Exactly why I like Blu-rays and DVD's too. Netflix removes things all the time, and for film trilogies they typically only have the last two films. It's so aggravating, physical media is just the way to go in my opinion.
Of course you can. I have all my library on my external 1 terabyte and sd 1 terabyte for the car. You can’t take your 1000 CDs in the car or on your media player when going for a run Even at home i save so much space. Then I don’t suffer from disc scratches but the best reason to not buy CDs of that I search the web for the best masters from each album. I listen to around 4 or 5 masters from each album to decide the best sounding. I have a mixture of high resolution, SACDs, vinyl rips and flacs from cds. One of his reasons for cd is less likely to get damage in transit. That’s hilarious. You still have transit? You have to wait to get the cd? Haha. Another big issue I have with cds. There’s on many álbum songs that I don’t like and prefer to delete. You can’t delete songs on cd.
@@vitorfernandes651 sure for convenience purposes and use cases where quality isn't necessary streaming music or using downloaded files is technically better, but I'm not sure how you're shipping and handling CDs so poorly that you manage to scratch them so much
@@JALC-x "use cases where quality isn't necessary" lol you do realise that digital files can be the same quality as CDs or even better? Btw CDs also just store digital files. I rip almost all of my CDs to my pc so I don't have to the deal with the hassle of always changing them also I can put them on my phone this way. phones theses days have enough space to store thousands of lossless music files.
I have it the same way. I have 10.000+ cds in my collection and a large percentage aren't available for streaming. Besides the cover art and the booklet with liner nores are a part of the enjoyment, especially when it comes to albums from the 70s and 80s. Bands like Pink Floyd spent minor fortunes on creating imaginative album covers that matched the concept of the albums.
Two more reasons: when you go to a live show, the performers will have a table set up where they sell CDs and merch. If you buy a CD, you can support the artist directly and get their autograph on the CD. That's a lot of fun and you can't do that with streaming. Plus, CDs make great gifts that you can give your musically enlightened friends.
The industry is killing vinyl with their ridiculous asking prices. People who prefer a physical format and were into vinyl for the last few years are simply shifting back to CD. 💿
I have a collection of vinyl records too. I stopped buying vinyl in 1989 and now I'm selling my collection for prices that I wouldn't pay myself for them, but there are many vinyl lovers that will pay those high prices.
Yeah the pricing has become a massive hurdle. There is a supply and demand element that exists. We simply don’t have enough pressing plants around the world to meet demand. It’s an obvious opportunity for a business for those with enough money.
Steve, you And Darko are true aficionados of CDs. I'm still warm hearted by your review of the Luxman D-10x . ❤️ I bought its sister with the 509x integrated. Soon I'll splurge on the D-10x❤️❤️
I bought a Cambridge Audio CD player a few years ago because I wanted to start listening to my archived CD collection (I had ripped them about 15+yrs ago to a portable HD so I could listen to music at work thru winamp!) When I started purposely listening to my CDs and LPs again, I realized how much I had been missing from just sitting down and only listening to music. As you mention, it's about holding the physical element, reading the liner notes, the cover art, the portability, and the price point. Not to mention that the sound quality of CDs are still phenomenal. There are CDs I have that aren't on streaming platforms and never will be. My love of collecting CDs and LPs came from my parents who ran a record store back in the early 80s. I'm passing that love of the physical element of music on to my kids, especially my oldest daughter who loves the physicality of CDs herself. They represent some kind of musical magic for her.
I have been collecting, buying records since 1978. I started, and switched to collecting CD's in 1987. I love owning physical copies. This will never change. I use streaming services reference new artists, bands to see if I like , then buy later when I can afford.
Hell yeah. Every payday, I’d go to buy music. I’d also hit music stores on campus and buy Japanese import singles that would have non-US released songs on them.
I love doing that, too. Being a big fan of Japanese pop music, I especially love rummaging around in second-hand CD shops in and around Tokyo. Each of the six times I've gone to Japan, I've brought about 100 CDs (a mix of albums and singles) home with me. And since I was buying the vast majority of them second-hand, I only paid between ¥30,000 and ¥45,000 for each of those loads. That's an average of less than USD $4 per CD - much cheaper than buying them new, and much, MUCH cheaper than buying them new and paying for shipping from Japan!
If I'm going off my own reasoning, I just find owning physical copies of music to be a lot more satisfying than just having a bunch of digital downloads on my devices. And I just find CDs to be a lot more convenient than more vintage formats like vinyls and cassettes because they're often a lot cheaper, I don't have to rewind them after every use, and I can skip to whatever track I want without ruining them
they are a lot cheaper and easy to find. You can just get dozens of blank CDs and record whatever you want. Vinyls are too expensive and you need good equipment and cassettes are expensive too but also hard to find and break easily.. CDs are the best format if you want to own a physical copy of music.
One idea that I don't think anyone has mentioned is, when we are no longer alive, our cd's can be given to our friends and family, you can't really do that with streaming music. Even those cd's that none of our friends or family like can either be sold online or given to one of the many charity shops in the UK. Love the updated video you've made @Darkoaudio and have just subscribed.
I like physical formats mostly for the last reason. I like sitting down and listening to an album in full, rather than skipping around or doing playlists.
There is 1 main reason I love CDs: you can stay disconnected from internet / PCs, no FANs noise or shitty adverts in the browser or streaming services. Only you and music... brilliant experience.
You can play your offline audio files (FLAC, Opus, M4A...) without internet on your PC and even on your phone. If you don't want fan noises you can buy fanless PC's which their performance is highly enough for playing audio files. Nowadays CDs are completely useless.
Here a CD-buyer as well. Hunting for cheap, second hand albums is great fun. And I really like a physical collection. Flipping through my albums and surprising myself. From pop to jazz and from soul to dance. A digital experience is completely different. One more reason: I listen much more thoughtfully. When the CD is on, I listen to it all the way through.
I buy CDs. I rip them to flac files, to play back. It is so great to have a tangible thing. And it is great to support artists at gigs, by buying albums from the merch stand
I absolutely still listen to CD's. I like owning the music, not renting it from a streaming service. I like picking out what I want to listen to, holding it and putting it in one of my players and even choosing which track's I want to hear. And as I noticed in the first comment that had 707 likes, now 708 after I liked it too these companies can remove certain artists at their discretion. And they can raise prices as they wish. I come from a long line of musicians and have been writing songs and recording them for over 50 years. I still record analog on multiple 4-track cassette's then mix and master them to CD. I received an offer to record in Nashville in May of 2000 and did so. This was right after Napster. My demo was shopped around the world and I got an offer to sign with a record company in Australia in 2002 from the 3 songs I recorded in Nashville. I didn't get to choose which songs for the demo and I have over 500. They wanted 7 more songs to complete a 10 song album with a $1,000,000 signing bonus. They kept pushing me to be a Country artist and I can and do write some Country stuff but I also write a lot of Rock music and some of my music doesn't really fit into a category. That's why I didn't get an offer from a record company in America. I had some offers from some smaller independent labels and even some major labels. I had a face to face meeting with the then hot producer of MCA records Mark Wright who produced Leanne Womack's #1 hit 'I Hope You Dance' and he told me I was good but not quite "Country" enough. He was producing Miranda Lambert at the time and I saw a preview of her video Kerosene before the rest of the public. My Dad had been in the music business and played with star's of his era like Porter Wagoner, Tex Ritter, Red Foley and Brenda Lee to name a few and he warned me of the traps and pitfalls of the music industry. So to everyone's amazement I saw so many red flags in the contract I was offered I turned it down. I felt like I was swimming in an Ocean of Sharks; not just the big money people but people I thought were my friends and fans. So in the end my best friend and I started a small TH-cam channel called FlattBlaggMusic. I only have 91 subscribers and I let my friend pick out a lot of the songs he wanted to make video's to. I'm still making new music and it's just me writing, playing all the instruments and recording them on CD'S. Then I send them to my friend in Dallas and he puts them on our tiny little channel. I never ask anyone to subscribe, hit the like button or comment. I just do it for fun and it's good therapy for me. But I have an extensive CD collection of other artists as well as my own. Now vinyl, CD's and even cassette's are making a comeback! And I love it!!! I am not telling anyone to not use streaming services. I like to listen to music on TH-cam myself sometimes. Glad you are one of the people keeping this art form alive!
Reason #11 really needs to be reason no. 1 I make sure to have a physical copy of anything I love. Albums, movies, books. The digital version can go away at any time. Chapters considered "problematic" cannot be excised from my book shelf. A copyright dispute won't cause a song to disappear from a CD. Nobody can ruin my CD collection with their awful remaster.
I guess it didn't occur to me that a streaming service could just leave up a shit remaster (Megadeth Rust in peace for example) instead of providing the original. On CD I can get the original at any time, but some might cost a bit extra.
My absolute biggest reasons for buying movies and music on a physical format is that I have it here even if the streaming service takes it away, I don't want to pay for it anymore or internet is down for the moment. Furthermore, quality is much better.
