sony CD XA 50 ES is working since the 90s and is still making a great job.
Randy, another great review! Over the past 5 years I have been buying new and used CDs. Even vinyl duplicates. Vinyl is better but CDs are way more convenient. I have about 200 and will continue to buy. Almost pulled the plug in the “Faces” first album, but it was $27…will wait for a used one to come up on eBay. Your reviews are informative and entertaining, keep up the good work
I still buy Cd's for my CD collection and really like these!!!!!!!!! My audio system that I've had for over 30 years, yes 30years and still going....runs AWESOME! Love it! I also like that own the music and yep make mix cd's that I use in my car. I they get damaged due to hot weather etc I can easy make another one!
Compact discs are not gone yet. Although My Big Mountain Hodge Music streams on all of the major platforms I also sell physical CDs at my show by saying that it’s a collectors item. And surprisingly I have sold some copies of my CDs on Amazon.
Albums disappear from streaming services all the time and it annoys the hell out of me. At one point Nirvana’s Incesticide disappeared from my streaming service. I found a copy at the first used book store I went to for $4.99. I haven’t been able to stream Deguello by ZZ Top for a couple of years. Found a brand new copy at Barnes and Noble yesterday for $10.99. Another album that I discovered on streaming that has now disappeared from all streaming services but I can’t even find in any format is The Ecstatic by Mos Def.
This defines the issue with streaming audio and video services. These services aren't archival libraries that have access to the content forever, so if something is rarely getting played they don't want to pay the licensing for it anymore and it is gone. Nothing beats having your own library that is forever yours.
I consider Duegello one of their best and its the album that introduced me to ZZ Top in the 80's. I noticed it went away too and was glad I had the cd. Wish I still had the album. Replaced them all with cd and gave away 500 vinyls 25 yrs. ago because cd easier to tote when moving (sigh)
I really enjoyed this! I love my 1,000+ CD collection, I will never let it go. 96% drop in CD sales is a staggering figure. To me, it feels like CDs are the rollerblades of the rollerskating revival of recent years. (With quad rollerskates being the "vinyl" in this analogy). You are being a bit of an outlier if you're seen skating on inline skates these days, and there's a hip retro nostalgia to the quad skates.
I stumbled upon a new skate shop in my small city and was stoked. They sell primarily old-school style skates for women. I didn't realize it had become such a "thing" again. I was impressed. Reminded me that I have a set of Powell-Peralta Rollerbones from the late 80s / early 90s. And they're still in fantastic shape.
I’ve been buying CDs again for the past 2 years, lots of used ones. Mainly the original mastered CDs before they got remastered and became heavily compressed cause of how incredible dynamic they are.
Some remasters are more compressed others are not. This is a mixed bag. Try the original TOTO IV and listen to the remasters. The original CD pressing sounds really bad.
I acquired a cd collection from a ladies brother who passed away and she didn`t have any room since she was moving into a smaller apt. I got some excellent cds from the likes of Steely Dan, Tragically Hip, Pink Floyd all the way to top Jazz and Blues. All in great condition. Almost 400 cds with a custom wood cabinet for $200!
I’m an old school music guy too. I have a Technics SA930 and for my 25th birthday back in 1994 I splashed out on the Technics SL-MC7 multi-changer cd unit. 111 CD’s loaded and put on random will play for around 2 weeks before it starts repeating anything. I don’t have to worry about Wi-Fi dropping out on the Bluetooth failing… I’m not going to be interrupted by an advert or a telephone call. I love listening to the physical whirr and click as it changes from one side to another and wondering what piece of music from my back catalogue will start playing next. Occasionally I empty completely and load another 111 CDs into it and the whole process gets to be repeated again. And when I finish with my CDs I might throw on a vinyl just because I can. The modern instant music world will never appreciate the quality of the material it produces the way the physical old school does
I think the differences in sound quality are often due to the remastering that's going on with the current releases which are on the streaming platforms. I've got CDs that sound great and sound identical when I stream on Qobuz, and I've got CDs that obviously sound so much better. I really think it's the remastered versions that often in my experience sound worse, and that's the real difference more than the delivery system Itself.
A lot of modern remasters (2000's-ish to present) suffer from brickwalling. Nevermind by Nirvana is a good example. I haven't checked any out recently but I would imagine it's the law of the land by now.
Absolutely agree with you. Currently, cds are a real bargain. I recall buying cds in the early 80s for £9.99 and that was for classical releases! the only music available at the time. Once pop and jazz cds became available the price rose even more. I also kept my vinyl collection as well so have the best of both worlds!
I was stationed in Germany when CDs first came out....so I got a head start on everyone ! The first CDs released were really a hoge podge of titles...mostly classical ...my first one I bought was Christopher cross first album...still have it and still plays ....you dont wanna know how big my collection is since I have never stopped buying them since 1984...my first player....sony cdp 101...wish I still had it
I collect CDs too. 1-The sound quality is better than streaming. 2-I like owning the physical media. One day CDs will have a renaissance just like vinyl. And people will wish they bought them when they were $5-10.
I like the sound of vinyl on a good system. I find listening to music that is Spotify & then Bluetooth it to listening in your vehicle (car). The advantage of doing that is you don't need to carry a lot extra equipment.
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For me, number six would include having the album art and liner notes at hand and not having to search for them on the internet where the information is often incomplete.
Still have about 200 CD's from the '90s ha! Still listen to them. I'm moving and putting together a new system. NR1711, MM7025 need a recommendation for speakers in 2.1 bookshelf's plus sub. Thanks
@ 07:26 Tom Petty went head-to-head with MCA again in 1981 when the label pushed to sell his next album, “Hard Promises,” for $9.98 a pop - a full dollar more than the norm at that time. On principle, Petty refused to release the record, stating that he wanted to keep costs down for his fans.
PS3 consoles are EXCELLENT media devices. Awesome for playing CDs
Just subscribed, Here in the UK, even the "thrift shops" no longer want donated CDs or DVDs they can't get rid of them. Over here most are now destined for landfill.
Number 11. You will actually Own your music, instead of just renting it. I still buy blurays instead of streaming too. Not only is the quality better, and far more consistent and reliable, but I dont have to worry about a particular thing suddenly not being available online anymore. Plus, deluxe edition cd's, and often cd single, will give you extra tracks that you wont find anywhere else. Just make sure if you're using EAC to rip to WAV, I honestly dont understand why anyone would seek out a cd because it is better quality, to then turn around and rip it to a compressed file type, defeats the object
I'm the same way for music because of blue ray 5.1 on my old reference level Pioneer but for movies, my cheapie 4k player became obsolete in just a few years because Samsung stopped updating them to play some newer movies. Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new movie that won't play so I'd rather stream new movies.
Lossless compression doesn't touch the original file in any way, it just finds more compact ways to store it. FLAC and ALAC are lossless and far away from the psychoacoustic Fourier based compression. Think of it like a ZIP file tailored for music.
@@mikafoxx2717 that is often the claim, but I can hear the difference between a flac and a wav, just like I can hear the difference between both and an mp3. Frankly, with the hard drives available today, I dont see the argument for shrinking these files for home listening, if it means I'm losing something. For people who are mainly portable listeners, it may be different
@@shreddherring I would request that you convert a WAV to FLAC and then back, and compare the bits of both. They're identical. It's the exact same bits going to your DAC.
@@shreddherring probably placebo effect. Make a blind A vs B test with about 20 tracks. I would be surprised if you guess correctly more than 50%
#3 Is absolutely true. In 25 years, I’ve never heard an mp3 or stream that sounds as good as a CD.
5:44
Beyond fun, I’ve decided that physical media is the only thing I really trust anymore. I can’t tell you how much money and how many singles and albums I’ve bought in iTunes only to have the music delete from my device. Then I return to the iTunes Store to restore the purchase and learn that the music is no longer for sale. So when iTunes stops selling it, they steal it back from everyone they had sold it to previously. No warning, no refund. The music is just GONE and unavailable. With CDs and cassettes I’ll always have my music.
higher bitrates will be indistinguishable from cd
If you play it through an equalizer there's basically hardly any difference.
it depends on how long ago they mixed and mastered the CD. i’m remastering some now
why you still need CD's ??? this guy is not understanding codecs, mad channel it is!
