Why are CDs the current hot topic?

[M70AB2]

Precious little actual “psychology” here. Just silly journaling about spending all his money on buying every Smiths CD ever, etc.

Looks like we’re gonna need Cheap Audio Man to weigh in here. Take it away, Randy!

Obsessive Record and CD Collecting

A personal insight into the psychology of a record-collecting completist.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[tourmax]

Precious little actual “psychology” here. Just silly journaling about spending all his money on buying every Smiths CD ever, etc.

Looks like we’re gonna need Cheap Audio Man to weigh in here. Take it away, Randy!

Obsessive Record and CD Collecting

A personal insight into the psychology of a record-collecting completist.

www.psychologytoday.com

"However, I am not addicted"

Sure you're not. Addicts never are.

He's using "complete-ist" as a substitute for "compulsive" IMHO.

Denial. It's an insidious thing.......

 

[intro6]

Someone should mansplain to him how to properly hold a record.

Why do people do that?!!!

Dang. I have seen that. You would think he would know better.

I know ordinary folk have been holding them any old way for years (and am pretty sure still do!), but yes, he does qualify as an audiophile in my book, so you would think that he's heard of the "hold by the edges" idea by now, but maybe he's just trying to look cool to the non-audiophile masses.

 

[RunOutGroove]

I know ordinary folk have been holding them any old way for years (and am pretty sure still do!), but yes, he does qualify as an audiophile in my book, so you would think that he's heard of the "hold by the edges" idea by now, but maybe he's just trying to look cool to the non-audiophile masses.

It reminds me of a friend of mine that was showing off some what I'd guess were pretty expensive new indie type albums (not common titles that can be had for cheaper) and holding them by touching the grooves with his fingers. He's been known to go on rants about how superior analog is to digital, yet he holds his records like that and plays them on some kind of super-crummy little suitcase player. Part of me wanted to go on my own rant, but I managed to stay calm and not say a thing...

 

[onepixel]

I love music and having fun! Some buys in the past 6 months or so. 10 CDs for $1.
Some still sealed, some without cases. Some rare from UK, Germany, France, Japan and Portugal. All hand picked and only couple of duds.
There are still 1000s, at the two shops. Always more stuff coming in. It's been a month... I should go.

Funny, I bought a new 2025 double LP vinyl album. The MP3 download costs $1 more than the CD, shipped.

 

[M70AB2]

Interesting “CD Junkies” articles linked below.

I especially liked the interviews with Mike Perez (Audio Arkitekts on YouTube) and Aaron Hartley (Forever Analog on YouTube).

Just 400 CDs Mike? C’mon, those are rookie numbers!

CD Junkies - 360°Sound

360degreesound.com

 

[RunOutGroove]

I love music and having fun! Some buys in the past 6 months or so. 10 CDs for $1.
Some still sealed, some without cases. Some rare from UK, Germany, France, Japan and Portugal. All hand picked and only couple of duds.
There are still 1000s, at the two shops. Always more stuff coming in. It's been a month... I should go.

Funny, I bought a new 2025 double LP vinyl album. The MP3 download costs $1 more than the CD shipped.

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Wow... impressive take for the low money! A number of those are in my wheelhouse, like the old jazz stuff, The Cramps (you might have nearly their whole collection in that one run!), the old funk/R&B stuff and some of the classic rock.

Recently, I've bought some CDs on the cheap, though not as cheap as you've found them or as many... and have been given some CDs by friends who are thinning their collections. Unfortunately, I'm running out of room for the stuff and starting to have so many that, particularly since I'm someone who doesn't tend to have music on constantly, I'm starting to feel that I may have more than I'll ever get around to listening to. Not the worst problem to have, of course, but it's made me start to cull my collection a bit to pull out things that I don't think I'd be listening to and to think about being far more selective about what I pick up in the future. When I shop for these things, I need to be thinking "I'll surely listen to this," rather than just "this may actually be interesting." It's probably actually a good thing that I don't know of a source for as cheap CDs as what you have, because if I did, the temptation would likely be too great for me and I'd end up feeling like even more of a hoarder than I already do!

 

[onepixel]

Wow... impressive take for the low money! A number of those are in my wheelhouse, like the old jazz stuff, The Cramps (you might have nearly their whole collection in that one run!), the old funk/R&B stuff and some of the classic rock.

Recently, I've bought some CDs on the cheap, though not as cheap as you've found them or as many... and have been given some CDs by friends who are thinning their collections. Unfortunately, I'm running out of room for the stuff and starting to have so many that, particularly since I'm someone who doesn't tend to have music on constantly, I'm starting to feel that I may have more than I'll ever get around to listening to. Not the worst problem to have, of course, but it's made me start to cull my collection a bit to pull out things that I don't think I'd be listening to and to think about being far more selective about what I pick up in the future. When I shop for these things, I need to be thinking "I'll surely listen to this," rather than just "this may actually be interesting." It's probably actually a good thing that I don't know of a source for as cheap CDs as what you have, because if I did, the temptation would likely be too great for me and I'd end up feeling like even more of a hoarder than I already do!

And that's not all the CDs I got for cheap. It's crazy. My music library has gotten expansive and I enjoy all the music.