Hello, I too am never giving up my CD or DVD/Blu-Ray collection. I don’t like and have no need for streaming services. You hit the nail on the head with every reason! I started listening to music at about 6 years old with 8-track tapes, then migrated to the cassette, and then the CD. That’s where I’m staying. I do have a lot of playlists on TH-cam and Applemusic/iTunes on my iPad, but I still have the CDs of that music also. Great video! Thanks for your analysis of why we shouldn’t give up our physical media music collections. I sincerely believe the same reasons should apply to DVDs and Blu-Rays. I even still have some VHS tapes left in my movie collection. Thanks again and I subbed while watching this!
I love CDs. Very good points. One big point you didn't mention was that CD's are recordable. Major advantage over vinyl. Another great point missed was how naturally easy it is to make an MP3 from a CD vs. Vinyl or Tape. CD begat streaming in the same way tapes begat tape trading and mix tapes. Finally, I think it would have been worth mentioning random access and programmability of a CD player over vinyl or tapes.
Cool subject! I still buying CDs. My entire collection is in CD format, because to listen the whole album I don't need to read A side and B side, it's all in one side. I can play them in random mode, repeat mode, select songs, it's very portable, I play in my PC, my hi-fi, and are cheaper than LPs. Are smaller than LPs. About the sound... they sound very good to me. Finally, I can do backup of any CD, with the same quality sound. That´s my opinion. Long life to the CD format. :) I hate the clicks and pops of vinyl. One more subscriber.
Another reason is that streaming services often times offer the worst version of a song or album, like Megadeth: All you get today are the horrendous Remixes and not the original versions. On top of that: You only get remasters and we all know that 95% of all remasters are brickwalled to death and sound atrocious (just look at Iron Maiden, all remasters suck)
I absolutely love the CD. I have close to 10,000 in my collection and continue to purchase them on a weekly basis. There is nothing like physical media!
Agree with most of the 15 reasons, now I shall add one more to the list which I find important enough that we CD buyers and supporters should not discount it. 16. Creation of digital catalogs that is easily transferable from your personal laptop/computer to your non-iphone mobile devices. Because you own the actual physical CDs, you are free to choose any songs or albums to transfer to your personal devices which can allow you to listen to them on the go with a pair of good headphones + portable DAC. Also, there are so many advances in technology in the past 10 years that you can literally copy the songs from a CD with higher bitrate than ever before (and the explosion of terabyte storages helps in this regard as the file sizes increases with higher bitrate copies). I am a big supporter of CDs because mainly the physical ownership as well as the privacy which it provides the listener. Thank you for your video.
Having a car with no bluetooth, aux, and a broken antenna forced me into playing some of my old cd's. Now I'm hooked and my collection is slowly growing. It's nice not having to connect my phone to the car and just let the cd continue from where it left off. I too hate when some of my favorite songs get removed from spotify.
I love to buy CD's too, I feel like I have a little piece of the tremendous work and time the artist go through, it's so emotional to me. It's the first video of your channel I saw, but not the last, I'm in love with the way you feel music!
I pretty much agree with John on all counts. Regarding CDs not requiring an internet connection, I'd add that it's not just about those times when your internet goes out and you can't stream - it's also about the fact that with physical media, your "device" never goes "Ding!" because you got a notification, nor does it ring because you got a phone call. Like John, I use streaming, CDs and vinyl - they all have their advantages and situations - but there are definitely times when I want to shut out the world while I listen to my tunes.
Number 16 - Inheritance, with digital streaming who and how can you leave your curated collection, in your will? Where as with CD's and vinyl records you can leave your whole collection to one person or give individuals part or just one of your records to keep. I love CD's and vinyl for lots of reasons.
Reason #8 for me is the most important one. I'm a prog guy and the majority of my favorite albums have tracks seguing into one another. I cannot even imagine listening to "Abbey Road" or "The Wall" or "Scenes from a Memory" through a streaming service.
I miss the big music stores...Blockbuster, Virgin, etc...In the 90's there was a record store chain, Planet Music, which I loved going to, it had everything...the classical section alone was bigger than the vinyl/cd/dvd/blue ray section is at the local bookstore. I remember every Monday night I would drive to the store and get there around midnight, when the new releases came out...yes, back then, there were music stores that were open until 1am, so people could get them. Damn, I miss those stores, let's bring back the renaissance of the CD store!
I started to buy cd when i was a teenager and you talk to my heart when you talk about "commitment"... I didn't have so much money, so when buying a cd i really committed to it and listened to continuously. Something I blame about digital music in general is the aboundance: this doesn't really let you to fully elaborate and concentrate on a specific album
2017 was the last year that I regularly purchased CDs (I believe it was "DAMN." by Kendrick Lamar), and then I began streaming my music more regularly and I've basically stayed there. However! As a younger millennial I grew up on the CD and still have a healthy collection of CDs and I again yearn for the physical interaction of opening the case, placing the disk into a player, opening up the booklet (which were sometimes printed on plush paper, if that's a thing) and reading the lyrics, liner notes, thank you's, and looking at photographs. With LPs often being two and sometimes three times the cost of a comparable CD, I've very much considered launching back into CDs for most of the reasons you've listed. Big thanks for this video, from Austin TX.
I collect and listen to both CDs and vinyl records! I presently have around 1600 CDs and around 1100 vinyl records. I also collect movies on DVD and Blu-ray. I have around 1300 movies and out to those 121 are Rock concerts and documentaries. I also started collecting reel to reel tape.
One great thing about CDs not mentioned was the ability to rip them and have a digital copy that you can have on your phone, iPod, music server etc. Really appreciate your content, another great video .
I still buy CDs. I am getting more used to streaming music and am building up an MP3 collection too, but the liner notes that come with classical albums, in particular are often a wonderful way of getting to know a piece. Like going to a proper concert with a programme. Also, listening to a CD is an "event". Plus classical CDs in charity shops are often very, very cheap, at present. even top recordings on premium labels, sometimes just a few pence. Occasionally you can walk out with a collection of recordings that would have cost you more than a hundred pounds in the 80s and 90s and still get change from a tenner. This moment cannot last, surely, so enjoy while it lasts, I say.
Love this video and all these reasons and I will add this - if you buy stuff from other countries the shipping costs on a CD are significantly less. There are also many smaller bands and labels who can't afford to release on vinyl but a CD release is possible as I'm sure half of my Bandcamp purchases are CD only. Many new and smaller indie bands are also not on streaming so a CD is the way to go. I also run a small hobby label with at least half of our releases only available on CD. Thanks again!
I agree with you completely. I was all in when CD came out. I will always remember the moment I listened to my first CD on the first commercially available CD player The Sony 101. It was magical! No background noise! I was, and still am, in love. I too have tried every format known to man. I really have never liked the vinyl format. That being said, I have been into physical SACD and DVD-A Hi-Res surround 5.1 discs as of late. I know another format from CD, but a close relative. Long live the physical disc!!
I love my CD collection. I usually buy them 2nd hand and transfer music from my PC onto my phone to use in the car. That saves a lot of cash paying for streaming services and it's also nice to read the covers for the lyrics etc. Buying 2nd hand is also fairly environmentally friendly too. Nice video
I have some reasons that are nuances of these: You mentioned that they don’t get damaged in shipping. More importantly to me, heavily used to come up for the story CDs garage sales in thrift stores are almost always still in perfect playing condition. At most they need to be cleaned with soap and water. Another reason that I like a physical copy is that it’s something that my kids or other people can discover later. Our kids will probably not know a lot of the music we listened to during this streaming era because our virtual history of it will be gone or not accessible by them. I can see my parents and grandparents LPs, CDs (and 78s) and see what they had. Unlike an LP, I can listen to a CD in a car. Even if your modern car doesn’t have a CD player, you can pick one up or use Bluetooth to connect one. You can also play one on a boom box for a portable disc player. For the preppers: when there is a big earthquake or other disaster, Internet may go down for a long period of time. Cassettes and CDs will still play well.
I still buy vinyl but only old thrift store finds. New vinyl doesn't really do it for me. Takes care of the pollution thing too... No new vinyl made and old vinyl is saved from the bin. I never got rid of my CDs but I don't play them a lot honestly. I need to buy more though while they still are cheap; in 10 year's time they'll be nostalgia for the people who grew up with them. Streaming is just too convenient though, even if it's not gapless (I saw a review that many current CD players aren't gapless either) and also skips or pauses when the connection isn't good or my phone is busy doing other things. For a full album experience I use vinyl or tape. However I fully understand where you're coming from and applaud you for keeping the CD relevant.
The only way you can guarantee access in perpetuity to content is to own a physical copy. You also have something which as a collector you can take out and look at. You can enjoy liner notes, artwork etc.
16. CDs can be copied digitally to FLAC and archived - saving storage space and allowing all albums to be available on home and mobile devices while still owning the physical disk - all ours are on our home NAS and we have the physical objects in storage
I did the same thing... All my CDs are "safe" with at least 2 copies... But I use WAV instead... It is the first thing I do when I buy them... Even before listening to them...
I still love buying CD’s and always will! It’s more than just the music… it’s the lyrics, the artwork the entire concept of an album as a complete package. It’s all about the art of it all. ✌️🖤🤘
Same thing happens here, I still buy CDs as well as games because personally I like collecting them and of course, I also listen to music via streaming services and when not possible I buy digital games but again, I will always love having the physical media. Like they say, "Nothing beats the original".
