What will become of my beloved CDs?
Ikea CD shelves -- check them out. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00323364/ Am using 13 so far -- they fit perfectly in hallways. Use a Brother PT-D210 labeler to identify each letter and sort by name. But this may too expensive for some; the labeler is a hot $25 (LOL). |
Streaming is not owning, consumer grade computers are junk and break often. This is not currently a hardware for audiophiles. One day, probably. How long are you going to live ? Keep all the discs you like, and records and tapes and 78s and 8 tracks and whatever. You do need great digital front end to make them sound, well, not bad. |
dweller, You are absolutely right. I wonder how much do spare ones even cost. Must be a big chunk of the whole machine. I do not see myself using it that much so I was hoping it would last as long as my ears will. So a few decades, give or take. Do lasers and whole mechanisms deteriorate even when not used? Some sort of "death chip"? I was thinking about one of Luxman SACD players. |
glupson: Well, I have a vintage Oppo BDP-83 (garaged of course) that has had its value increase dramatically because of Oppo's demise. Don't think it has SACD, though. My two main sound systems are video-based on Oppo Darbee players and when they die, will be up the creek. Just like CDs, think that Oppo overreacted to the supposed upcoming demise of the CD in closing its shop. BTW, experimented with SACD offerings for several years and to my ears, the best sounding ones are those that reissue quadriphonic releases from the 70s. The Doors, Pink Floyd, and Blue Oyster Cult SACDs are spellbinding. The quad revolution (remember it well) did not mind funneling a lot of music content to the back speakers. And its a gas, still, today. |
glupson: No wind-up players but have taken a large 2 car garage and slimmed it down to one single car space with industrial shelves for the old stuff. AND, YES, have over 30 boxes of nothing but cables (carefully organized...). Have built several small home studios and the number of cables in the world, just like Cavalier Spaniel hair, is infinite... |
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craigl59, Your garage seems to be an interesting place. Any wind-up record players there? Bose people probably have no time to respond to you. They are perfecting their headphones and Bluetooth speakers and use all those computers for that. Which reminds me that I have a SONY Bluetooth speaker that is great. Better than Bose. Not Krell, but for the hotel room just what the doctor prescribed. |
craigl59, "So, this last week, bought some new Sony CD releases made after they moved to the high-res PCM format. They are incredibly accurate for orchestral textures and far superior to any of the SACDs I have gotten." You could not wait to break this news for another few days? Prompted by this thread, I decided to buy a new and hopefully my last CD player and, while I would be at it, let it be a SACD player, too. I was thinking about getting it soon, kind of like...tomorrow. If I can find it somewhere, that is. |
glupson: Speaking of Bose, I also have a pair of fairly new 901s in the garage and I'm not getting rid of them, either. They are the most hated speaker in the world while, at the same time, having the longest production run. I know many classical musicians (and especially composers) that love them. Just like Sony, it is a mystery to me why Bose won't update the 901s with computer technology and EQ and produce a state of the art result with their holographic soundstage capabilities. Wrote to them and suggested a specific plan; they said they'd get back to me (3 years ago). |
craigl59, That Bob Dylan is my whole pre-recorded MiniDisc library. I have a few more that someone else recorded for me, but have not had a MiniDisc player until a few years ago when I did not really need it anymore. I bought a portable Sharp player just to hear what was on those MiniDiscs. Speaking of moderately-failed SONY attempts, a friend of mine has their aftermarket car unit with SACD. At the same time, and still speaking of similarly-fated formats, I find pleasure in reminding every member of Audiogon that first, and maybe even only, universal SACD/DVD-Audio car player was made by.....BOSE. It was standard in 612 (Scaglietti). |
Elizabeth: As someone who has 25 or so music blu-rays, can second your assessment of their marginal value. In the classical field they have perished a quick death because of high production costs and low sales. The best I have are the Chailly Mahler symphonies that are memorable because of their sound engineering -- which is the best I have heard for orchestral music. Naxos tried to offer blu-rays that could be played without a tv connection and I tried several of their offerings -- they are awful. Have been told that Sony abandoned the SACD format after reputable articles appeared showing it had inherent noise/distortion faults in the 1-bit design. So, this last week, bought some new Sony CD releases made after they moved to the high-res PCM format. They are incredibly accurate for orchestral textures and far superior to any of the SACDs I have gotten. As I have stated many times, think the death of the CD was prematurely announced and that it will survive more emphatically than many streamers believe. |
