Why Do ~You~ Still Play CDs?


I'm curious why you still play CDs in the age of streaming. I recently got back into CD listening and I'm curious if your reasons align with mine, which are:

  • Enjoying the physical medium—the tactile nature of the case, the disc, the booklet, etc.
  • Forcing myself to actually listen to an album, versus being easily distracted by an algorithm, or "what's next" in my playlist.
  • Actually owning the music I purchase, versus being stuck with yet another monthly subscription.

Others? 

itanibro

I don’t. When streaming rose to the same quality of CD and vinyl I dropped CD almost immediately. I have 2,000 CDs and 2,000 pristine vinyl albums. Then slowly stopped listening to my vinyl. Then stopped listening to the same old music I’ve listened to for the last five decades and discovered a whole new world of music.

(1) Because most of them sound good/great

(2) When I'm "burning in" new cables (if such a thing exists), I avoid unnecessary wear and tear on my Sumiko Starling cartridge.

(3) I invested in a nice DAC and CD transport and feel guilty if they are only gathering dust

I have tons of CDs, my player/dac combo sounds great to me, and I own everything that I listen to on my little system. Plus, I know what I like - I don't need a computer to create playlists for me. (I get ideas from books and publications for that.)

I had a top of the line Classe cd player that was rated very high back then plus 1 of the earlier Sony sacd players back in the early 2000’s.  Back then, it was proven that ripped cds sounded better than thru a cd player. I thought so too and sold the Classe. Still have the sacd player but haven’t used it in 15 years. I’ve been selling a couple thousand cds ever since. Now I stream ripped cds and from Qobuz and Tidal.