I've got few of these 400 cd changers linked together, and when playing all tracks randomly across all CDs, you always find something you havn't heard in YEARS. No streaming algorithm can match that. I like hunting for old CDs as well, it's pure fun to receive a package with a 25 year old disc in it :). One thing i don't like about new releases though... most of them are not as nicely "published", cheap booklet, etc. Try to find a release like say "No Code" by Pearl Jam nowdays :/
I still buy CDs new and old, despite getting back into records (Vinyl) a couple of years ago and I also stream. Records take a lot more care and effort in playing and looking after than CDs so understand why it's not for everyone, CDs are a lot more resilient and play back is far more straightforward. I now rarely play a physical CD, as I have ripped them all (I have around 300) but I can still play them if I so choose. I mainly use streaming for being on the move/in the car/at work but also use it to listen to new artists and also new material from artists I follow. One of the reasons I may buy a CD is there are enough tracks I like but not enough to buy (the more expensive) record(Vinyl) - skipping a track on a CD is easy, a record not so.
Not many artists have done this as far as I'm aware but I have CDs with hidden content that, when played, makes the time counter go in reverse. These portions cannot be skipped to and cannot be ripped. You literally have to listen to the whole track before it comes on. So CDs have the ability to deliver some really interesting hidden or exclusive content. And as an extension of that, you can get the mixed content CDs that have content only accessible from a PC.
One reason he didn’t mention is the shortening of songs due to streaming services cutting down songs with a fade out. I have noticed this with Purple Rain Soundtrack by Prince & the Revolution & various songs by The Smiths (on their original albums). I’ve found that remastered versions criminally kill long outros or guitar solos towards the end of songs.
I haven't had a CD player for years and just last week I bought a used device from TEAC. I haven't regretted it for a second. It's just a lot more fun to listen to music like that.
As long as they make them, I'll buy cds. That said, I remember polling students back in 1999 and asking them: "If cds were $9.99, would you use Napster and Limewire to steal music?" 95% of them said No. Had the labels not be so _GREEDY,_ CDs would have had far more popularity to this day.
Lovely revamped review.... I'm 54, still a massive lover of CD for all the points you raised. ALSO, if you have an older car, you can easily select a couple of banger cuts and drive in musical style with ease! X
The single biggest reason that's missing here is economic value. When you buy a CD you own it as opposed to just having a right to listen to it for a definite period of time. Streaming is great on the go or to discover new artists but realistically you generally end up listening over and over to the same songs or artists that you like most. If you pay £10pm for a streaming service that's as much £2500 after 20 years and the minute you terminate your subscription you lose every right to listen to any of your tracks while you could have bought 300 CDs or more in the meantime that you actually like and own. It's a bit like renting your home vs owning it. You may think you're better off spending less cash on a monthly basis but at the end of the day, if you've paid for your house then you have an asset while if you rent you have nothing.
I bought 4 cds yesterday at a local secondhand shop. 5 swedish kronas (50 cent) per disc and that’s quality music. One of them was Neil Young that I can’t stream any longer. Great video and I agree totally.
Sensational video! it simply portrayed my exact situation, I buy CDs, I don't use streaming, I still have a car with a CD player, etc. I thought I was the only one, but I see that someone else has the same happiness of having a physical collection of CDs and being able to be proud of listening to what they want and when they want without "getting into the bandwagon" of appealing to non-physical music. having a collection of CDs and listening only to streaming is the difference between going to McDonald's and going to a good restaurant. In both you will quench your hunger, but the difference...
Thank you so much. I adore cds. My 1,100 Jazz collection has just been boosted by 1,700 Jazz cds from a gentleman who passed away. As long as I'm on the planet, I'll be listening to my 2,800 Jazz cds.
I love vinyl and own a very decent turntable, I have about 500+LPs but recently the price of new and used records has become extortionate. I just bought myself a brand new CD player at a great price and have started to once again collect CDs, secondhand they are so cheap it’s unbelievable. Now is a golden time to buy them, they are not all sonically great but there are plenty that give vinyl a run for its money in terms of sound quality and the ease of use and convenience is a bonus. This format is not dead yet and hopefully never will be. It was a great invention that could if correctly mastered and played back using a quality CD player outperform vinyl in sound quality. Long live the CD for access to great music and sound quality for a very low cost.
My last car had a pretty good aftermarket sound system. I noticed a BIG difference in CDs vs bluetooth streaming. I started collecting them from antique stores. People thought I was crazy.
Same with me. I listened to one album in my car and I noticed a huge difference in sound quality and separation of instruments. CDs have higher quality for sure
For me, an important advantage of CD is that you actually have it. With streaming services a specific song can disappear at any time and that is why for anything I want to keep I buy the album, whether it is as a CD or as a download that I can keep on my hard drive. Although I rarely play my actual CDs, they are my source for the music I put on my Digital Audio Player. This brings forth another advantage of CD: You can re-rip to better formats when they become available. In a many cases, I've re-ripped a number of albums as better codecs become available. With some albums I've gone from 128 kbps CBR MP3 (because I didn't know any better at the time), to 192 kbps CBR MP3 (if it is good enough for DVD it is good enough for me), to the highest-quality VBR MP3, and finally to FLAC. Another advantage of CD is potential metadata. One feature of CD that hasn't been adequately used are graphics. People complain about the small album art compared to the LP. However, with graphics is is possible to display the album art on a TV screen. I've got a few CDs (such as "Behind The Mask" by Fleetwood Mac and "Eat or Be Eaten" by The Firesign Theatre) that have graphics (when I played them on my Philips CD-i player they displayed) and it showed the following on my TV: - The album art - A running slideshow for each song - Running lyrics in time with the song - The credits for each song The ability to do this is already a part of the Red Book CD Format, it is just a matter of using it.
I really appreciate how you made the music the priority more than the format, in spite of format being the main topic. Additionally I personally never heard any of the artists you mentioned and each time you shared one I was searching them on a streaming service. I really liked every one of them. Music is everything to me also. Please keep sharing artists with us as you help us navigate our way through our audio journeys. Best to you sir !
Fantastic content! As a music lover, I still collect CDs because they are dirt cheap. I have just bought 10 CDs online, Japan-pressed for about $4 and that already includes shipping! Some people's garbage is simply another man's treasure.
Great video! I’m a Canadian music historian, most of the music I deal with is vinyl only, cassette only, or for the later stuff CD only. Most Canadian stuff doesn’t receive reissues so when it’s gone, the price gougers swoop in or overseas bootleggers. My work is in digitizing the above mediums. CD’s are free to digitize if you have a computer with a disc drive (plus no surface noise means no post-editing), vinyl and cassette both require equipment, and a knowledge of editing software to remove imperfections. These latter methods are expensive to get into and take time to learn. The alternative is outsourcing, which typically costs around 10-15$ an album. In summation, CD’s are the preferential format for all things archival related (cost, convenience, space, etc.). You also get the best of both worlds; with a sizeable collection and a smartphone with decent space, you can become your own streaming platform; uploading CD’s to your computer then to your phone.
I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000-15,000 CDs. I get three or four more each week. I also have about 2,000 LPs and 750 45s, but I only purchase vinyl very occasionally these days. My entire house is lined with shelves for storing media. That said, I do all my listening from digital files on a hard drive. I rip all CDs in lossless quality - at least, I’m working on ripping everything - and play my music throughout the house that way. My CDs are my hard-copy backup, which accompanies digital backups. My #1 reason for doing this is being able to select which mastering I want to hear. If my preferred mastering is a 1983 ‘black triangle’ issue from Japan, I can play that. I don’t know of a streaming service that can offer that. I have many CDs that aren’t available on the streaming services at all. Local bands from the ‘80s and ‘90s, niche classical stuff, things like that. I jumped on the CD bandwagon fairly early on, in 1984. I HATED surface noise and I thought cassettes sounded like crap, so CDs were a huge deal for me. I slowed down on CD purchases a bit in the early 2000s because it was costing me so much, but then the Great CD Selloff happened and I could get almost anything for under $1.00. Even used stuff that was out of my reach 20 years ago - CDs that would sell for $100 or more on eBay in 2000 - can now be found for $20-30 these days in many cases. I’ve bought thousands of used CDs in just the past few years because they’re so cheap. My other thing right now is that many new releases are now only released in limited quantities. If you don’t get them upon release, you just can’t get them. I go through and pre-order a bunch of stuff every month. I’m also afraid that more artists will bypass CD releases altogether, so I buy CDs to hopefully show that there’s still a demand. It leads to me getting multiple padded mailing envelopes in the mailbox every week. My husband thinks I’m insane - "Do you REALLY need another CD?" - but he has an ever-expanding library of thousands of books, so he has no room to criticize… We just live in a repository of physical media, and I love it! I feel like a dinosaur when I’m around my (grown) kids, who live in houses that have no books, no vinyl, no CDs, no DVDs, but feeling like a dinosaur doesn’t bother me. Hell, I even have a shelf full of Edison cylinders! I’ve been fascinated by recorded sound since I was three in the 1960s, when I got a plastic suitcase-style turntable for Christmas. My parents said I was so fascinated by records that they wanted to get me my own record player. Look what that led to…
books use to be important but now the cloud is better... the cloud costs nothing and can be counted and copied and tested and verified. its value is not in its scarcity but in its capacity. it is like sin in a jar, once out, never put back in.