@PurpleTurtle hw ia not understanding codecs, computers. He needs a DVD players, mad here!
I worked at Sam Goody for 10 years until ‘95. Until Best Buy and Circuit City came around, full price CDs were $18 and sale prices were typically $14.99. So, current CD pricing is an absolute steal!
Sam Goody, Strawberries and even Tower Records I feel were overpriced. Newbury Comics had new cds for $9.99 the first week of their release then most of the time they went to $11.99 for normal pricing. I used to love going into Newbury every Tuesday to see the new releases and employee picks
Agree, new release CDs back in the late 80s and 90s were expensive. 18 bucks for a single CD?! That's why I was a member of BMG through that time, as they had "buy one at full price, get 3 free" deals all the time. Occasionally it was buy one get 4 free. Of course the "one" was over priced and they charged for shipping and "handling" but on average it came out to about 7 or 8 bucks a piece. Granted, their selection left something to be desired, and their bullshit deal of if you didn't send in the mailing declining a shipment you got charged for the CD of the month, but overall it was still a good deal and really the only way to build your collection economically.
I know I paid $18 for my first CD. It was either Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. They stayed $18 for a long time it seemed. (And this was back when $18 really was $18 if you get my drift). Was glad when they finally came down to $12 for most.
@@rosswarren436 Those were two of the first five CDs I purchased. The others were Revolver, CCRs Chronicle, and Eagles Greatest Hits. The Beatles CD was $20. Luckily, I had an employee discount of 30% so most CDs were around $12.40 for me.🖖🏼
@@ThePittsburghToddy man, that employee discount would have been freaking tempting. LOL. Good for you! Funny, I think CCR's Chronicle was in the first 10 CDs I bought too. Crazy times. Records were $5.99 so I still bought more vinyl, but the times they were a-changin'....
Bought my first CD in 1987 and still buying them today. Yes, a better sounding medium to my ears.
me too, since about 1985, I don‘t no today the exact year, I bought CDs up to know to have my music for my own. But beside this, my mobil music is for several years now in my car on an USB Stick or phone in compressed AAC 320 and at home on a NAS in FLAC Audio via network. So I can hear my music on every floor and Player in my house. The CDs are stored in a separate cabinet.
I regret selling my CDs. Buying most of them back now.
Love this! My 14 year old daughter recently bought a decent bookshelf stereo system with CD player, and she has been blown away by the quality. When she fully understood that the cool thing about CDs is that they are HERS, and no streaming service can decide whether or not to carry artists she likes, she was hooked. (I know this is obvious to older Millennials and up, but man. Once more Gen Z kids catch on, I bet CDs will start going up in price.)
You should give her a vinyl player !
@@lucasrem I gave her my old one when I upgraded my turntable. She’s just at that point where vinyl’s a little pricey for what she wants.
Good point! Collecting and owning music will never go away. Good girl :)
I’m 13 and love collecting cds! I started with my parents cd wallet with a lot of used up scratched up cds that still work and then this april my mom took me to the store they got them from and I continued to buy them every once and while from there. And the CD player I use is my old play station 3
@@lucasrem vinyl is too expensive compared to CDs and they takes away from the thrill of collecting. I can usually get an entire catalog from a band on cd for about the price of 2 vinyls.
I've bought about 300 CD's over the last couple of years and I've been buying them for 40 years now. I have 40 year old CD's that still sound as good as the day I bought them. You can't say that about any other medium. 💿
BUt BrAinWasHeD IdiOts SaY VinYL iS BetTer BeCaUsE iT Is ExPENsIvE
@@j.t.cooper2963 You talk bs, cd's that old all have cd rot, you liar!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lol, same here...bought my first cd almost 40 years ago, Guns 'n roses - Appetite for destruction and it plays fine as ever!
So glad vinyl was out. Now I have some 8000 cd's.
@@PainInTheS You almost got me! I thought you were serious for a minute. 😂
@@j.t.cooper2963 😁
I grew up in the age of vinyl, but unlike many vinyl jockeys of my generation, I was deleriously happy when the CD appeared. Before that I was mainly a cassette man because I was NOT able to afford much in my youth during the age of vinyl. The CD was to many of us, a savior. No more pops, clicks, rumble, scratches-endless cleaning and fretting over the medium, and less dynamic range. You think vinyl is NOT compressed? Think again!
I bought my first CDP in 1990. A mid-fi Sony that died in 1998. And began collecting CDs. Transitioning from the cassette. I had an AIWA cassette deck, a lower powered Pioneer integrated, and a set of Canadian DB Plus speakers in the late '80s as my first real system. To this I added the Sony CD deck.
Later, when I had more money, I bought a set of JBL L80ts and a higher model Kenwood Dolby Receiver (130 watts x 2 @ 8 ohms). And I was off to the races!
To this day, the CD remains my primary medium. I don't really do DACs. My two best players are a Harman Kardon HD 990-which can also function as a DAC-has an optical in. And a Jolida Music Van MKIV tube output/input CDP (four tubes, two transformers)-which really warms up that digital sound. Tubes and digital are a wonderful marriage. I prefer to own my music, I do stream, but when I stream I'm less concerned with lossless because it is either to experience some new music, or as background.
A good CD can sound great if you have the right equipment. I don't care what the vinyl boys say. I also spin vinyl and my system is more mid-fi there but I don't hear anything fantastic when I'm playing LPs. They sound good enough, but NOT amazing. And, the noise is still usually around.And some records are not that dynamic in range. They don't match the expansiveness of the CD from soft to loud. A GOOD CD that is. The problem? There are a lot of poorly mastered and recorded CDs like there are lps and cassettes.
Well said...
👍
Yup. We had an event outside at my brother's field near Gatwick airport (England) two weekends ago. Around 40 people attended from 2pm to midnight. I used a pair of Q-acoustics BT3 speakers. One was active the other passive. I used my Sony digital audio player and played lossless (.wav) music using Bluetooth. I have over 800 lossless ripped CDs on my Sony player. There was no WiFi near the field but of course that wasn't a problem. I've also archived all the ripped CDs on a portable drive. Own your own music and be in control.
Vinyl and CD hit different. One is not better in my opinion- they are just different and both great to experience. A lot of the sound is amp and speaker setup anyway.
Smart fellow!
Randy, thank you for this!!! I ripped my entire cd collection 5 years ago. My friends make fun of me because they feel the music they stream is just as good. Glad to know I was right all along and wasn't wasting my time ripping cd's!
One of my friends had a whiskey tasting party at his home and his internet kept cutting out, so we used the ripped music on my phone....yet another advantage!
#3. YES! CDs just sound _richer_ and _deeper_ than streamed music.
eventualy over time the quality will match, but you buy a cd for few dolallars and you have permanent right to that music! you don't rent it and pay for it every time you listen to it, or you listen for free and pay for that music with your time because of advertisment that only interupt your listening experience, that's the biggest factor for me to actualy buy cds it's that you own that music piece
My adult son listened to a lot of CDs in his high school years and of course, when he moved out, his stuff didn’t. He had CD wallets with the discs to save space & to be able to transport all of the discs with him on overnight trips. I spent a couple of hours last wk reuniting discs with their liner notes & cases. He probably won’t want these back, but at least they’re organized now.
I'll take em
Damn. Winnie, you’re the real MVP
You rule! Now, are they in alphabetical order?
@@SRMoore1178 maybe one day….giving him last chance to claim them during holidays.
@@winnie2379 yes! Do not sell! Save for him even if he says sell them....save them quietly & hide them! Never sell!!!
I've been collecting CDs for a little over 30 years now, and will continue to do so. Same with vinyl, which I've collected for over 25. I like physical media: the experience of opening it up and looking at the packaging, putting the disc on the platter (or in the tray), reading liner notes and lyrics, and looking at the artwork. It helps solidify the experience, so it's not so ephemeral, like you might get with merely streaming. These days, I stream a lot of my music, but mostly because I buy the CD or vinyl copy, and then either use the download card or rip it to my own home media server, and then I can stream it on my PC at work to listen to there. When I'm at home, as much as possible, I like to actually use the media. Other good reason to own media is this: if you like music that is more niche, or like supporting local/regional artists, often times you can buy their CD at a show or online, and who knows if a year from now they'll still be around. I have a fair number of CDs I bought from bands during the MySpace era, and a scant few of those bands ever escaped the mid-late 2000's. Some of that music is not available in any kind of streaming platform, and not even been uploaded illegally to TH-cam. I used to go to a good number of smaller shows, and would try to buy demos and independent releases from bands when I would go, to help support them on the road. Most of that stuff is no longer available online in any format. But since I have the CD, I can still listen to it, or make my own backup copy on my media server.