elizabeth, I, by putting turntable in a different state (geographically), managed to resist having 37 different vinyl versions of Blood On The Tracks but would have probably collected them over time, had I only had something to play them on. You surely beat me to that one. However, I do have two Blonde On Blonde SACDs. One is single layer and on one disc and one is hybrid and that one is on two discs. And I do not even like that album. Have you ever read a short book by Nick Hornby named Songbook? It is an interesting and unexpected read. If you come across that book, see chapter about one Bob Dylan’s song. First few sentences describe just what we are talking about. https://books.google.com/books?id=eZ8q0jS2oskC&pg=PA39&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&... |
Most of the new CDs I buy come from Amazon and about every fifth or so disk is part of their Amazon Music program. In this curious animal, your CD automatically appears in your online account for streaming and potential download as a MP3 file. So while I am waiting for the CD to arrive, I sometimes stream the advance copy and get a feel for the new listening style. Here's what I have found. Something strange in Amazon keeps the file order unpredictable so the stream will not always move from track to track properly. There are, as well, numerous clicks and pops as part of the streaming network process -- usually at least one for every track. When you download a MP3 file and compare it to the stream the download sounds better -- clearer and more precise (even though they should be the same). Then, when the CD comes I rip it into JRiver and upsample it to the DAC with SoX. The sound quality is so much better that it always reminds me: MP3 really sucks but its faults are particularly evident when you compare it directly to a CD wave file. SO, despite the continual pressure from the forces behind the Spotify/Tidal crowd I do not find streaming the same quality as CDs well done and think it is another case where the philosophy of "almost as good" is being sold to the public. |
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I bought SACDs as soon as anything I remotely liked came on them.. Then I bought some of the DVD-Audios. Then I bought a player that played them both. Then I realized that DVD-Audio is very inconvenient when you do not own a TV. I managed to figure it out and placed Post-It notes with instructions in each DVD-Audio case (enter-up arrow-up arrow-right arrow-enter-enter-etc.). Now I have no player, no TV, and a few DVD-Audio discs that can be played on close-to-none of the new players. I am still not giving them away, maybe some day some distant Goodwill will have a DVD-Audio machine for $5. When it comes to different formats, I have Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks on cassette, CD, SACD, MiniDisc (you did not see this coming, did you?), and LP record. When I realized how silly it was, I looked for it on eBay, too, but some freak snatched the 8-track in last moments. I have never even seen an 8-track player, except on the picture, but thought it would be the right one to start my 8-track tape collection with. In fact, I have Blood On The Tracks by Mary Lee's Corvette on CD, too. |
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"Will they be the shiny-silver equivalent to 8-Track tapes? " Yes. 8-track tapes are worthless. I tried to sell mine not long ago and would up giving them to charity. "Or, will they become a novelty and collectable?" No. See above. They're just a space-wasting different medium for ones and zeros. Nothing to get nostalgic about. |
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I will keep all my CD's...... I wish I had kept all my 1200+ records I sold in 1986. CD's were becoming the 'big' thing. I got pennies on the dollar for them as folks had moved up to the new technology. My collection was pretty much all mint, many of them were 'promos'. They would be worth a butt load now! Hang on to those CD's... |
wolf_garcia, Yes, digital photos can be printed on archival paper; however, the processes to produce film and digital are different. By choice of film, developers, timing, and printing techniques, a film photo can be different from the same image produced via a computer and Lightroom, then scanned. There's a clear sense of personal satisfaction in the end results with film developing and printing. I have Kodachromes dating back to 1939, and film negatives dating to 1941 - - and my Grandson has my old developing and printing stuff. But, back to CDs: My somewhat extensive collection is 100% RedBook classical, and they spin quite nicely on a Bryston BCD-3. My grandchildren will inherit my CD collection and my 2 channel B ruston and Thiel system; meanwhile, I can contemplate the differences among several Verdi Requiem CD issue - - Reiner, Giulini and Barenboim. |