I still buy CDs, as i'm a hoarder - I don't even listen to my music via CD, instead ripping the audio to iTunes and then subscribing to iTunes Match to listen to my library on the go wherever I am. I've never been a fan of buying digital products, and wouldn't steal music, so CDs is always the way to go for me. Not to mention, I love the tangible aspect - having old albums from the 90s and compilations and seeing the artwork (front, back and booklet) and the CD art acts as a time portal for me and can take me back to simpler, happier times..
Thrift shops are great for CDs. With sonos and streaming, all great CDs are there available for €1 or €2. I bought about 500 last 6 years. Transport, Burr Brown Dac into tube amp. Soundwise it often exceeds steaming. I use tidal to discover what I want and then go crate digging. Happy camper.
Nice video, thanks. One reason I think you missed is that buying CDs also guarantees that you can keep your music digitally too (by ripping to a PC). Some vinyl comes with download codes but the majority still doesn't. It's a major advantage for me so I can take music with me without relying purely on streaming services.
Folks who don't buy CD's, such as the young, are missing soooo much. I once knew a girl who went and saw Roger Water's The Wall. She knew the songs via streaming, but had NO CLUE they all were from the same album and told a story!
I can't get on with streaming. I've been burnt a few times already when the versions of what I like, disappear from the streaming service. I've tried to like it, but prefer a physical copy. I literally don't want someone else in control of what I can listen to. I'll choose that thank you!
I loved the video. I love music and consider myself to be an audiophile. I agree with everything you said. It's nice to just grab CDs from the shelf and just play them, which takes seconds rather than search for tracks to play on a playlist or via folders and then scroll through huge song lists to find specific tracks, which can take several minutes. It's nice to have a physical thing in your hand and to see your music collection on shelves and the fact that you have the album art and information, not just about the song but the artist and even the CD itself. People say too, that CDs are bad for the environment because of waste but there is more waste from the disposal of the gadgets which are used for streaming and storaging music files, rather than hi-fi equipment. Hi-fi equipment lasts for far more years than computers, tablets, MP3 players or phones etc., which people tend to get rid of after just a few years because they want an upgrade due to them becoming too slow or going out-of-date. Hi-fi equipment can last for decades and also, doesn't require booting up. It comes on immediately as soon as the power button is pressed and is ready to use straightaway. It doesn't crash nor does it need to be updated or run sluggishly. Music can be edited so much easier and the machines themselves have so much more functionality and it's nice to press buttons, see lights and displays on the front and to hear the sound of the mechanisms doing their stuff. People can't believe that I still listen to CDs and have a hi-fi system but I say to them, "Why would I want to listen to music on something that has no proper sound quality?" MP3 players have their place. I have a Digital Music Player, which I use when I travel but when I'm at home I like to listen to music in its full glory, the way it should be.
All my friends laughed at me with my shelves of CDs that I have been buying since 1993. I was vindicated several times for my insistence on CDs. When the streaming services drop a song or artist or never carried the artist. My friends come over and we put the CD in and hang out and listen. As John said the CD is also a social thing. You put it in the player you hang out and listen to it like a concert. That's how I look at it I paid to see this show.
agreed i also started to buy only cds in 93 but when a copy of an old record appears and it´s better than mine i would buy it for the fact that old records in cd do not sound good or even average
Through the years I've done it all, from buying vinyl in late 80's, till CD's in 90s and downloading MP3-files in the 00's. Now 40 years later my kids are into streaming, and I'm happy they ask for it, cause they like music (in general). I'm not against streaming, cause it's a way to discover some new music around the world. And this wasn't possible in the past, otherwise you had to spend a lot of money on buying music in general. The plus side is that I will buy some CD/vinyl after hearing it by streaming, and the down side is that there's a gazzilions albums out there by stream, almost impossible to discover them. In the end I didn't change at all, I still buy some vinyl and CD's, but I'm more selective than 40 years ago.
My parents grew up listening to a ton of music in the 80s and 90s, and a week ago they realized I was starting my own cd collection. They gifted me a case full of well over 100 discs that I now have. Included are CD-Rs that my dad had with him during his war deployments. Heirlooms don’t get much more personal for me than stuff like that. Can’t get that from a Spotify playlist.
Very good points. As a teenager I used to listen CD's, then I moved to streaming and now I prefer vinyl while still holding on to a modest CD collection. Few reasons why I prefer vinyl: - The hunt - I love to browse through record shops and flee markets hunting for gems - The value - I kind of like the fact that vinyl is a bulky object. I only buy records that are worth the money and shelf space. Also, I appreciate each record way more. - The experience - for me listening to vinyl is the most engaging way of consuming music. Record spinning in the room, the large sleeve and cover art, the fact that you have to get up and filp it... - The second hand market - I buy mostly second hand vinyl from local stores and flee markets. Where I live it's easier to find second hand vinyl compared to CDs. I never order or ship records, but of course there are logistics involved with new albums even if I buy them from a store. However, for new records I'd go with CD for the hi-fi experience and smaller environmental impact like you described. The vinyl I usually seek is mostly 60's-80's music anyway. Thanks for the insightful video!
There's one other reason why CDs rule streaming. The smell. Yep, I said the smell. There's nothing like the aroma of a freshly unwrapped CD booklet; you open one of its many pages, exhale as much as you can, throw your face into the booklet and sniff. Inhale. Breathe in. Let the aroma pass down your airways as though the first morning of spring...no, seriously, they smell great. Especially when they're released on thick, glossy paper, like the Suede albums used to be. x
Reason 15 - Like you and probably everyone else that has been "forced" to listen to whole albums over the year's 2 things tend to happen. 1. Anywhere from 30% + of the rest of the album's song's are really good, you would have never gave them the time of day if not for CD. They grow on you "because you're forced" to listen to them. The main reason you bought an album was probably because of 1 or 2 songs, but after listening to it a number of times, you'll find a number of songs grow on you. 2. When your out and about and you hear a song that you have on an album you really love. When that song finishes your mind automatically thinks the next track will be whatever (is next on that album), only to be disappointed with another song from a different artist.
I think you forgot one good (in my opinion) reason as to why CDs are still relevant-they’re the perfect medium between digital and physical. I like them because like you said I get that physical feel, but I also like to rip my CDs to my mac and have them in my iTunes library. From there it gets synced to my phone and my iPod in the car, so even when I’m not at home with my CDs I can still enjoy the album, while supporting the artist more and also getting that physical aspect when I’m at home. However you covered many other great points and I really enjoyed this video !
I still to this day purchase cds. I made sure my Suv had a cd player, It's a 2020 vehicle, they are phasing cds out. I'm ok with continuing to buy the cd and vinyl format rather than streaming.
Stumbled across a big CD seller at the flea market last weekend. Bought 3 for $5. U2 The Unforgettable Fire, The Clash Combat Rock and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. All sound GREAT. Think I will go get 3 more this weekend. 😎
One of the reasons why I still buy CDs is because an artist can remove their music from Spotify, but they can't come into my house and remove my CDs.
lmfao good one 🤣 in fact it could be rare items too
Exactly why I like Blu-rays and DVD's too. Netflix removes things all the time, and for film trilogies they typically only have the last two films. It's so aggravating, physical media is just the way to go in my opinion.
Yes! I'm so glad that I got a Neil Young box set for example
Neil Young is on his way right now.
What if I look you up on whitepages and come to your house and steal all of your cd’s?
I still buy CD's. You can't beat having a physical copy of an album.
Of course you can. I have all my library on my external 1 terabyte and sd 1 terabyte for the car.
You can’t take your 1000 CDs in the car or on your media player when going for a run
Even at home i save so much space.
Then I don’t suffer from disc scratches but the best reason to not buy CDs of that I search the web for the best masters from each album. I listen to around 4 or 5 masters from each album to decide the best sounding. I have a mixture of high resolution, SACDs, vinyl rips and flacs from cds.
One of his reasons for cd is less likely to get damage in transit. That’s hilarious. You still have transit? You have to wait to get the cd? Haha.
Another big issue I have with cds. There’s on many álbum songs that I don’t like and prefer to delete. You can’t delete songs on cd.
@@vitorfernandes651 sure for convenience purposes and use cases where quality isn't necessary streaming music or using downloaded files is technically better, but I'm not sure how you're shipping and handling CDs so poorly that you manage to scratch them so much
@@JALC-x "use cases where quality isn't necessary" lol you do realise that digital files can be the same quality as CDs or even better?
Btw CDs also just store digital files.
I rip almost all of my CDs to my pc so I don't have to the deal with the hassle of always changing them also I can put them on my phone this way. phones theses days have enough space to store thousands of lossless music files.