Dude you wrote a book somewhere in there too😃
Hey boss, would you mind telling us what these hard to find artists and CDs is that you are referring to? Id appreciate it!
@@hodumx I bought a lot of demos and indie CDs during the MySpace era, for example. Or a lot of faith based heavy metal and hard rock stuff that goes out of print quickly. Or video game soundtracks that go out of print really fast.
@@joshdieckmann595 man, I’ll keep a lookout for that sort of thing in the discount and second hand stores, as well as the 7 oceans of course. Thank you!
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
I have an old Pioneer CD player from the late 80s that still works perfectly and sounds really good. Another good point about buying CDs is to help support the artists that you enjoy that are currently making music.
@Lauren Glenn I do.
@Lauren Glenn yes..? but what’s so bad about a CD instead of a vinyl? much cheaper anyways
Maybe if you buy the CD from a buskers on the street, otherwise most of it goes in the record companies pocket.
Roughly a year before the pandemic, Best Buy physical stores were blowing out their CD stock at $3/$4/$5 each, brand new. I scored a ton of Sabbath and other stuff.
dang. so sad I missed this.
Recently joined Discogs and I've been snapping up rarities from sellers all over the world. I'm amazed at the quality of product that was pressed 30 years ago, and more! Some folks have taken great care of their CDs over time.
CD singles from the 80s and 90s rarely made their way to my little part of the world but now I can scoop the up.
The only downside: you can pay more for the shipping than the disc.
Beware of discs manufactured after 1995, they are prone to the loudness war mastering... Look it up
I have been buying CDs since 1986 and have thousands of them. They are still my favorite format despite the fact that I do love vinyl too. Physical media rocks! My favorite CD player so far is the Marantz ND8006 (solid and useful AF and sounds AMAZING) and the second favorite is an Onkyo C-7030. Newbies: before 10 years ago, it was pretty common to find used vinyl for $3. The markup in the last few years is legitimately insane.
#11 - it supports the artist, a lot more than the fractions of a penny they get when you stream their music, especially if you buy new.
#12 - it supports the efforts to remaster, reissue, and to otherwise bring old recordings new life. you get audiophile reissues without paying $100+ per LP, and without needing a $1000+ vinyl rig to hear the difference.
New CD sales. The artist still makes pennies on them. Artists always make their money touring. The record companies make a good 85% of the money made on media sales. The Reissuing and Remastering of the media falls to the artist. They are the ones that make the decision to this 90% of the time. Most of them wait until they can buy the rights back from the record company. Then they remaster there stuff to make it the way they wanted it to sound. If it was up to the record companies. They would beat a dead horse.
on a big label they only make $.50 or so per disc. if they publish themselves, as many now do, then the artists gets everything but overhead. it's not much but it's a lot more than they get from Spotify.
Yeah, that means more to me now than it used to when I was younger.
@@dkeener13 50 cents a disc would be an insanely great contract! Most artists make literally fractions of a penny per disc.
I am a dinosaur that still buys CDs as my #1 option for acquiring new music. Purchasing used CDs on ebay for around 5 bucks a piece is a great way to grow your collection. As certain albums are sometimes hard to acquire on CD, now that FLAC files are available for purchase on a few sites (like bandcamp) I have become accustomed to buying those since there's not a sound quality sacrifice over getting the CD, and I always rip my CDs to FLAC anyway. Last option is to buy mp3s because I want my own copy regardless. I have no paid streaming plans - my library of almost 10,000 songs is effectively my own streaming service.
It certainly feels good to be a dinosaur! - Bandcamp - yeah!
Way to go.
That's a ton of money for something unnecessary 😂 $10 a month all the music in the world
I'm just like you bro. :D
@@musestarlight1 Hardly any of that goes to the artists, and at literally any moment they can lose/change their licensing agreement and you lose access to it. It's worth it to me. If I was starting from zero right now it would probably be harder to justify, but my collection was mostly built before these streaming services were even available. Not that expensive to keep adding now.
CD prices are already beginning to creep up. 5 years ago, I used to be able to good used CDs where I live for $1 each or less. Now they're more like $2-$3 each. Still a great value, but they're only going to get more expensive as more people realise how much bang-for-buck you get and millennials get hit with the same nostalgia bug for CDs that Gen X has for vinyl.
I am solidly Gen X and much like many of the other commenters here, I would rather deal with CDs all day long, than vinyl LPs and 45s. I found out from my parents' generation what a PITA vinyl record maintenance truly is. CD maintenance isn't a cakewalk either, but.. no, I'm not nostalgic for scratch sounds.
CD' rules. The BEST sound quality. Amazing Format. Long live beloved CD!!
I like them too, but they're a finicky format that can have problems with laser mistracking, giving a crackly fuzzy sound.
I do agree that when the CD player is working properly, even lower-cost players are capable of extraordinarily good sound. I have a 30 year old Philips CD920 that I put a new laser in, and it sounds *great* now for the first time in three decades :)
CDs are basically obsolete now because of the widespread availability of solid-state storage such as Micro SD cards, which have no moving parts and are generally trouble free. They're also very compact and cheap. CDs aren't really that compact by today's standards :)
I still insist that legitimately-purchased music should be available in a lossless format, but you save it to a memory card and play it on a tablet PC (or other device) connected to your stereo, and you have outstanding sound without the finicky nature of CD players.
Great video. I’ll never understand loving a band and not wanting to own the physical copy. I think streaming has devalued music for most people.
Oh, most definetely mate... 🙂👍🏻
My wife and me have this conversation every weekend while listening to records drunk .. lol
Imagine seeing your favorite performer at the airport and saying, "Oh, I love your music! I've STREAMED every album!" I bet they would be really impressed with your dedication.
Back in the day, I had all the club membership, RCA -->BMG, Columbia House, and paid an average of 3 bucks per CD. Bought on sale in bulk. Worked for me. I have 1200 CDs
I bought a McIntosh dvd universal disc player that was a floor model about 15 years ago. I used it mostly for movies and stopped using it for a long time after DVDs were succeeded by Blu-ray. I recently played a CD in it and was astonished of how good it was. I think it’s the best sounding component in my rig. The DVD player has a Burr-Brown DAC. I listen to my cd collection a lot more.
Yep burr -brown 🤎 the best !!!!!! I look for everything that has there old chips......
I use a McIntosh MVP881 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD/SACD player. It is truly wonderful.
@@donde2k Yes the Burr Brown chip is the best IMHO. It's in my Primaluna Evo 100 tube DAC have at least 6 other dacs in the house
@@gregkerbel1730 Nope Philips TDA 1541 double crown.
I agree with you and the channel but the real price barrier that nobody seems to address -anywhere, anytime- is how to get around paying big money for an a/v receiver. New ones basically start at $500 and those are low end. The only used ones are either ancient with inappropriate inputs/outputs or in need of repair. I have limited free money and this has been my main barrier for years. Does anybody have any legitimate suggestions here? I wish this channel would address it in a 30 minute video
Hey Randy , about 1984 or 85 I bought a 100 watt Curtis Mathis rack system and it had dual cassette, turn table with equalizer. I had to buy a separate CD player to make a pretty decent two channel system . I bought my first CD at the local Wally World for right at 26 bucks , Boston their first album More Than A Feeling and their was no comparison in my opinion when I cranked Boston up . CD's were a great delight to my ears , the main drawback being at the time they were about 10 bucks higher per album over vinyl. I thought it couldn't any better when it came to crystal clear music. The CD's were high priced at the time and worth it , no flipping the vinyl and best of all everything on one side with no stylus sound just loud clear music. The good old days , I'm 65 years of age now and I still like my tunes played loud . CD's did the trick and still do .
