Am I the only one who still plays CDs?

[English Invader]

I have an extensive CD collection going back 20 years and, although I recently started exploring vinyl, most of my nostalgic connections are with CD. I don't buy for a minute that CD isn't collectable; some CDs come in very desirable box sets and it's also a much more durable format than vinyl. I find it hard to believe that there aren't more people who want a physical collection but don't want all the OCD crap that vinyl entails. The vinyl-streaming dynamic is a gross over-simplification; just because you don't want an expensive record that will degrade every time you listen to it, it doesn't mean that you're content to just listen to the music over the internet for as long as the people who own the content allow you to listen to it.

This is a good video from a CD enthusiast who believes the format will be as dead as VHS in five years time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vitQ-k1Q470

[lsemmens]

You are quite correct TL7 another advantage of optical disks is if they get scratched (provided it's no too bad) the scratch can be polished out which may make the disk useable again.

[Faust]

You are quite correct TL7 another advantage of optical disks is if they get scratched (provided it's no too bad) the scratch can be polished out which may make the disk useable again.

There are all kinds of wizard tips and tricks to recover damaged disks .
I've had damaged ones from charity shops , and chrome polish (or even toothpaste ! ) can sometimes work .

There are also software tools such as " Unstoppable Copier " ( Windows only AFAIK ) .
Most copiers give up after x number of read attempts , but that one does not .
It will grind away indefinitely , gradually trying to fill the buffer in miniscule chunks .

Not something I would leave running on a weekend away

[Mattyboy]

You can't skin up on an MP3..... why the vinyl gate fold sleeve was invented

[BigEasy]

Actually can. It is possible since mp3 ID3v2 tag standard.

[lexon]

I still buy and play them from local musicians in my area. I attend many open mike events in my area. Many of my friends love music and playing almost any day of the week.
They will never make the big time but they love music and what they do.
I have a couple percussion instruments and sometimes jump in with them. It is all part of enjoying life.
There are still studios in my area making CD's. The local musicians still sell their Cd's and some times hand them out.
I have at least a dozen in my car.

L

[otacon14112]

When CDs first came out, they sounded grainy to me, like somebody had broke the music up into small chunks and just gave you the chunks. Which is, in fact, exactly the situation. I used to own an electronics repair shop, and somebody brought in a R2R deck for repair. They didn't bring any tapes in with it, so I had to go through the boxes and dig out some of my R2R tapes to test it. (Vinyl recorded to R2R on first playing.) At that point, I was listening mostly to CDs, and when I played one of those tapes, I was struck by how smooth it sounded. Not the grainy, cut up into chunks sound of CDs. And my employees were also surprised how good it sounded. These days, everything has been digitized, and for the most part, we've all gotten used to that digital sound. I am even able to tolerate MP3s now, just because I hear them so much. A few decades ago, a tavern I used to hang out in got music piped in from satellite in some early digital format. I found that I got irritable after listening to it for a while. It took some time to figure out what it was that was bothering me, but I finally concluded it was the digitized music. It just didn't sound right, and it annoyed me. A half hour or so was all I could stand.

Some years ago (late 80s, early 90s, maybe), my brother and I were playing music at a party, and a friend brought his DAT (Digital Audio Tape) deck and a pair of microphones to record us. He also brought a pair of headphones, and several people listened through the headphones while we were being recorded. One woman commented that it sounded even better through the headphones than it sounded direct. Well, no, it didn't. It sounded like it had been picked up by a couple of microphones and ran through a few stages of audio amplification. Which is, of course, what most people are hearing when they listen to music: music that has been electronically processed/recorded/reproduced/whatever. It sounded "better" to her because electronically processed music was what she was used to hearing. But to me, it didn't sound right because I was used to the sound of my acoustic guitar straight to my ears with no electronics in between, and also listening to others playing unamplified.

I enjoyed reading that. Thank you Awesome stories

I have an extensive CD collection going back 20 years and, although I recently started exploring vinyl, most of my nostalgic connections are with CD. I don't buy for a minute that CD isn't collectable; some CDs come in very desirable box sets and it's also a much more durable format than vinyl. I find it hard to believe that there aren't more people who want a physical collection but don't want all the OCD crap that vinyl entails. The vinyl-streaming dynamic is a gross over-simplification; just because you don't want an expensive record that will degrade every time you listen to it, it doesn't mean that you're content to just listen to the music over the internet for as long as the people who own the content allow you to listen to it.

I share your nostalgia for CDs. I miss the '90s alternative rock/grunge days. The overwhelming majority of my favorite bands are from that decade.