I have it the same way. I have 10.000+ cds in my collection and a large percentage aren't available for streaming. Besides the cover art and the booklet with liner nores are a part of the enjoyment, especially when it comes to albums from the 70s and 80s. Bands like Pink Floyd spent minor fortunes on creating imaginative album covers that matched the concept of the albums.
@@vitorfernandes651 I still stream music, but it’s a great feeling to physically own something from an artist you love.
Heres the first and only reason. You actually OWN the music.
Two more reasons: when you go to a live show, the performers will have a table set up where they sell CDs and merch. If you buy a CD, you can support the artist directly and get their autograph on the CD. That's a lot of fun and you can't do that with streaming. Plus, CDs make great gifts that you can give your musically enlightened friends.
Damn true!
The industry is killing vinyl with their ridiculous asking prices. People who prefer a physical format and were into vinyl for the last few years are simply shifting back to CD. 💿
I said years ago, will cdr be the next cassette? Hip kids dig r/w cd-stations from fleamarkets etc?
I have a collection of vinyl records too. I stopped buying vinyl in 1989 and now I'm selling my collection for prices that I wouldn't pay myself for them, but there are many vinyl lovers that will pay those high prices.
You just have to look around. However, I completely agree with you.
CD is the superior format anyway
Yeah the pricing has become a massive hurdle. There is a supply and demand element that exists. We simply don’t have enough pressing plants around the world to meet demand. It’s an obvious opportunity for a business for those with enough money.
I'm switching back to CD's after a 3 year affair with vinyl. I just can't deal with these ridiculous vinyl prices. Great video....
Good point. I mix it up myself.
Thanks for the shout out John, great episode!
Steve, you And Darko are true aficionados of CDs. I'm still warm hearted by your review of the Luxman D-10x . ❤️ I bought its sister with the 509x integrated. Soon I'll splurge on the D-10x❤️❤️
Cds are still big in Japan. We still have several Tower Records and HMVs in Tokyo. Both are always busy and most of the customers are young.
I will always buy cds. I love having physical copies of my favorite artist's music.
I bought a Cambridge Audio CD player a few years ago because I wanted to start listening to my archived CD collection (I had ripped them about 15+yrs ago to a portable HD so I could listen to music at work thru winamp!) When I started purposely listening to my CDs and LPs again, I realized how much I had been missing from just sitting down and only listening to music. As you mention, it's about holding the physical element, reading the liner notes, the cover art, the portability, and the price point. Not to mention that the sound quality of CDs are still phenomenal.
There are CDs I have that aren't on streaming platforms and never will be. My love of collecting CDs and LPs came from my parents who ran a record store back in the early 80s. I'm passing that love of the physical element of music on to my kids, especially my oldest daughter who loves the physicality of CDs herself. They represent some kind of musical magic for her.
I couldn’t get my eldest to bite. Where did I go wrong? Kids just like the plug and play option.
That's a good point about things not being available for streaming
I have been collecting, buying records since 1978.
I started, and switched to collecting CD's in 1987.
I love owning physical copies.
This will never change.
I use streaming services reference new artists, bands to see if I like , then buy later when I can afford.
One of my favorite pass times is going to a store and looking at cd’s.
Hell yeah. Every payday, I’d go to buy music. I’d also hit music stores on campus and buy Japanese import singles that would have non-US released songs on them.
I love doing that, too. Being a big fan of Japanese pop music, I especially love rummaging around in second-hand CD shops in and around Tokyo. Each of the six times I've gone to Japan, I've brought about 100 CDs (a mix of albums and singles) home with me. And since I was buying the vast majority of them second-hand, I only paid between ¥30,000 and ¥45,000 for each of those loads. That's an average of less than USD $4 per CD - much cheaper than buying them new, and much, MUCH cheaper than buying them new and paying for shipping from Japan!
If I'm going off my own reasoning, I just find owning physical copies of music to be a lot more satisfying than just having a bunch of digital downloads on my devices. And I just find CDs to be a lot more convenient than more vintage formats like vinyls and cassettes because they're often a lot cheaper, I don't have to rewind them after every use, and I can skip to whatever track I want without ruining them
I agree.
📻🙂
they are a lot cheaper and easy to find. You can just get dozens of blank CDs and record whatever you want. Vinyls are too expensive and you need good equipment and cassettes are expensive too but also hard to find and break easily..
CDs are the best format if you want to own a physical copy of music.
One idea that I don't think anyone has mentioned is, when we are no longer alive, our cd's can be given to our friends and family, you can't really do that with streaming music. Even those cd's that none of our friends or family like can either be sold online or given to one of the many charity shops in the UK. Love the updated video you've made @Darkoaudio and have just subscribed.
I like physical formats mostly for the last reason. I like sitting down and listening to an album in full, rather than skipping around or doing playlists.
There is 1 main reason I love CDs: you can stay disconnected from internet / PCs, no FANs noise or shitty adverts in the browser or streaming services. Only you and music... brilliant experience.
So true.
You can play your offline audio files (FLAC, Opus, M4A...) without internet on your PC and even on your phone. If you don't want fan noises you can buy fanless PC's which their performance is highly enough for playing audio files. Nowadays CDs are completely useless.
@@ugur3527 Completely useless is quite harsh. Just say it's not for you.
This reminds of why I like DVDs. DVDs have extra content like commentary, bloopers, the making of, behind the scenes, interviews, and so on.
Here a CD-buyer as well. Hunting for cheap, second hand albums is great fun. And I really like a physical collection. Flipping through my albums and surprising myself. From pop to jazz and from soul to dance. A digital experience is completely different. One more reason: I listen much more thoughtfully. When the CD is on, I listen to it all the way through.
My man! CDs forever. Been collecting since I was like 10, have so many, still buy multiple a week. Superior format!
I buy CDs. I rip them to flac files, to play back. It is so great to have a tangible thing. And it is great to support artists at gigs, by buying albums from the merch stand
I absolutely still listen to CD's. I like owning the music, not renting it from a streaming service. I like picking out what I want to listen to, holding it and putting it in one of my players and even choosing which track's I want to hear. And as I noticed in the first comment that had 707 likes, now 708 after I liked it too these companies can remove certain artists at their discretion. And they can raise prices as they wish. I come from a long line of musicians and have been writing songs and recording them for over 50 years. I still record analog on multiple 4-track cassette's then mix and master them to CD. I received an offer to record in Nashville in May of 2000 and did so. This was right after Napster. My demo was shopped around the world and I got an offer to sign with a record company in Australia in 2002 from the 3 songs I recorded in Nashville. I didn't get to choose which songs for the demo and I have over 500. They wanted 7 more songs to complete a 10 song album with a $1,000,000 signing bonus. They kept pushing me to be a Country artist and I can and do write some Country stuff but I also write a lot of Rock music and some of my music doesn't really fit into a category. That's why I didn't get an offer from a record company in America. I had some offers from some smaller independent labels and even some major labels. I had a face to face meeting with the then hot producer of MCA records Mark Wright who produced Leanne Womack's #1 hit 'I Hope You Dance' and he told me I was good but not quite "Country" enough. He was producing Miranda Lambert at the time and I saw a preview of her video Kerosene before the rest of the public. My Dad had been in the music business and played with star's of his era like Porter Wagoner, Tex Ritter, Red Foley and Brenda Lee to name a few and he warned me of the traps and pitfalls of the music industry. So to everyone's amazement I saw so many red flags in the contract I was offered I turned it down. I felt like I was swimming in an Ocean of Sharks; not just the big money people but people I thought were my friends and fans. So in the end my best friend and I started a small TH-cam channel called FlattBlaggMusic. I only have 91 subscribers and I let my friend pick out a lot of the songs he wanted to make video's to. I'm still making new music and it's just me writing, playing all the instruments and recording them on CD'S. Then I send them to my friend in Dallas and he puts them on our tiny little channel. I never ask anyone to subscribe, hit the like button or comment. I just do it for fun and it's good therapy for me. But I have an extensive CD collection of other artists as well as my own. Now vinyl, CD's and even cassette's are making a comeback! And I love it!!! I am not telling anyone to not use streaming services. I like to listen to music on TH-cam myself sometimes. Glad you are one of the people keeping this art form alive!
Reason #11 really needs to be reason no. 1
I make sure to have a physical copy of anything I love. Albums, movies, books. The digital version can go away at any time. Chapters considered "problematic" cannot be excised from my book shelf. A copyright dispute won't cause a song to disappear from a CD. Nobody can ruin my CD collection with their awful remaster.
I guess it didn't occur to me that a streaming service could just leave up a shit remaster (Megadeth Rust in peace for example) instead of providing the original. On CD I can get the original at any time, but some might cost a bit extra.
Agreed
My absolute biggest reasons for buying movies and music on a physical format is that I have it here even if the streaming service takes it away, I don't want to pay for it anymore or internet is down for the moment. Furthermore, quality is much better.
Hello, I too am never giving up my CD or DVD/Blu-Ray collection. I don’t like and have no need for streaming services. You hit the nail on the head with every reason! I started listening to music at about 6 years old with 8-track tapes, then migrated to the cassette, and then the CD. That’s where I’m staying. I do have a lot of playlists on TH-cam and Applemusic/iTunes on my iPad, but I still have the CDs of that music also. Great video! Thanks for your analysis of why we shouldn’t give up our physical media music collections. I sincerely believe the same reasons should apply to DVDs and Blu-Rays. I even still have some VHS tapes left in my movie collection. Thanks again and I subbed while watching this!