So much good advice here! Exact audio copy is by far the best program out there. The CD has an Achilles heel with the optical part being prone to damage and errors. But EAC fixes that! If nothing else, the CD is a license to listen in your home. Same goes for DVD and your favorite movies. You don't have to pay an online service to watch it, which is going to be the new norm with the masses of the newer generations.
Not only do you not need to pay to stream it if you own it on CD/DVD, they are also not tracking your listening or viewing habits and using that data for marketing and selling it on.
I like CDs because they sound great, they are maximum resolution after all. I don't have to deal with ads, or being profiled or algorighmed, or paying a monthly fee that if I stop playing I lose access to my music. I'll take a CD over vinyl any day. I actually own a physical copy of the music I love forever. I can even pass them down to our kids. And now we can all get them at what should have been the price all along, $5-$10. The only downside really is that the cases are fragile and the artwork is much smaller format, handled by ripping them losslessly to digital media (they are digital to start with after all) and keeping the physical media as the archive copy. Long live CDs!
I remember I used to have CD players that would let you “program” your own track list. I used to like to rearrange the order of the tracks on the cd so that they flowed better than the original track order.
But the usability was a pain in the ass compared with a proper software combination like mpd + cantata
I still collect CD's when I can't find the vinyl version.
CD's used is also a good way to build your music collection on the cheap.
The physical media is tactile and gives you a sense of ownership.
Digital is good but disposable.
Ditto
I grew up with vinyl. When CDs hit the market, I ditched vinyl and never looked back. Good quality (recorded and mastered) CDs are just as good as good quality vinyl, IMO, and you don't have to suffer through the drawbacks of vinyl records (careful handling, cleaning, and most of all wear and tear). It's a PITA that I don't miss and I'm not inclined to return to. I also agree CDs sound better than streaming. More CDs is a good thing. :)
Just like I don't miss chemical based photography.
records kill cds. Cant defeat real audio
Still better to have on harddrives
You can often quite easily find better sounding masters in digital format so you can actually even store several variants without the hassle of changing discs
Come on you lot getting eggy over different formats, they all have a place in music & suit all today.
I have vinyl, tapes, cd's ,hundreds of hi res flac albums on hard drives & usb & I stream. It's about versatility and access to whatever we need now unlike years ago when we could maybe go to town buy the album or single normally one or 2 at a time & treasure the sleeve, reading it back to front & playing it a few times a day until next pay day. Sometimes ordering from abroad waiting for 2 weeks before it arrived. It's nice it's convenient today but not the same excitement. Today its mc donalds fast food style.
@@Hirnlego999 No its not. Hard drive is cold convenient music. Like turning on tapped beer when there are special bottled versions to savour. I take it you have never experienced proper music ownership or got a decent vinyl collection started about 50 years ago to treasure to re- visit & bring back memories of those days you bought it. I can picture in my mind where I purchased every album & memories of friends/girlfriends, family, places, age & fashion. Hard drive phewey. Only good for back ups really or in car.
Your video absolutely got me thinking about CDs again. I pulled out my CD binder from the 90s and 2000s. I'm stoked! I was at Goodwill and found brand new CDs from unknown artists that I have never heard of, still in the shrink wrap. I bought Switch Foot, Black Crows, and Verseria (A local Indianapolis Band) for $2 each. I am back on board for CDs! Thank you so much for this video!
I like Switch Foot and Black Crows. I've never heard of Verseria.
This video really spoke to me. I have two 7'-tall CD cabinets, 13 shelves each, each shelf holding about 90 CDs, and maybe another 300 in piles on my fireplace hearth. My vinyl collection could be measured in yards (I'm 64), and when Oppo pulled out of the player market I bought two more used "backup" BDP-103 players, should be set for my remaining time on this rock. I bought my first Apple TV a few months ago, and am just starting to play with Apple Music streaming service, it can be convenient but after my miserable experience with sirius xm in my new 2018 car, I'm glad I have a bunch of CDs.
I still buy CD's! I had 3 delivered yesterday. Until recently, I was playing them on an Oppo BDP-105 but upgraded to a Cambridge Audio CXC transport and an Ares II DAC. To me, the transport/DAC combination is the best way to go as it is easier to upgrade when newer technology appears. I always enjoy your videos and I still don't drink coffee.
I got the Cambridge recently as well, running through Qutest, damn fine transport.
You need a better source!
CD's are bad codecs! or are you some of the grid freak too?
DIESEL generator music ??
@@lucasrem Coal burner, diesel is for children. The thick black smoke makes things more relaxing.
@@lucasrem What????
I adore CDs! At home I prefer records but in my photographic studio I'm spinning CD's. I'm now doubling up on titles and already the prices are high. I do love how new releases on CD's are in cardboard sleeves. Makes it feel a lot more analogue. Better for the planet too. I'm currently spinning Adore by Pumpkins on CD and its utterly brilliant. The 2011 remaster of Pink Floyd the Wall on CD is also breathtaking.
I agree get them while you can
I also have multiple copies of my favorite CDs! I always keep a couple copies of my favorite titles IN the shrink wrap! ** Unrelated note, regarding Floyd, have you seen that Roger Waters is re-recording DSOTMoon all by himself? .... Something tells me it's going to be a let down .... the man's almost 80, for heaven's sake .....
I hate the cd cardboard sleeves. Very easy to make fine scratches to the disc when sliding it in and put..
So funny, my husband and I got out our old CD collection that dates to about 1986 and beyond last week. We had forgotten just how good CD’s sound - much better than streaming- I completely agree, we’re going to start buying CD’s again!
I remember buying my first CD in 87, having listened to vinyl since the 60's. Was blown away! Plus you could access tracks instantly. Physical media still has a place in my life. I do stream a lot these days as I just don't have the room for records and CD's, but if i like an artist I always buy it physically to support them.
Great advice. I own 10's of thousands of CD's and have de-gutted the jewel cases and put them in storage. The paperwork & discs are in hundreds of notebooks holding 200+ pieces. I've also digitized my collection of Reels & cassettes. Those consist of decades of air checks. Never a loss of anything to listen to. All the big bulky equipment along with Monster Cable and Lasserdiscs & vinyl are also in storage. Everything is played thru a Bose Wave Radio, and for the most part, is accurate playback. Really a happy camper. Enjoy listening.
99 cents to 1.50 at my local thrift stores and love the hunt.
You can also use Plex to host your exact audio copy rips as your own streaming service.
I recently dug mine out from storage (I had about 500 discs) and I’m reripping them at a high bitrate, then putting them on display again. I was nearly at a point a year or two ago where I was going to sell them all!
320kbps was the one thing I always disliked about iTunes/Apple music. I ripped all my cds to lossless as soon as the cost of memory came down to a good value and always buy cd over download.
One piece of advice I have to say, do a bit of research and find the best sounding CD for a particular title > not all CD’s are created/mastered equally
#9: I've had and used the exact same CD player in my main system since the 90s when I bought it used for $100. (It was almost a $1000 retail list when new)
That CD player is still working perfectly today with no issues whatsoever. I had opened it up a few years ago to thoroughly clean it, but other than that it's one of the most reliable components I have. Speakers are the most reliable, (as long as you don't blow them!), and VCRs and cassette decks usually require the most maintenance.
Anyway, I've also found and bought a few other really decent and fully working CD players used in my local thrift stores for about the same price as a new CD, ($10-$20), just so I have a couple of good quality backup players just in case my main one ever dies or needs to be fixed.
IMO, buying used good quality vintage equipment from reputable brands that is still in good shape and working condition is a MUCH better value overall than buying any of the (usually either majorly overpriced if good quality, OR super cheap quality, if inexpensive), brand new gear!
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, CDs will always be the overall best music format, and I will always buy as much of my music collection as possible on them throughout my life, especially since I've been collecting music on CD since I was in high-school and I'm now in my 50s with over 40K CDs in my music collection, in just about every genre, and from all over the world, and from all eras, from the 50s up until today's latest releases, and I will continue keeping up with the latest music throughout my life, as music exploration and enjoyment is one thing that helps keep you young, due to you always keeping an open mind to new experiences!