Simply nonsense all around...Although actual film is certainly a quaint art form, if you bother to print digital photos they can stick around like any printed film can, and if you utilize safe and redundant storage you can save digital photos instead of losing them to fire, rain, or any of the other losses incurred by most film over the years...research movie film restoration efforts. Elizabeth imagines some less sophisticated future world that can't get CDs to work...science fiction at best and utterly irrelevant to today's world. Downloads and streams allow the rental of music or buying for digital storage, but an actual physical CD can't be deleted, and acts as a permanent physical reference...I can access any of my CDs quickly by sticking one in my CD player. |
elizabeth, Your argument about not being able to decode CDs in the future is the same one I use to refuse to go digital in photography - - but to stick to film and photographs printed on archival paper. \ Matthew Brady's photographs of the Civil War are still with us, my latest iPhone photo already has been deleted. |
Now, the first question remaining would be if CD-resolution downloads/streams can actually sound like those CDs. Assuming that new gear does unlock whatever potential CDs have. If downloads/streams equal it, it becomes matter of, more or less, only convenience and then we are back to the original question. What will become of CDs? |
An article in HI-Fi News recently (June issue) discussed an event introducing the new Magico A3 speakers, and Alon Wolf attended the festivities. He played all sorts of stuff from a computer, and all of it was at the "Red Book" standard...Wolf said, "We are not using any hi-res material. We see no need. You can overdo things, you know." The author, Barry Fox, feels that new gear "unlocks" the otherwise missed potential of great Red Book recordings, and I agree. I own plenty of CDs and also enjoy vinyl, and am amazed at how insanely good many CDs sound these days...a good DAC, a clean, coherent system, and you’re set for many years of excellent sounding music. |
dweller @elizabeth - Your scenario reminds me of the SETI organization and their search for extra terrestrial radio signals. If a civilization is a million years ahead of you, MAYBE they use a communication protocol you don’t understand (compare analog radio to digital - ever dial a fax machine by mistake? Does the sound it makes make any sense?). >>>>If a technically advanced civilization attempted to communicate with a much less advanced civilization it would understand that it must find a common means of communication. They would almost certainly assume that anyone listening for such signals would comprehend digital. Or they could use prime numbers or Finonocci numbers to get our attention. They could send ANY kind of signal as long as it’s not naturally occurring if they were simply trying to communicate that they exist. We could figure out where the signal was coming from with ease, just like they did in the movie Contact. |
Oh and to the OPs question -- keep your CDs, do not dump them, in fact buy more. I've never heard an streaming or downloaded file that sounded better than the original CD played on my DCS stack, plus by buying direct from the artist (which you always should if possible) you are putting $ as directly in their pocket as you can |
Issuing 78s is a bit of a gimmick really -- they're pressed on vinyl not shellac and while there might theoretically be an advantage to the faster speed (a la 45rpm issues) most motors running at 78rpm are noisy as heck so that kind of defeats the purpose! They're fun nevertheless if you have 78 in your player, and you don't need a dedicated stylus -- Jack White is a big proponent https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6538682/jack-white-third-man-records-first-elvis-presley-rec... Of course mono is a much bigger and realer thing -- the market for mono only carts and expensive reissues of rare mono discs -- like this which is one of my faves https://www.discogs.com/Johanna-Martzy-Radio-Recordings/release/9966202 |
folkfreak, Wow, I stand corrected big time. I had no idea anyone would make 78s these days. It may be a niche market, but it seems that it is a market. The secret is that I actually always want a turntable with 78 although I own exactly zero records like that. At the same time, I have a probably very dumb question. Tell me that they are not made of shellac but something more durable. |
@elizabeth - Your scenario reminds me of the SETI organization and their search for extra terrestrial radio signals. If a civilization is a million years ahead of you, MAYBE they use a communication protocol you don’t understand (compare analog radio to digital - ever dial a fax machine by mistake? Does the sound it makes make any sense?). |