I love CDs. Very good points. One big point you didn't mention was that CD's are recordable. Major advantage over vinyl. Another great point missed was how naturally easy it is to make an MP3 from a CD vs. Vinyl or Tape. CD begat streaming in the same way tapes begat tape trading and mix tapes. Finally, I think it would have been worth mentioning random access and programmability of a CD player over vinyl or tapes.
Cool subject! I still buying CDs. My entire collection is in CD format, because to listen the whole album I don't need to read A side and B side, it's all in one side. I can play them in random mode, repeat mode, select songs, it's very portable, I play in my PC, my hi-fi, and are cheaper than LPs. Are smaller than LPs. About the sound... they sound very good to me. Finally, I can do backup of any CD, with the same quality sound. That´s my opinion. Long life to the CD format. :) I hate the clicks and pops of vinyl. One more subscriber.
On streaming services you find music keeps changing or removed. Its great to have a copy that dosen‘t change
Another reason is that streaming services often times offer the worst version of a song or album, like Megadeth: All you get today are the horrendous Remixes and not the original versions. On top of that: You only get remasters and we all know that 95% of all remasters are brickwalled to death and sound atrocious (just look at Iron Maiden, all remasters suck)
I absolutely love the CD. I have close to 10,000 in my collection and continue to purchase them on a weekly basis. There is nothing like physical media!
Agree with most of the 15 reasons, now I shall add one more to the list which I find important enough that we CD buyers and supporters should not discount it.
16. Creation of digital catalogs that is easily transferable from your personal laptop/computer to your non-iphone mobile devices.
Because you own the actual physical CDs, you are free to choose any songs or albums to transfer to your personal devices which can allow you to listen to them on the go with a pair of good headphones + portable DAC.
Also, there are so many advances in technology in the past 10 years that you can literally copy the songs from a CD with higher bitrate than ever before (and the explosion of terabyte storages helps in this regard as the file sizes increases with higher bitrate copies).
I am a big supporter of CDs because mainly the physical ownership as well as the privacy which it provides the listener. Thank you for your video.
Having a car with no bluetooth, aux, and a broken antenna forced me into playing some of my old cd's. Now I'm hooked and my collection is slowly growing. It's nice not having to connect my phone to the car and just let the cd continue from where it left off. I too hate when some of my favorite songs get removed from spotify.
I love to buy CD's too, I feel like I have a little piece of the tremendous work and time the artist go through, it's so emotional to me. It's the first video of your channel I saw, but not the last, I'm in love with the way you feel music!
One point in addition: you can gift CD’s. You can’t do that with streaming. Music can be a gift to somebody who you like :)
cds
Bandcamp has streaming of purchases and you can gift a release to somebody else.
@@elwyn5150 But it certainly isn't as special. Getting an actual item is more special than receiving a digital code for it.
I pretty much agree with John on all counts. Regarding CDs not requiring an internet connection, I'd add that it's not just about those times when your internet goes out and you can't stream - it's also about the fact that with physical media, your "device" never goes "Ding!" because you got a notification, nor does it ring because you got a phone call. Like John, I use streaming, CDs and vinyl - they all have their advantages and situations - but there are definitely times when I want to shut out the world while I listen to my tunes.
Number 16 - Inheritance, with digital streaming who and how can you leave your curated collection, in your will? Where as with CD's and vinyl records you can leave your whole collection to one person or give individuals part or just one of your records to keep. I love CD's and vinyl for lots of reasons.
Reason #8 for me is the most important one. I'm a prog guy and the majority of my favorite albums have tracks seguing into one another. I cannot even imagine listening to "Abbey Road" or "The Wall" or "Scenes from a Memory" through a streaming service.
I miss the big music stores...Blockbuster, Virgin, etc...In the 90's there was a record store chain, Planet Music, which I loved going to, it had everything...the classical section alone was bigger than the vinyl/cd/dvd/blue ray section is at the local bookstore. I remember every Monday night I would drive to the store and get there around midnight, when the new releases came out...yes, back then, there were music stores that were open until 1am, so people could get them. Damn, I miss those stores, let's bring back the renaissance of the CD store!
I started to buy cd when i was a teenager and you talk to my heart when you talk about "commitment"... I didn't have so much money, so when buying a cd i really committed to it and listened to continuously. Something I blame about digital music in general is the aboundance: this doesn't really let you to fully elaborate and concentrate on a specific album
I love being immersed into an album with a CD and it's tactile packaging. Even just holding the case or booklet adds to the experience
2017 was the last year that I regularly purchased CDs (I believe it was "DAMN." by Kendrick Lamar), and then I began streaming my music more regularly and I've basically stayed there. However! As a younger millennial I grew up on the CD and still have a healthy collection of CDs and I again yearn for the physical interaction of opening the case, placing the disk into a player, opening up the booklet (which were sometimes printed on plush paper, if that's a thing) and reading the lyrics, liner notes, thank you's, and looking at photographs. With LPs often being two and sometimes three times the cost of a comparable CD, I've very much considered launching back into CDs for most of the reasons you've listed. Big thanks for this video, from Austin TX.
I collect and listen to both CDs and vinyl records! I presently have around 1600 CDs and around 1100 vinyl records. I also collect movies on DVD and Blu-ray. I have around 1300 movies and out to those 121 are Rock concerts and documentaries. I also started collecting reel to reel tape.
One great thing about CDs not mentioned was the ability to rip them and have a digital copy that you can have on your phone, iPod, music server etc. Really appreciate your content, another great video .
CDs sound SO much better.
That's all I need to know.
Excellent presentation, thank you.
Bill P.
I still buy CDs. I am getting more used to streaming music and am building up an MP3 collection too, but the liner notes that come with classical albums, in particular are often a wonderful way of getting to know a piece. Like going to a proper concert with a programme. Also, listening to a CD is an "event". Plus classical CDs in charity shops are often very, very cheap, at present. even top recordings on premium labels, sometimes just a few pence. Occasionally you can walk out with a collection of recordings that would have cost you more than a hundred pounds in the 80s and 90s and still get change from a tenner. This moment cannot last, surely, so enjoy while it lasts, I say.
I'm a huge Classical music fan. CD is the only way to listen to this beautiful music. Great video.
Love this video and all these reasons and I will add this - if you buy stuff from other countries the shipping costs on a CD are significantly less. There are also many smaller bands and labels who can't afford to release on vinyl but a CD release is possible as I'm sure half of my Bandcamp purchases are CD only. Many new and smaller indie bands are also not on streaming so a CD is the way to go. I also run a small hobby label with at least half of our releases only available on CD. Thanks again!
I agree with you completely. I was all in when CD came out. I will always remember the moment I listened to my first CD on the first commercially available CD player The Sony 101.
It was magical! No background noise!
I was, and still am, in love.
I too have tried every format known to man. I really have never liked the vinyl format. That being said, I have been into physical SACD and DVD-A Hi-Res surround 5.1 discs as of late. I know another format from CD, but a close relative. Long live the physical disc!!
I love my CD collection. I usually buy them 2nd hand and transfer music from my PC onto my phone to use in the car. That saves a lot of cash paying for streaming services and it's also nice to read the covers for the lyrics etc. Buying 2nd hand is also fairly environmentally friendly too. Nice video
I have some reasons that are nuances of these:
You mentioned that they don’t get damaged in shipping. More importantly to me, heavily used to come up for the story CDs garage sales in thrift stores are almost always still in perfect playing condition. At most they need to be cleaned with soap and water.
Another reason that I like a physical copy is that it’s something that my kids or other people can discover later. Our kids will probably not know a lot of the music we listened to during this streaming era because our virtual history of it will be gone or not accessible by them. I can see my parents and grandparents LPs, CDs (and 78s) and see what they had.
Unlike an LP, I can listen to a CD in a car. Even if your modern car doesn’t have a CD player, you can pick one up or use Bluetooth to connect one. You can also play one on a boom box for a portable disc player.
For the preppers: when there is a big earthquake or other disaster, Internet may go down for a long period of time. Cassettes and CDs will still play well.
I still buy vinyl but only old thrift store finds. New vinyl doesn't really do it for me. Takes care of the pollution thing too... No new vinyl made and old vinyl is saved from the bin.
I never got rid of my CDs but I don't play them a lot honestly. I need to buy more though while they still are cheap; in 10 year's time they'll be nostalgia for the people who grew up with them.
Streaming is just too convenient though, even if it's not gapless (I saw a review that many current CD players aren't gapless either) and also skips or pauses when the connection isn't good or my phone is busy doing other things.
For a full album experience I use vinyl or tape.
However I fully understand where you're coming from and applaud you for keeping the CD relevant.
The only way you can guarantee access in perpetuity to content is to own a physical copy. You also have something which as a collector you can take out and look at. You can enjoy liner notes, artwork etc.