I have over 900 CDs, and many were purchased through the the record clubs back in the '90s, such as BMG, Columbia House, and Musical Heritage Society. I haven't bought any physical music media probably for 20 years, but last night I did order a double vinyl album of Frank Sinatra from Walmart. I'm just getting back into it, and at one time I was going to get rid of my CDs but luckily didn't. I did that back when I got more into CDs and gave away a bunch of vinyl that I wish I still had.
IMO, if you choose any single way to enjoy your music, you’re backing yourself into a corner and there is significant compromise one way or the other (price, availability, sq).
I find it better to pull and enjoy from some streaming, some vinyl, and yes for me mostly CD.
Lastly, considering the recent MOFI analog controversy you’re wasting a lot of time hand-wringing over the format when you can just enjoy your music.
CDs will not be dying any time soon.
Good video as always!
The MoFi online hand wringing and hair pulling is fascinating. Especially for an audio agnostic like me:
@@geraldmartin7703 I have one MoFi album, bought it because it was half price from memory, and a good deal. It does sound very good, to me anyway, but my ears are shot, and while I appreciate and enjoy high quality music, I don't need the best of the best of the best. I wouldn't pay stupid prices for their stuff, but for the right price I'd definitely buy more.
Spot on video! My collection of music consists of vinyl, CDs and streaming. Been collecting vinyl since I was a teenager and CDs since the early 80s. My favorite format is CDs and I have a collection of over 4000, snd I still buy CDs. After years of messing around with different components I finally have a setup I love and makes my CDs sound amazing. My system makes CDs sound warm, full and open and it's now my preferred way to listen to music. Thanks for another great video!
About CD sound quality-
A lot, and I mean A LOT of music that came out in the hay day of CD, mostly the early to mid 90's, was not re-recorded for digital streaming. A lot of it was "ripped" into a computer system and then converted using software many years back.
This can work ok, or it can work pretty lousy depending on the age of the conversion and software used. Obviously old conversions used old software and it left a mark. Sometimes the bass sounds like it is playing out of a speaker with a towel over the woofer, or sounds like the speaker was underwater, or playing through a pane of glass. For a listener that never heard the music when it was "new" back then or heard it from physical media, they might not notice. Sometimes the drum beats become blurred, or "sharp but muted" if that makes sense.... sound levels can be out of whack..... it is pretty noticeable on certain music side by side.
Plus, physical media is a thing. And by that I mean, EVERYTHING is going to "as a service" which means they want you to pay them money every month and then STILL buy titles. Except when you stop paying every month your stuff is locked. They are doing this with video games, even options like heated seats in cars! DON'T LET THEM LOCK YOUR MUSIC COLLECTION BEHIND A MONTHLY PAYMENT.
Get physical media. Get NON BLUE TOOTH players for your media. Why non blue tooth? Amazon Sidewalk. Look it up if you don't know what it is.
I recommend thrift stores for CD players. Local GoodWill has given me a dozen "old" CD players for less then $5 per. 2 of them didn;t work right. One of them was missing a power cord. All of them cost at least $150 when new, the most expensive one I found was a JVC 200 disc jukebox style that worked perfectly($499 new). 1990's big name brand CD players, well, a few had crappy DAC(Sony was hit and miss) but a lot of them had top notch and if they still work, they work. I have enough to last the rest of my life and it cost me like $60.
Much harder to find old players for Vinyl at the thrift.
#3: Yes, very much so.
It's kind of sad that many self-releasing artists have given up on releasing their albums on CD over the past 5 years at least. At the moment, I've got quite the wishlist of music that is not available in lossless sound. 10 years ago, I used to write to artists and /or indie labels directly, if an album that I want has not been released in anything other than mp3 or vinyl (read: not on CD) to ask them if I can buy a lossless copy from tthem directly, with the goal to burn my own jewel case CD version of it for my home stereo. And every time I got a reply to that, it was a positive one and we had a deal. Due to being busy with work, I rarely get to do that now, hence the workload. For example, I managed to write to an artist with that intention only once this year. And the album in question that came out in 2015 is really beautiful.
Also, in the used CD store in town (in Germany), I've never seen as many great rare albums on CD for very affordable prices than I have done this year.
The advantage of CD over streams is that you don't need to have a safety copy because it is supposed to "last a lifetime of listening enjoyment", as it said on the original packaging in the 80s, and that streams can disappear without prior notice for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
Downloads do not have a booklet with information on who plays what on the album, whereas CDs mostly do. The names of the musicians playing the good stuff usually have been the kind of information to look for that's very useful for my new music discovery process. Whereas the self-learning algorithms of streaming sites recommend you stuff based on your prior input, and will thus not broaden your mind musically, following favorite musicians and producers playing on other people's CDs will, because often, these musicians will branch out into musical styles that you are not familiar with yet.
Also, there is so many great music out there to enjoy!
I have a nearby thrift store that charges only 25 cents for used CDs. Needless to say, any good ones they get go fast. Another one is at 99 cents (80 cents on senior day for those who qualify) and gets a better caliber of discs and they stay around a bit longer. To me the great thing about the cheap prices is being able to expand musical horizons into jazz, world music, reggae and anything else that might seem interesting.
With vinyl making it's comeback, the CD market is really good. Sometimes cheaper than buying a digital copy, been buying them on mass to build up my music library. Exact copy in it's report also tells you how much the song is peaked, telling you if the song is a victim of the volume wars.
Great video, Randy! Physical media is the way to go! I recently downsized my music collection to CDs, along with Minidiscs, and Cassettes. I recently sold off all my Vinyl to downsize and make our move to Mexico a lot easier..... I have had CDs since 1983, back when they were about $20 a piece. Before moving, I bought up a bunch of CDs from Amazon to replace what I had on vinyl, and prices were amazingly cheap sometimes, with some discs selling for as low as $5.00 (NEW!). There are many albums that have been remastered and re-released by many classic rock artists, and sound better than they ever did on vinyl. I have the Audiolab 6000CDT and Teac Tascam Pro CD recorder as well for backup; I also have a Pioneer universal disc player for my SACDs and DVD-Audio, that still works really well. My CD collection is hovering around 2700 discs, so I think I'm good for a while, and I do my fair share of streaming as well.
Lots of great points. I also think buying high quality downloads (like FLAC) and burning to a CD is also a good option for those CDs that have gone out of print and are ungodly expensive. Always important to have back ups. Sometimes albums just get removed from streaming services.
Qobuz is a great service for buying FLAC. I have purchased hundreds of albums from them and you get the hi-res for a low cost. As a nice service, they let you stream the albums you buy for free too. No subscription required.
@@labnine3362 I recently discovered Quboz download store. Love it!
@@tomflanagan3889 Early on, I used Tidal but was unhappy with the music discovery. Another thing I wasn't fond of was the almost exclusive promotion of hip-hop over other genres. With Qobuz, they push the classical, jazz, rock, country, hip hop right to the front and allow you to toggle a preference. I'm hooked - it's a great service. I have found so many cool new jazz artists and some indie rock I never would have otherwise stumbled on.
Sometimes tracks are omitted from soundtracks on streaming services. I couldn't listen to "Greased Lightning" on the Grease soundtrack recently on a streaming service. I ran into a similar problem with the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack.
Yeah I just download uncompressed files and burn them to audio CDs.
Been picking up amazing finds at op shops and thrift stores for years and years. Get a dedicated cloth buff for a drill if you have a good vice. I use Vonax plastic polish to the buff out any bad scratches. Top scratches can usually be fixed with a black paint marker pen. Always be on the look out for quality CD players. The lasers are like the Nexus 6 from Blade Runner. They have a life span but have a pot adjustment to tweak as the laser gets weaker with age. Good luck if you accept the mission. This message will self destruct in.....
Another reason to buy CD's--the booklets. I loved the liner notes found on vinyl from the 50s and 60s, but it began to disappear in favor of artwork. The artwork is still very noticeable on CDs and the CD booklet brought back the liner notes for a while. Lots of great information about the artist, lyrics, the whole bit.
Yeah, now for music that's intended really only for streaming, the "cover art" is designed with the same philosophy as an app icon...super simplistic and easy-to-read as a small square among many others on a screen. It's kinda sad.
Digital booklets?
I liked how Def Leppard would write a personal "what we've been up to since the last album" message. At least they did in Hysteria. Metallica wrote personal messages, too (had the same managers as Def Leppard).