I understand how you're feeling. I'm running out of room too. Eventually I need to figure what to do with the bulk of them. But for now, it's been a fun adventure!

 

[M70AB2]

 

[M70AB2]

Well, this is different. I don’t like Digipaks either, but he gets a little too fussy here.

 

[bluesky]

Get prepared to 'get paid a pittance' for them. My experience is that you get less than 25% of Discogs/eBay pricing, but it beats messing with a garage sale or even FB Marketplace no shows....

If that's the case, and it probably will be, & I FEEL like I'm being ripped off, I'll just leave and donate them to the GW and make some folks really happy 'crate digging'!!

That would actually make me much more happy than just selling them dirt cheap to someone who is ripping me off and who would 'flip' them, M- actual vinyl, for their Max Profit.

I'll give it a shot, 75 albums I don't care about at all and see where it goes. Definitely holding on to the 'medium & heavy hitters'. Get some experience in the game.

Better safe than sorry.

 

[M70AB2]

I knew Randy wouldn’t let us down. Randy thoughtfully explains the psychology of CD collecting as only he can, here. And, as you can clearly see, he’s holding a CD by its edges.

 

[Andyman]

If that's the case, and it probably will be, & I FEEL like I'm being ripped off, I'll just leave and donate them to the GW and make some folks really happy 'crate digging'!!

That would actually make me much more happy than just selling them dirt cheap to someone who is ripping me off and who would 'flip' them, M- actual vinyl, for their Max Profit.

I'll give it a shot, 75 albums I don't care about at all and see where it goes. Definitely holding on to the 'medium & heavy hitters'. Get some experience in the game.

Better safe than sorry.

A few weeks back I had 3 boxes of LPs and two of CDs at a swap meet I was selling for $2/$1 and only sold a few. It wasn't my best stuff, but it all was reasonable and not the usual SA schmaltzy schlock.. Near the end I said screw it and told my buddies I was giving them away and to have at it. After the guys I knew took what they wanted, one dude took all that was left and my burden was about 125# lighter and I didn't have to lug them out to the car for a trip to the Salvation Army.

 

[bluesky]

A few weeks back I had 3 boxes of LPs and two of CDs at a swap meet I was selling for $2/$1 and only sold a few. It wasn't my best stuff, but it all was reasonable and not the usual SA schmaltzy schlock.. Near the end I said screw it and told my buddies I was giving them away and to have at it. After the guys I knew took what they wanted, one dude took all that was left and my burden was about 125# lighter and I didn't have to lug them out to the car for a trip to the Salvation Army.

I did somewhat the same thing a few years ago. Just had a bunch of 'good stuff', not music, that I took to a local flea market. I was there at 7am and by 10:30 I had enough. Just looked at the guy next to me with a table and said "you want this stuff?" He said yes.
Done deal ~ and he could have my table and space too.

 

[cwall99]

My general rule of thumb is that physical media (including vinyl, CD, high resolution digital disks like SACD, DVD-A, and Blu Ray Audio) is for serious listening, and streaming is for background noise or while I'm driving outside WDET's listening range.

Just the way I do it.

 

[cwall99]

I don't know the answer to your question OP. But like others, I've never stopped buying CDs. Will stream a new album and if it is a good one, I'll buy the CD so the artist gets some income (am assuming artists get more income from CDs than streaming, if not that is a damn shame). Plus when I rip a CD to my NAS and play it back via Roon, can see the dynamic range of the CD. That doesn't happen in Roon for streamed albums.

Pretty sure that, as bad as it was before, streaming sucks if you're the creative force.

Here are David Byrne's thoughts on the matter: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world

 

[M70AB2]

Seems like a lot of unnecessary work as jewel cases aren’t that expensive and certainly not hard to find. I buy them all the time at Office Depot.

But I do want to buy that Novus 2. Bought a used Buddy Guy CD that looks like it was dragged across an aggregate driveway.

NOTE: Last half of video is dead air.

 

[HPuser9557]

I never gave up on CDs, and that's probably why I don't get the current flood of CD and CD player content on YouTube as well as many of the music and hi-fi gear related sites. I have CD players and changers in my trucks, and I have a carousel style CD changer plus remote DAC for my vintage home system. I have purchased way more CDs than LPs over the past 10 years, and I don't see that ever changing.

Why are CDs the current hot topic?

Well, they're DRM-free for all modern intents for one, so you can rip them to FLAC and then transcode that FLAC rip to the lossy codec of your choice, eg. to 510kbit/s Opus or -q10 Vorbis, if you have a device that's space-limited and can't fit the full FLAC rips, and they're a physical format that won't get yanked from you if it gets delisted for two.

*Technically if you count SCMS, CDs aren't DRM-free, but SCMS is the definition of 'DRM that's just there to appease the record labels,' and it only ever applied if you ripped a CD to DAT, DCC, or MD over S/PDIF on consumer gear, which is something that hasn't been relevant for decades; SCMS either never applied or could be turned off on pro gear and modern computer optical drives and CD ripping software straight-up ignore SCMS.

 

[M70AB2]

Wow, this is crazy obsessive.

Fussing over Compact Disc logos on the tray, etc.?