16. CDs can be copied digitally to FLAC and archived - saving storage space and allowing all albums to be available on home and mobile devices while still owning the physical disk - all ours are on our home NAS and we have the physical objects in storage
I did the same thing... All my CDs are "safe" with at least 2 copies... But I use WAV instead... It is the first thing I do when I buy them... Even before listening to them...
I still love buying CD’s and always will! It’s more than just the music… it’s the lyrics, the artwork the entire concept of an album as a complete package. It’s all about the art of it all. ✌️🖤🤘
Same thing happens here, I still buy CDs as well as games because personally I like collecting them and of course, I also listen to music via streaming services and when not possible I buy digital games but again, I will always love having the physical media. Like they say, "Nothing beats the original".
I've got few of these 400 cd changers linked together, and when playing all tracks randomly across all CDs, you always find something you havn't heard in YEARS. No streaming algorithm can match that. I like hunting for old CDs as well, it's pure fun to receive a package with a 25 year old disc in it :). One thing i don't like about new releases though... most of them are not as nicely "published", cheap booklet, etc. Try to find a release like say "No Code" by Pearl Jam nowdays :/
I still buy CDs new and old, despite getting back into records (Vinyl) a couple of years ago and I also stream. Records take a lot more care and effort in playing and looking after than CDs so understand why it's not for everyone, CDs are a lot more resilient and play back is far more straightforward. I now rarely play a physical CD, as I have ripped them all (I have around 300) but I can still play them if I so choose. I mainly use streaming for being on the move/in the car/at work but also use it to listen to new artists and also new material from artists I follow. One of the reasons I may buy a CD is there are enough tracks I like but not enough to buy (the more expensive) record(Vinyl) - skipping a track on a CD is easy, a record not so.
Just started my very own cd collection last month! So excited 🎉👏
I am struggling to find certain albums for reggaeton artists. Some are going for 240 dollars for a new one that was released a decade or 2 ago.
Not many artists have done this as far as I'm aware but I have CDs with hidden content that, when played, makes the time counter go in reverse. These portions cannot be skipped to and cannot be ripped. You literally have to listen to the whole track before it comes on. So CDs have the ability to deliver some really interesting hidden or exclusive content. And as an extension of that, you can get the mixed content CDs that have content only accessible from a PC.
One reason he didn’t mention is the shortening of songs due to streaming services cutting down songs with a fade out. I have noticed this with Purple Rain Soundtrack by Prince & the Revolution & various songs by The Smiths (on their original albums). I’ve found that remastered versions criminally kill long outros or guitar solos towards the end of songs.
I haven't had a CD player for years and just last week I bought a used device from TEAC. I haven't regretted it for a second. It's just a lot more fun to listen to music like that.
As long as they make them, I'll buy cds. That said, I remember polling students back in 1999 and asking them:
"If cds were $9.99, would you use Napster and Limewire to steal music?" 95% of them said No.
Had the labels not be so _GREEDY,_ CDs would have had far more popularity to this day.
My Neil Young Unplugged CD literally arrived this week - bought it as not available on Spotify and I need to hear it!
Lovely revamped review.... I'm 54, still a massive lover of CD for all the points you raised. ALSO, if you have an older car, you can easily select a couple of banger cuts and drive in musical style with ease! X
The single biggest reason that's missing here is economic value. When you buy a CD you own it as opposed to just having a right to listen to it for a definite period of time. Streaming is great on the go or to discover new artists but realistically you generally end up listening over and over to the same songs or artists that you like most.
If you pay £10pm for a streaming service that's as much £2500 after 20 years and the minute you terminate your subscription you lose every right to listen to any of your tracks while you could have bought 300 CDs or more in the meantime that you actually like and own.
It's a bit like renting your home vs owning it. You may think you're better off spending less cash on a monthly basis but at the end of the day, if you've paid for your house then you have an asset while if you rent you have nothing.
I bought 4 cds yesterday at a local secondhand shop. 5 swedish kronas (50 cent) per disc and that’s quality music. One of them was Neil Young that I can’t stream any longer. Great video and I agree totally.
Sensational video! it simply portrayed my exact situation, I buy CDs, I don't use streaming, I still have a car with a CD player, etc. I thought I was the only one, but I see that someone else has the same happiness of having a physical collection of CDs and being able to be proud of listening to what they want and when they want without "getting into the bandwagon" of appealing to non-physical music. having a collection of CDs and listening only to streaming is the difference between going to McDonald's and going to a good restaurant. In both you will quench your hunger, but the difference...
Thank you so much. I adore cds. My 1,100 Jazz collection has just been boosted by 1,700 Jazz cds from a gentleman who passed away. As long as I'm on the planet, I'll be listening to my 2,800 Jazz cds.
I love vinyl and own a very decent turntable, I have about 500+LPs but recently the price of new and used records has become extortionate. I just bought myself a brand new CD player at a great price and have started to once again collect CDs, secondhand they are so cheap it’s unbelievable. Now is a golden time to buy them, they are not all sonically great but there are plenty that give vinyl a run for its money in terms of sound quality and the ease of use and convenience is a bonus. This format is not dead yet and hopefully never will be. It was a great invention that could if correctly mastered and played back using a quality CD player outperform vinyl in sound quality. Long live the CD for access to great music and sound quality for a very low cost.
My last car had a pretty good aftermarket sound system. I noticed a BIG difference in CDs vs bluetooth streaming. I started collecting them from antique stores. People thought I was crazy.
Same with me.
I listened to one album in my car and I noticed a huge difference in sound quality and separation of instruments.
CDs have higher quality for sure
I have over 2000 CDs and 1300 vinyl records and I love them both. Neither has ever gone out of style for me
For me, an important advantage of CD is that you actually have it. With streaming services a specific song can disappear at any time and that is why for anything I want to keep I buy the album, whether it is as a CD or as a download that I can keep on my hard drive.
Although I rarely play my actual CDs, they are my source for the music I put on my Digital Audio Player. This brings forth another advantage of CD: You can re-rip to better formats when they become available. In a many cases, I've re-ripped a number of albums as better codecs become available. With some albums I've gone from 128 kbps CBR MP3 (because I didn't know any better at the time), to 192 kbps CBR MP3 (if it is good enough for DVD it is good enough for me), to the highest-quality VBR MP3, and finally to FLAC.
Another advantage of CD is potential metadata. One feature of CD that hasn't been adequately used are graphics. People complain about the small album art compared to the LP. However, with graphics is is possible to display the album art on a TV screen. I've got a few CDs (such as "Behind The Mask" by Fleetwood Mac and "Eat or Be Eaten" by The Firesign Theatre) that have graphics (when I played them on my Philips CD-i player they displayed) and it showed the following on my TV:
- The album art
- A running slideshow for each song
- Running lyrics in time with the song
- The credits for each song
The ability to do this is already a part of the Red Book CD Format, it is just a matter of using it.
I really appreciate how you made the music the priority more than the format, in spite of format being the main topic. Additionally I personally never heard any of the artists you mentioned and each time you shared one I was searching them on a streaming service. I really liked every one of them. Music is everything to me also. Please keep sharing artists with us as you help us navigate our way through our audio journeys. Best to you sir !
For some of us, music is all we have. It "is" our identity.
I think your fifteen reasons will resonate with any cd collector. Nice one John!
Fantastic content! As a music lover, I still collect CDs because they are dirt cheap. I have just bought 10 CDs online, Japan-pressed for about $4 and that already includes shipping! Some people's garbage is simply another man's treasure.
I still buy CDs. Much as I enjoy records and digital versions it is disappointing when artists don’t release their albums on CD.
I adore this video. This is everything I feel about physical media. I wish I could help my friends understand this...
Great video!
I’m a Canadian music historian, most of the music I deal with is vinyl only, cassette only, or for the later stuff CD only. Most Canadian stuff doesn’t receive reissues so when it’s gone, the price gougers swoop in or overseas bootleggers.
My work is in digitizing the above mediums. CD’s are free to digitize if you have a computer with a disc drive (plus no surface noise means no post-editing), vinyl and cassette both require equipment, and a knowledge of editing software to remove imperfections. These latter methods are expensive to get into and take time to learn. The alternative is outsourcing, which typically costs around 10-15$ an album.
In summation, CD’s are the preferential format for all things archival related (cost, convenience, space, etc.). You also get the best of both worlds; with a sizeable collection and a smartphone with decent space, you can become your own streaming platform; uploading CD’s to your computer then to your phone.
I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000-15,000 CDs. I get three or four more each week. I also have about 2,000 LPs and 750 45s, but I only purchase vinyl very occasionally these days. My entire house is lined with shelves for storing media.
That said, I do all my listening from digital files on a hard drive. I rip all CDs in lossless quality - at least, I’m working on ripping everything - and play my music throughout the house that way. My CDs are my hard-copy backup, which accompanies digital backups.
My #1 reason for doing this is being able to select which mastering I want to hear. If my preferred mastering is a 1983 ‘black triangle’ issue from Japan, I can play that. I don’t know of a streaming service that can offer that. I have many CDs that aren’t available on the streaming services at all. Local bands from the ‘80s and ‘90s, niche classical stuff, things like that.