And bonus tracks 👍🏻
CDs are 40 years old this year. Pretty amazing. They have lasted longer than any other physical medium other than vinyl. As the advertising on some demo CDs said in 1982, "Hear the light..."
I own thousands of the things, collected since the dawn of the CD era. My only frustration is the technology is four decades old and the disc playing time still 78-80 minutes. Why not audio only DVDs with multiple hours playing times with same sound quality?
@@geraldmartin7703 would have required a new schema (how the full-bandwidth audio tracks are laid down and the information of how to play them) for DVD or later Blu-ray for audio only.
I guess no one was willing to take the chance on it. Any manufacturer would have had to get "buy in" from some of the record labels, and labels generally hate having too many formats to deal with (and advertising costs).
So, such cool ideas died on the vine.
But yeah, imagine a whole "box set" on ONE disc, with even static covers, lyrics, and band photos that would be displayed on a TV while the music played.
I think after the death (non-adoption) of the better sounding DSD based SACD both the labels and manufacturers were happy to just stick to CD and vinyl, something consumers "understood" and wouldn't need education about.
I remember all the confusion (and misinformation) regarding SACDs. Many wrongly thought they were "20-bit CDs" and didn't have a clue what DSD was all about.
@@geraldmartin7703 There were attempts in the early 2000s yielding the DVD-A and SACD formats which were in competition with each other for the next new format. I liked the sound of SACD so didn't pay much attention to DVD-A. Evidently most people didn't pay attention to either due to the rise of the MP3, which was a much more convenient format.
Besides, I always thought albums made when LPs were the prevailing format were better: 44 minutes of carefully curated music > 79 minutes of the same plus whatever else fit on the disc. By the time you hit track 14 it started to get tedious. To hear hours of music by one artist, just listen to more than one album.
@@charlienyc1 lol, all I do these days is overpay for old SACDs and DVD Audio's. Rarely buy CD's cause I can just stream but not in surround. I'd be embarrassed to say what I paid for Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic but when I got it...it was worth every penny. So glad I finally discovered hi res surround. Better late than never
@@davidwald2938 Yup, I started buying them again once I realized they could be ripped. Then I bought some music on NativeDSD because evidently I hadn't spent enough yet!
I never deserted CDs. Still using an old Technics SL-PS900 CD player. The MASH DAC in that sounds far better than running the signal from the player's optical out into my Denon receiver. The Denon's DAC is screechy in the treble. The Technics sounds open and well balanced. I'll know shortly if a Schiit Modi 3E DAC produces better results.
i recently discovered the MASH dac technology. i agree, it sounds great.
Same here, I've had that player for decades. It's quite the workhorse, still going strong.
The number one reason for me to have CD's around is there are some things that just aren't available on streaming services. Mostly it's random b sides from a single CD, or super indie releases, but there are also records that for some reason are just not available to stream. For example I really love the debut album by this band The Real People and even though it was released on Sony I've never been able to find it streaming anywhere. I do have my CD copy though.
I agree 100% I have lots of stuff promos singles and more that are not available to stream.
RIGHT ON, AUDIOPHILES! I just laugh at the fact that I pay a monthly subscription to TH-cam MUSIC. And yet, I can't download any Jimi Hendrix albums! Meanwhile, my CD collection has a great set of BEST OF collections. Yup, THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE happens to be one of those 💿!
I have FLAC files you couldn't buy at physical media at all in my 100k tracks library
@@mrmuffer69 you guys think there is only the decision between physical media and streaming? I ditched physical media long before I had a Internet connection
I just started rebuying all my old music as CDs again. I learned one important lesson about used CDs though. Make sure you are purchasing the latest, remastered copy of classic albums. Huge difference!
Can you tell me why it’s better to purchase the latest version, rather than the oldest ? Thank you :)
@@madmuselle Technology improved, so sound quality is just better and the remaster cleans it all up and improves separation. I have some old CDs from the 1990s which sound awful. The Brown album by Orbital springs to mind. I have even copied it to software and cleaned it up myself and the difference is amazing.
I'm right there with you brother. I love my CD's. I have every CD I have bought since 1984. I bought a new CD player around three years ago, and it sounds great through my old Pioneer SX950 that I bought new in 1978. I will always prefer the sound of a CD to streaming. Thanks for the video. Really enjoyed it.
I bought two, used Pioneer DV 563a to play my CDs. One is connected to a vintage Pioneer SX-780, and the other to a Reissong A-10. Both of them sound great.
I have lots of CDs to play. As I’m relatively new to audiophile stuff I always had plenty of records and CDs.
Yes, I agree. My CDs sound better than streaming Amazon HD through my Bluesound Node (VPN fed) and both going through the same DAC. That's my experience and it's consistent.
not when steaming via USB!
@@jn3750 I'm a musician first, audiophile second. I like album art, the conceptual side, lyrics, credits, etc. And all in one handy place when I put the album on. And I often listen to albums instead of songs. Having said that I stream a lot now just because of the convenience.
With a collection of over 2000 CDs, bought over the last 35 years, I agree with your assessments, especially #3. Yes, I spend more listening time with streaming, but that is for convenience and discovery. And I don't buy CDs much anymore, but I do with special albums and artists. The CD format will be around for a very long time yet to come.
My collection of cd's tops out at a bit over 600. I have no vinyl, and don't want it either.
I've also been collecting cds hard Rock and metal for over 25 yrs slowed down alot a few yrs back now only get 1 or 2 a month if that. Have over 3000 albums. When people see my collection for the first time they say haven't you heard of Spotify.
Number 1 reason I keep buying CDs is because of their leaflet, love reading the extra information, sometimes they have amazing artwork. You can’t get that by streaming and vinyls normally do not come with one. I do them all nevertheless.
There is also another level if you do have a Super Audio CD(SACD) and a SACD player.
Digital booklet?
@@DavidEVogel point me in the right direction
@@DavidslvPT When buying or streaming music albums at Apple Music it may include a digital booklet. The Angel Olson album "All Mirrors" is an example. The booklet is a PDF file.
@@DavidEVogel To be honest with you, I don't see the booklet on Apple Music, but I have noticed the booklet icon on Qobuz, thank you for pointing that out!
I love CD's as much as vinyl. Been a collector of my favorite bands' hard copies ever since mid '90s. I do love to own material in my shelves. Not bought that much music lately - but whenever a new must-have comes by, I surely buy it as a hard copy. New albums do come quite cheap - it's the old hard-to-find collectables that cost. Even live bootlegs can cost quite a bit - whenever find what you still do nlt own.
I'm glad I got ahead of the curve on this one. I've been getting back into collecting CDs over the last couple years and I'm up to a collection of about 300. I've paid $1 each for most of them and I have a vintage Onkyo CD changer with an amazing built-in DAC that I picked up for $30.
300 isn't that much given that I collected 200 from 1991 to 1999 where I stopped to use physical media when I can have my whole library on a hard drive with dozens of backups spread all over the country
@@Harald_Reindl you're right, for a lot of people it's not that many, especially those that have been collecting for a long time. But considering I had maybe 20 at the start of 2021 I'd say it was pretty explosive growth.
@@LeonardChurch33 well, my digital library has grown by 50000 tracks in 2022 :-)
Remember in the early 2000s when Microsoft accidentally deleted everybody's Zune libraries? That was reinforcement enough for me to decide to never ever sell my CD collection. Which sound better than any streaming service anyway.
Great segment! And couldn't agree more. My current collection of 1300ish disc's is right there at arms length in my studio. Won't ever get rid n if them. Especially when there's no liner notes for digital media. My knowledge of music , artists , recording etc is heavily influenced by all that reading!
Well said!
Since the early seventies I have always copied my purchased media for the car. It began with my 8-track tape recorder. A few years later I switched to cassettes. I copied my factory CDs to cassette tapes up until the advent of recordable CDs in the nineties. Now, there is streaming and the ability to rip CDs to an iPhone. But you are correct, it is fun. After all I have been doing it for 50 years.
@6:30 It’s _yours_ and deepens your connection to the music and artist. You have to be more present with it because you have to be more involved.