[BG405]

I do still occasionally play CDs (mostly my Kevin Bloody Wilson collection when driving, sure helps lighten the mood with all the muppets on the roads these days) but voted for the third option as I do play my vinyl records sometimes and also buy records when I can afford it (rare). I love the sound of vinyl through my early 1990s Technics system - that woud have generated negative comments in hi-fi circles back then! Sounds even better with the speaker grilles I formed & fitted to replace the cloth covers (cat-proofing), I hadn't expected that. Some of my records are longer in the tooth than I am but still sound good.

I did find CDs a bit "clinical" at first (& early CD players) but either they have improved, or my ears haven't.

MP3s are a musical abomination IMHO and it's even worse that people will pay almost as much for them as a CD, getting NO media and only about 10% of the actual musical data. I find the compression (better described as data reduction) quite objectionable in many cases, these 100%-profit MP3 downloads are often at 192K or lower, sometimes even 128K which really IS horrible. When using this format (to save storage space on portable devices, where playback quality isn't so critical) I use the highest bitrate. You'd think the online retailers would do this as well.

for the most part, we've all gotten used to that digital sound

Unfortunate but true. Even worse, many people think a tinny lifeless racket from a tiny phone speaker is a great way to listen to music.

You can't skin up on an MP3..... why the vinyl gate fold sleeve was invented

You can on an MP3 CD (or, preferably, its case)!

There are also software tools such as " Unstoppable Copier " ( Windows only AFAIK ) .
Most copiers give up after x number of read attempts , but that one does not .
It will grind away indefinitely , gradually trying to fill the buffer in miniscule chunks .

K3b has a rather decent Paranoid Mode. I'll have to see what the retry limits are, if any. I've had success with toothpaste though, to improve readability of badly scratched disks. Applied carefully, there is less collateral damage (fine scoring in previously undamaged areas) than with those automated things.

[xenopeek]

MP3s are a musical abomination IMHO and it's even worse that people will pay almost as much for them as a CD, getting NO media and only about 10% of the actual musical data. I find the compression (better described as data reduction) quite objectionable in many cases, these 100%-profit MP3 downloads are often at 192K or lower, sometimes even 128K which really IS horrible. When using this format (to save storage space on portable devices, where playback quality isn't so critical) I use the highest bitrate. You'd think the online retailers would do this as well.

What retailers are those? Where I buy digital music I get FLAC downloads by default. Select a better retailer?

[English Invader]

I do still occasionally play CDs (mostly my Kevin Bloody Wilson collection when driving, sure helps lighten the mood with all the muppets on the roads these days).

He's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me as well. My dad had a tape that he used to play in the car sometimes (much to my mum's chagrin) and as kids we all thought it was fantastic. And there was another time, when I was on the school bus, where another kid had brought a KBW tape along and when the Santa Claus song started playing the female bus driver refused to listen to it anymore and turned it off.

I have a greatest hits comp of his (Festival of Life is probably my favourite) but I haven't listened to it in ages. I had the opportunity to see him live a few years ago but my GF would have wanted to come and I wouldn't have felt comfortable taking her to that sort of environment.

[BG405]

when the Santa Claus song started playing the female bus driver refused to listen to it anymore and turned it off

I was told off for playing it via my laptop over the pub music system .. with the comment "You can't play that here! It's got swearing in it!" My response: It's a pub, isn't it?

I have a greatest hits comp of his (Festival of Life is probably my favourite)

I have a dozen of his CDs & that is indeed high up on my favourites list. I might have to rethink my vote as it's time I dusted them off!

[rumpus]

I have been in music most of my 80 plus years. Played in a few bands when I was young with limited success,
and went the way of Mr. Tanner. Being the pack rat, I never seemed to be able to get rid of anything.
Now I have a room full of recorded music that dates back to old 78's. (no 8 tracks).up to cd.s/

Still have an old teac 4 track reel to reel, a few turntables etc. and still play a lot of the old records .
Playing guitar has become difficult as the hands don't work too well anymore, so I jam with the boys
on keyboards. r

[lsemmens]

As an aside. We were in a music shop that we were well acquainted with to purchase a Benny Goodman CD for our 17YO son who plays Clarinette. The young girl who served us and did not know us, asked if we were purchasing for our parents, we told her it was for our son and she remarked to the shop owner that we were buying it for a teenager. All he did was look up, see us, and said, "that figures". Over the years we had purchases numerous instruments from him, so he knew our tastes very well. That son still plays Clarinette and Sax in the Army Reserves (he's been in for about 20 years now).