I jumped on the CD bandwagon fairly early on, in 1984. I HATED surface noise and I thought cassettes sounded like crap, so CDs were a huge deal for me. I slowed down on CD purchases a bit in the early 2000s because it was costing me so much, but then the Great CD Selloff happened and I could get almost anything for under $1.00. Even used stuff that was out of my reach 20 years ago - CDs that would sell for $100 or more on eBay in 2000 - can now be found for $20-30 these days in many cases. I’ve bought thousands of used CDs in just the past few years because they’re so cheap.
My other thing right now is that many new releases are now only released in limited quantities. If you don’t get them upon release, you just can’t get them. I go through and pre-order a bunch of stuff every month. I’m also afraid that more artists will bypass CD releases altogether, so I buy CDs to hopefully show that there’s still a demand. It leads to me getting multiple padded mailing envelopes in the mailbox every week.
My husband thinks I’m insane - "Do you REALLY need another CD?" - but he has an ever-expanding library of thousands of books, so he has no room to criticize… We just live in a repository of physical media, and I love it! I feel like a dinosaur when I’m around my (grown) kids, who live in houses that have no books, no vinyl, no CDs, no DVDs, but feeling like a dinosaur doesn’t bother me. Hell, I even have a shelf full of Edison cylinders! I’ve been fascinated by recorded sound since I was three in the 1960s, when I got a plastic suitcase-style turntable for Christmas. My parents said I was so fascinated by records that they wanted to get me my own record player. Look what that led to…
books use to be important but now the cloud is better... the cloud costs nothing and can be counted and copied and tested and verified. its value is not in its scarcity but in its capacity. it is like sin in a jar, once out, never put back in.
I still buy CDs, as i'm a hoarder - I don't even listen to my music via CD, instead ripping the audio to iTunes and then subscribing to iTunes Match to listen to my library on the go wherever I am.
I've never been a fan of buying digital products, and wouldn't steal music, so CDs is always the way to go for me.
Not to mention, I love the tangible aspect - having old albums from the 90s and compilations and seeing the artwork (front, back and booklet) and the CD art acts as a time portal for me and can take me back to simpler, happier times..
Thrift shops are great for CDs. With sonos and streaming, all great CDs are there available for €1 or €2. I bought about 500 last 6 years. Transport, Burr Brown Dac into tube amp. Soundwise it often exceeds steaming. I use tidal to discover what I want and then go crate digging. Happy camper.
Nice video, thanks. One reason I think you missed is that buying CDs also guarantees that you can keep your music digitally too (by ripping to a PC). Some vinyl comes with download codes but the majority still doesn't. It's a major advantage for me so I can take music with me without relying purely on streaming services.
Folks who don't buy CD's, such as the young, are missing soooo much. I once knew a girl who went and saw Roger Water's The Wall. She knew the songs via streaming, but had NO CLUE they all were from the same album and told a story!
Really glad to come across your channel. Fascinating to watch and listen to. Sound (forgive the pun!) arguments and views. Nice one!
Owning your content is king.
Correct! One price and it’s yours forever. Not like streaming on Spotify and “renting” your music.
I can't get on with streaming. I've been burnt a few times already when the versions of what I like, disappear from the streaming service. I've tried to like it, but prefer a physical copy. I literally don't want someone else in control of what I can listen to. I'll choose that thank you!
I loved the video. I love music and consider myself to be an audiophile. I agree with everything you said. It's nice to just grab CDs from the shelf and just play them, which takes seconds rather than search for tracks to play on a playlist or via folders and then scroll through huge song lists to find specific tracks, which can take several minutes. It's nice to have a physical thing in your hand and to see your music collection on shelves and the fact that you have the album art and information, not just about the song but the artist and even the CD itself.
People say too, that CDs are bad for the environment because of waste but there is more waste from the disposal of the gadgets which are used for streaming and storaging music files, rather than hi-fi equipment. Hi-fi equipment lasts for far more years than computers, tablets, MP3 players or phones etc., which people tend to get rid of after just a few years because they want an upgrade due to them becoming too slow or going out-of-date. Hi-fi equipment can last for decades and also, doesn't require booting up. It comes on immediately as soon as the power button is pressed and is ready to use straightaway. It doesn't crash nor does it need to be updated or run sluggishly. Music can be edited so much easier and the machines themselves have so much more functionality and it's nice to press buttons, see lights and displays on the front and to hear the sound of the mechanisms doing their stuff.
People can't believe that I still listen to CDs and have a hi-fi system but I say to them, "Why would I want to listen to music on something that has no proper sound quality?" MP3 players have their place. I have a Digital Music Player, which I use when I travel but when I'm at home I like to listen to music in its full glory, the way it should be.
All my friends laughed at me with my shelves of CDs that I have been buying since 1993. I was vindicated several times for my insistence on CDs. When the streaming services drop a song or artist or never carried the artist. My friends come over and we put the CD in and hang out and listen. As John said the CD is also a social thing. You put it in the player you hang out and listen to it like a concert. That's how I look at it I paid to see this show.
agreed i also started to buy only cds in 93 but when a copy of an old record appears and it´s better than mine i would buy it for the fact that old records in cd do not sound good or even average
Through the years I've done it all, from buying vinyl in late 80's, till CD's in 90s and downloading MP3-files in the 00's. Now 40 years later my kids are into streaming, and I'm happy they ask for it, cause they like music (in general). I'm not against streaming, cause it's a way to discover some new music around the world. And this wasn't possible in the past, otherwise you had to spend a lot of money on buying music in general. The plus side is that I will buy some CD/vinyl after hearing it by streaming, and the down side is that there's a gazzilions albums out there by stream, almost impossible to discover them. In the end I didn't change at all, I still buy some vinyl and CD's, but I'm more selective than 40 years ago.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video. The gentleman is spot on in his assessment of the cd format. I love CDs!!
My parents grew up listening to a ton of music in the 80s and 90s, and a week ago they realized I was starting my own cd collection. They gifted me a case full of well over 100 discs that I now have. Included are CD-Rs that my dad had with him during his war deployments. Heirlooms don’t get much more personal for me than stuff like that. Can’t get that from a Spotify playlist.
Not only do I still listen to CDs, I still sell my own new music on CDs! I will never give up CDs until we can no longer get them. 💿💯
CD´s forever 🙂
@@christopheri79 hell yeah!
Just subscribed to your channel
Very good points. As a teenager I used to listen CD's, then I moved to streaming and now I prefer vinyl while still holding on to a modest CD collection. Few reasons why I prefer vinyl:
- The hunt - I love to browse through record shops and flee markets hunting for gems
- The value - I kind of like the fact that vinyl is a bulky object. I only buy records that are worth the money and shelf space. Also, I appreciate each record way more.
- The experience - for me listening to vinyl is the most engaging way of consuming music. Record spinning in the room, the large sleeve and cover art, the fact that you have to get up and filp it...
- The second hand market - I buy mostly second hand vinyl from local stores and flee markets. Where I live it's easier to find second hand vinyl compared to CDs. I never order or ship records, but of course there are logistics involved with new albums even if I buy them from a store.
However, for new records I'd go with CD for the hi-fi experience and smaller environmental impact like you described. The vinyl I usually seek is mostly 60's-80's music anyway. Thanks for the insightful video!
There's one other reason why CDs rule streaming. The smell. Yep, I said the smell. There's nothing like the aroma of a freshly unwrapped CD booklet; you open one of its many pages, exhale as much as you can, throw your face into the booklet and sniff. Inhale. Breathe in. Let the aroma pass down your airways as though the first morning of spring...no, seriously, they smell great. Especially when they're released on thick, glossy paper, like the Suede albums used to be. x
Reason 15 -
Like you and probably everyone else that has been "forced" to listen to whole albums over the year's 2 things tend to happen.
1. Anywhere from 30% + of the rest of the album's song's are really good, you would have never gave them the time of day if not for CD. They grow on you "because you're forced" to listen to them. The main reason you bought an album was probably because of 1 or 2 songs, but after listening to it a number of times, you'll find a number of songs grow on you.
2. When your out and about and you hear a song that you have on an album you really love. When that song finishes your mind automatically thinks the next track will be whatever (is next on that album), only to be disappointed with another song from a different artist.
I think you forgot one good (in my opinion) reason as to why CDs are still relevant-they’re the perfect medium between digital and physical. I like them because like you said I get that physical feel, but I also like to rip my CDs to my mac and have them in my iTunes library. From there it gets synced to my phone and my iPod in the car, so even when I’m not at home with my CDs I can still enjoy the album, while supporting the artist more and also getting that physical aspect when I’m at home. However you covered many other great points and I really enjoyed this video !
No advertisements on CD's! That's my reason
I still to this day purchase cds. I made sure my Suv had a cd player, It's a 2020 vehicle, they are phasing cds out. I'm ok with continuing to buy the cd and vinyl format rather than streaming.
Stumbled across a big CD seller at the flea market last weekend. Bought 3 for $5. U2 The Unforgettable Fire, The Clash Combat Rock and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. All sound GREAT. Think I will go get 3 more this weekend. 😎
Still proudly display my 500+ CD’s. 30 years of buying discs. The search was part of the experience before internet.