Nice video... One subject that most people don't discuss is "CD rot"... or the fact of bronzing, which greatly reduces the shelf life of CDs. I recently gave away my CD collection (3,000+) to a close friend, who I know will make good use of them... He and I both noticed that every so often, one of the CDs had become blotchy and glitchy, basically unplayable... I live in the tropics, so I can attest to the reality of CD rot - high temps/high humidity will definitely put the hurt on your CDs, after an extended period of time. This being said, it might behoove anyone, who's personally invested in and takes pride in their CD collection, to make an extra effort, when storing their CDs... "Discs last longest when stored in plastic cases in a cool, dark, dry environment. (NIST recommends that for CD's and DVD's, relative humidity should be in the range of 20%-50% and temperatures should be in the range of 4C-20C). Because gravity can gradually bend the disc, storing it upright like a book is best for long-term storage." Having access to "streaming" has really softened the blow of my giving away my CDs, but just as Mr. Cheapaudioman mentioned concerning the tactile aspect, I do miss having them filling up the room in a way...
I haven't experienced rot at all, but I live in a dry climate. one thing I'll note though, all disc readers are not equal. and price is not the separator here, it's more research and trial and error to find the ones that can read anything you throw at them.
It is fun making mix CDs. Like the jcard of days gone by, I make CD outer sleeves using heavy weight card stock and print up some cool artwork and fold it up like a mini album cover to hand out to my friends. I like to use Verbatum's Digital Vinyl blank Cds, I print custom labels and it looks like a tiny 45 record. ps. I still make mixtapes.
I loved mix tapes, and mix cds, then mixed USB drives....
I have an older Epson printer that holds printable CDs (if they are even made anymore) and with the software, you could make pretty cool CDs, plus the software will print jewel case labels that look commercial quality.
As a Gen Y, I started out with cassettes as a kid, and my parents had records, which I had some exposure to. Got my first CD when I was all of 7 years old (1992) and even then I realised how amazing CD was compared to anything else that had come before it. I've been buying CDs ever since, and have a massive collection. Also have some iTunes purchases, but never bothered with streaming, CD has mostly been and will remain my main method of acquiring music. Cheap, no monthly fees, no worries about losing access to my music if I don't pay the bill/internet goes down/company goes bust/record label drops the contract/etc, and they're simply the best quality thats accessible to ordinary people.
In 1983 I bought my first CD in Tokyo Japan when I was flying a mission for the USAF. Rolling Stones Tatoo You album . An EMI release, it was one of the first selected to become a CD ! Ive gor it! 40 years later, the Stone's Tatoo You album is re-released on vinyl. Full circle.
I started my first CD collection three years ago with a DVD player; I pay £2 max inc postage for a CD, £3 max for a double LP. I was vinyl for years and then went to mp3 for the sheer portability. It's quite something to listen to LP's in their entirety after all this time.
My main reason for buying cds for me is to avoid a situation where an artist only offers a remaster digital, I still have my old Megadeth cds before all the remaster/tinkering and literally no other way to hear the originals without my cds. It’s like having the original star wars on vhs where Han Solo shot first
The remixed Megadeth CDs are awful! They've had so much polish applied that they sound more like pop music.
Not a complete fan of remastered CDs. The remaster of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust is awful.
@@pauln6803 yeah I recently re ripped all my cds to lossless, and was thankful I hung onto all my collection I amassed during the 90s and 2000s. There is always a headache with some of the purchased digital tracks as well, freaking iTunes has errored out on me thinking some tracks aren't available in my region. With my cds/files I dont have to deal with any of that bs.
@@Blahmanwhysoserious
Let's be honest, remasters are usually a way to milk more money from fans.
The Metallica remasters are barely distinguishable to the originals and I've already expressed my disdain for what Dave and his ego did to Peace Sells, So Far, and Rust In Peace.
But...
I have to say the Relapse records remasters of the Death albums are excellent as they were remixed to give the instruments a bit more separation without losing any of the aggression.
Plus there's extra liner notes and the addition of lots of demos and live performances.
I too spent weeks of ripping hundreds of CDs, and polishing the now hard/impossible to come by ones I'd mistreated in my teenage years!
Don't do iTunes, won't do streaming and if I can help it (price/availability) I prefer not to give Amazon any money because they're too big and I don't like the way they treat the employees.
My money tends to go through Bandcamp these days as I can purchase a recording, the artist (or at least the label if it's not self published) gets a decent share and there's no DRM or proprietary formats to stop me copying the files to any storage or using playback device I so choose.
If it wasn't for the difficulty and expense of obtaining non mainstream CDs here in post brexit Britain (I used to import a lot from the EU, Switzerland and before the shipping got ridiculous, the US) I'd probably still be buying CDs.
Yes cd's sound way better
I have always had some CD's, but have recently gone all in. Started with buying a few SACD's to see what, if any difference there was. I thought they were great. So I bought myself a new Yamaha SACD/CD player for my setup. Wow! I wish there were more rock SACD'S out there. But I do find that the transport and DAC in the Yamaha are really good. CD'S sound better than through my old Sony 5 disc Blu-Ray player!
SACDs are awesome. Wish there were more….
#3 True! Record the output, load into audacity or something to see that the streaming has a cut at 15 KHz range, just like crap mp3's from the 90's (and people pay money for it!). Not to say that, if you loose your connection (for whatever reason, no streaming for you).
#4 Not so much, there are better options than EAC like CUETools (has EAC plugin) and fre:ac, it extract and convert the track with the exact same quality among other features, like access to MusicBrainz (music database).
My parents had a record store in the late 70s to mid-80s which meant collecting music was in my blood so to speak. So I never stopped buying music, in the same way, I never stopped buying books. Not even when streaming/digital formats became prevalent. I did go through the phase everyone went through and stopped buying vinyl for several years. In fact, quite a few of the artists I listened to in college released a lot of their catalog on CD only at the time. I'm in the process now of replacing lost CDs that mysteriously disappeared even though I have quality digital copies of them. And my primary reasons are sound quality, enjoying the physical copy in my hand, and collecting or completing a particular artist's catalog. I still stream but really for background listening purposes and to preview particular albums to determine if I really want to buy them (either in vinyl or CD). And for some artists, I may purchase lossless downloads because I want to support the artist but am not really committed to buying the physical copy.
The funny part about some vinyl purists is tying themselves in knots justifying paying $20+ for repressed vinyl of artists' recordings that were never pressed on vinyl to begin with. Buying new vinyl pressings of new releases also isn't a guarantee that the vinyl will sound better than the CD format. A case in point is the latest Calexico release. The vinyl copy I have sounds muddy on some tracks and no amount of cleaning will fix it and I have a nice phono set up so I know it's not that. The digital download sounds much cleaner and I can hear nuances lost in that vinyl pressing I have. But I get the nostalgia factor of buying vinyl for new recordings because vinyl can add warmth to a recording and because you want all the extras that come with a nicely packaged special pressing. I do this for CDs as well.
In the end, though it's all about enjoying music. I mean that's really why I endeavor to upgrade my hi-fi system is to make listening to music that much more enjoyable and give new life to my music collection.
I just recently decided to return to CD after two years of only streaming.( Wiim mini I bought after your review and it's good)
As you say, there is a satisfaction getting the cd out of the box and put it on the tray.
So today I've got out to the daylight my old dvd player and will connecting it to the zen one dac through coaxial cable.
Back in the day only bought techno and r&b.
Now I listen to alternative rock, vocal jazz and indie/ folk.
So I have to buy some CDs for a small collection.
I started with the first albums of Guns&Roses and Oasis just to try the sound.
Omg it sounds better that tidal.
CD has higher bitrate at 1400 kbps than often lower then 1k on tidal at hifi tier.
I’m still buying CD’s and get excited over a thrift store bin full of them. A good DAC makes all the difference. Still run across some that are poorly recorded but no big deal to just chunk them! Went to a thrift store yesterday and found some nice records but they were all overpriced. They had no CD’s 😩
Our local Goodwill has priced used CD's upwards of $8.00, they all used to be $2.00. Savers thrift is still at 1.99 for most CD's. but their vinyl prices are 3.99
It's the same way with movies and films! The streams are very compressed and discs offer better quality. I can't get everything but I make sure to get my favorite CDs and Movies on physical.