[Arch_Enemy]

I believe in supporting what you like, whether it's FOSS projects or bands. So over the years, I've collected a decent library of music CDs. I usually just buy cheap used ones on smile.amazon.com but I just think it's more cool to have the CD. Plus I appreciate the better sound quality of a CD over mp3s. I know you can rip lossless audio files, but I just prefer kicking it old skool

So who else still plays CDs? Or do you play vinyl? That's even more cool old skool

indeed it is...
(in most of the forums I participate, I go by the user name "old's cool" )

I only have CD players in the cars, and they do take MP3 discs, but not OGG or FLAC (new ones are now), so I still use CDs in the cars.

Unfortnately, my wife kept the turntable, the records and the speakers. I've replaced the speakers, but it would cost a fortune to rebuild the library, and some of the stuff was irreplaceable (a copy of Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" with Side 1 on BOTH SIDES!! for example. The Beatles cover with the piled-up babies... ) I only have a very small selection, and I never bought another turntable on eBay when people were selling Audio Technicas for $20...

[vansloneker]

...
When CDs first came out, they sounded grainy to me, like somebody had broke the music up into small chunks and just gave you the chunks. Which is, in fact, exactly the situation. ...

This has all to do with the quality of the D/A converter, which in the beginning was mediocre at its best. And still most DAC's are pretty average. You need a really good DAC to explore the full potential of a Red Book CD.

Anyway I have ripped all my CD's with Exact Audio Copy and stream them via a Hi-End DAC. It's more convenient and sounds much better.
In the car I have copies of CD's to listen to. The car is no good environment for serious music listening, due to the noise level.

[BG405]

What retailers are those? Where I buy digital music I get FLAC downloads by default. Select a better retailer?

Sorry I thought I'd replied to your post also, I too would suggest a better retailer. IMHO only an idiot would fork out a quid for a 128K MP3, especially as you can probably get it on CD for a very reasonable price. Many of mine (mostly albums) only cost a few pounds or less, for physical media of a good quality. I suppose it's the "instant fix" people expect these days.

FLAC is good but in my very limited experience of online music retailers, I haven't seen FLAC as an option! Still as green as to be honest. I don't know the specific retailers but these were (presumably) well-known ones. Will have to look in to this.

[xenopeek]

HD vinyl is coming in 2019: https://hdvinyl.org/. Backwards compatible with regular vinyl players.

It offers better sound quality, higher frequency response, 30% more playing time, and 30% more amplitude than current vinyl records. It also eliminates the toxic chemicals currently used in the vinyl mastering process, while completely removing tangential/radial error.

For manufacturers, there’s also no quality gap between the first and last copy produced (no stamper wear).

[BG405]

HD vinyl is coming in 2019: https://hdvinyl.org/. Backwards compatible with regular vinyl players.

Fantastic news! I look forward to those. I take it the production costs will be lower; hope that saving is passed on to the consumer, not like they did with CDs ("They are more expensive because you're getting better sound quality" - presumably the same excuse for DVDs).

I was wondering what happened to Super Audio CDs, the supposed "next step" in audio and found this amongst other things. Who'd have thought, a couple of decades ago, that vinyl would not only make a comeback, but overtake!

[Arch_Enemy]

HD vinyl is coming in 2019: https://hdvinyl.org/. Backwards compatible with regular vinyl players.

Fantastic news! I look forward to those. I take it the production costs will be lower; hope that saving is passed on to the consumer, not like they did with CDs ("They are more expensive because you're getting better sound quality" - presumably the same excuse for DVDs).

I was wondering what happened to Super Audio CDs, the supposed "next step" in audio and found this amongst other things. Who'd have thought, a couple of decades ago, that vinyl would not only make a comeback, but overtake!

Yeah, I'm going to wait for this to shake out before I go buying a good turntable at the inflated prices they are selling for right now.

[curtvaughan]

No. I still use a DVD/CD external drive on my iMac desktop, mainly for my wife, who likes MacOS and the convenience of easy music/video conversion between iTunes and optical media. I just recently attached a USB turntable to the Mac so she could easily create CD's from LPs for use in her car. I'm old enough to have a huge library of vinyl LPs no longer in print, so this thing (the LP turntable) is a godsend for digitizing LP tracks. This would have been much more difficult to implement with Linux - that's not the fault of Linux, but the fault of needed software drivers for this sort of hardware not being available on the Linux platform. Hopefully, in another few years, that will change. I absolutely no longer need CD/DVD players for my Linux laptops, as there is plenty of digitized music available via streaming or MP whatever files.