I really appreciate this. I Love music & I love physically holding an album in my hand. It’s just special to me. I still buy cds, cassettes, & vinyl…& I’ll never stop. Of course I like all 3 but cassettes & cds are my favorite. Everything you said is so on point & pretty much my exact thoughts & feelings on the subject. Great video.
Really accurate and wise post. With 1500 CDs virtually all in pristine condition I'm definitely not ditching the format and all 10 of your reasons show why.
For me the advantage is (still) the range of current or back catalogue - especially. Anything at all left-field for classical music is not streamed. Vinyl was smaller market place and 3x price and $600 minimum kit and the medium is delicate.
In UK there's a company making a CD ripping and storage bit of kit. £600 but that buys you kit that outputs Flac files as well as MP3. Outputs optical, HDMI and analog. Stores up to 4400 albums on its 2Tb disc. Lots of clever stuff re indexing and a box which is just 8" square Its the Brennan B2 - and no I don't work for them.
With that much invested in CDs, I assume you have backup cd players. Nice collection!
I like the limitations of CDs -- as long as it's good enough, I'll play it in the car for a week or so and get to know it forwards and backwards. A really good cd will last two weeks (on replay!)
Fwiw I don't stream music -- I discover "new" [mostly old] music mainly via TH-cam. Digital I buy via Bandcamp if possible (I'll almost never buy mp3)
There is something to be said about listening to an entire album. There's a feel to the album as songs transition from one into the next, and in my experience, I have come to appreciate MANY songs from albums that weren't released as singles and didn't initially appeal to me, only to have them become my favorites.
+1
Bandcamp is bloody fantastic.
Same here, exactly!
Congratulations Randy on the most sensible audio video I've seen in a long time. I go back a long long way and, apart from a rocky beginning, CDs have always been my media of choice. Vinyl is a pain with the setting up of tone arm and cartridge and still getting unavoidable tracking distortion on the inner tracks, not to mention the snap crackle and pop and lack of dynamic range. I HATE streaming, physical media makes you connect more with the music and not only that, IT DOES SOUND BETTER it really does. Apart from all that CDs are a bargain buy these days, I can't believe how cheap they are compared to way back when, so thanks again for the video, I couldn't have put it better myself 👍
I am getting back into them because they are approaching the same nostalgia my albums did. Plus I found my first CD player, a Magnovox boombox with built-in CD player (big deal in mid to late 80s). I want to get a bunch of my cassettes too because the tape player sounds great too, it has a 5 band equalizer and both speakers have a volume control !!
I have a big CD Collection, ripped as FLAC on a NAS and on a SD-Card as MP3. Almost all CDs are in a very good condition. my old Sony CD XA 50 ES is working since the 90s and is still making a great job.
Great video and I concur! CD's are awesome and have been since they first came out 👍
Randy, another great review! Over the past 5 years I have been buying new and used CDs. Even vinyl duplicates. Vinyl is better but CDs are way more convenient. I have about 200 and will continue to buy. Almost pulled the plug in the “Faces” first album, but it was $27…will wait for a used one to come up on eBay.
Your reviews are informative and entertaining, keep up the good work
There is a boxset of The Faces albums and it was cheap too. Maybe pick that up.
3 failed hard drives have shown me the value of physical copies. Entire collections winked out in a flash.
I still buy Cd's for my CD collection and really like these!!!!!!!!! My audio system that I've had for over 30 years, yes 30years and still going....runs AWESOME! Love it! I also like that own the music and yep make mix cd's that I use in my car. I they get damaged due to hot weather etc I can easy make another one!
Compact discs are not gone yet. Although My Big Mountain Hodge Music streams on all of the major platforms I also sell physical CDs at my show by saying that it’s a collectors item. And surprisingly I have sold some copies of my CDs on Amazon.
Albums disappear from streaming services all the time and it annoys the hell out of me. At one point Nirvana’s Incesticide disappeared from my streaming service. I found a copy at the first used book store I went to for $4.99. I haven’t been able to stream Deguello by ZZ Top for a couple of years. Found a brand new copy at Barnes and Noble yesterday for $10.99. Another album that I discovered on streaming that has now disappeared from all streaming services but I can’t even find in any format is The Ecstatic by Mos Def.
This defines the issue with streaming audio and video services. These services aren't archival libraries that have access to the content forever, so if something is rarely getting played they don't want to pay the licensing for it anymore and it is gone. Nothing beats having your own library that is forever yours.
I consider Duegello one of their best and its the album that introduced me to ZZ Top in the 80's. I noticed it went away too and was glad I had the cd. Wish I still had the album. Replaced them all with cd and gave away 500 vinyls 25 yrs. ago because cd easier to tote when moving (sigh)
I really enjoyed this! I love my 1,000+ CD collection, I will never let it go. 96% drop in CD sales is a staggering figure. To me, it feels like CDs are the rollerblades of the rollerskating revival of recent years. (With quad rollerskates being the "vinyl" in this analogy). You are being a bit of an outlier if you're seen skating on inline skates these days, and there's a hip retro nostalgia to the quad skates.
I stumbled upon a new skate shop in my small city and was stoked. They sell primarily old-school style skates for women. I didn't realize it had become such a "thing" again. I was impressed. Reminded me that I have a set of Powell-Peralta Rollerbones from the late 80s / early 90s. And they're still in fantastic shape.
I’ve been buying CDs again for the past 2 years, lots of used ones. Mainly the original mastered CDs before they got remastered and became heavily compressed cause of how incredible dynamic they are.
they are all compressed, CD is lower levels.
Vinyl is beter
Some remasters are more compressed others are not. This is a mixed bag. Try the original TOTO IV and listen to the remasters. The original CD pressing sounds really bad.
I acquired a cd collection from a ladies brother who passed away and she didn`t have any room since she was moving into a smaller apt. I got some excellent cds from the likes of Steely Dan, Tragically Hip, Pink Floyd all the way to top Jazz and Blues. All in great condition. Almost 400 cds with a custom wood cabinet for $200!
I’m an old school music guy too. I have a Technics SA930 and for my 25th birthday back in 1994 I splashed out on the Technics SL-MC7 multi-changer cd unit. 111 CD’s loaded and put on random will play for around 2 weeks before it starts repeating anything. I don’t have to worry about Wi-Fi dropping out on the Bluetooth failing… I’m not going to be interrupted by an advert or a telephone call. I love listening to the physical whirr and click as it changes from one side to another and wondering what piece of music from my back catalogue will start playing next. Occasionally I empty completely and load another 111 CDs into it and the whole process gets to be repeated again. And when I finish with my CDs I might throw on a vinyl just because I can. The modern instant music world will never appreciate the quality of the material it produces the way the physical old school does
I think the differences in sound quality are often due to the remastering that's going on with the current releases which are on the streaming platforms. I've got CDs that sound great and sound identical when I stream on Qobuz, and I've got CDs that obviously sound so much better. I really think it's the remastered versions that often in my experience sound worse, and that's the real difference more than the delivery system Itself.
A lot of modern remasters (2000's-ish to present) suffer from brickwalling. Nevermind by Nirvana is a good example. I haven't checked any out recently but I would imagine it's the law of the land by now.
Absolutely agree with you. Currently, cds are a real bargain. I recall buying cds in the early 80s for £9.99 and that was for classical releases! the only music available at the time. Once pop and jazz cds became available the price rose even more. I also kept my vinyl collection as well so have the best of both worlds!
I was stationed in Germany when CDs first came out....so I got a head start on everyone ! The first CDs released were really a hoge podge of titles...mostly classical ...my first one I bought was Christopher cross first album...still have it and still plays ....you dont wanna know how big my collection is since I have never stopped buying them since 1984...my first player....sony cdp 101...wish I still had it
I was the crazy saving the long boxes, but I talked myself out of that.
I collect CDs too. 1-The sound quality is better than streaming. 2-I like owning the physical media. One day CDs will have a renaissance just like vinyl. And people will wish they bought them when they were $5-10.
I like the sound of vinyl on a good system. I find listening to music that is Spotify & then Bluetooth it to listening in your vehicle (car). The advantage of doing that is you don't need to carry a lot extra equipment.