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Keep them. As stated earlier about albums. They may go way up in value. I used to DJ in the 80's with about 700 albums. I gave them away like an idiot.
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How many here can still play a CD?
- Thread starter LBS-bass
- Start date
Well that's what you get for buying the new and trendy stuff like Apple and the other followers of apple logic.
First we lost the CD readers, now they're slowly taking away our dear 3.5mm headphone outputs...
Just because some smartass decided that wireless headphones are now the go-to. Then they stop including chargers along with the phones... Apparently for eco reasons. Then they proceed to force you to buy headphones with another set of batteries and a charger for those instead.
Makes perfect sense.
Follow up question - if you have a CD Player, how often do you use it?
I haven't used CDs for at least three years. Streaming is so convenient. When there's no internet, I have an old smartphone filled with music.
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I read the linked post and this one and i am completely on board with your perspective. And i also know the feels when you're the only one making sense and everyone else just thinks you're being negative. (But don't dare say "i told you so" when you're proven correct.)
To your point on "even free CDs collecting dust", a personal anecdote:
As mentioned in one of my previous replies, I have all of my and my wive's DVDs on a hard drive. We never watch them. Even if we want to specifically watch a movie or show that we know is on that HDD, we look for it streaming first. And if it's not streaming, we usually don't bother to hook up the HDD to watch it. We'll watch something else. The HDD is literally on the bookshelf in the living room, next to where we watch movies on the laptop, but we can't be arsed to grab it and plug it in.
I'd posit a guess that most people walking away from a show with a CD will probably put it down somewhere, occasionally look at it go, "oh yeah, i need to import that into my library somehow sometime". Some may eventually follow through. Others might have every intention on doing it and will put the CD in a safe place but never actually import it as the CD collects dust. Others will get tired of having the clutter of something they can't import/listen to, or can't be bothered to go through the hassle of importing/listening.
To your other points (all of which i think you're right on):
- Having something to sell at gigs is nice, if people are buying, but who's buying CDs? Nobody (and a very small number of people still counts as nobody.) What's the smallest number of CDs most pressers will run? In the early 2000s it was about 300. How much would the band sell CDs for? Spread out over how many months/years before all 300 are sold? Minus the cost of pressing + recording + musician's time? Is it really worth it, even if it's in the black? Even giving them away for free will probably take months of shows. (Also, most people don't buy merch anymore, even of big touring bands.)
- CDs aren't promotion. Not only will nobody listen to them, the people you'd be giving them to are already at your show. So what are the CDs promoting? Something nobody uses anymore that nobody wants the hassle of dealing with isn't promoting the band.
So yeah, 100% everything you said. Being right all the time is tough.
If I walk away from a show with a CD, I'm putting it in my car player on the way home, or listening to it on the old Bose player when I get home - just insert it there and off we go. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
But then, I'm an anomaly, and at this point don't go to a lot of shows ... and probably not the target audience for most bands anyway. I've got nothing against streaming either, as another option. Still value in the older formats, for me.
Don't forget that Apple took away our 3.5" floppies!!!! You can still use 3.5mm headphones, just a $10 dongle. Everyone uses wireless now and losing the 3.5 jack lets them build the iPhone thinner and meet water proof standards. But okay, you don't like Apple. I get it.
I still have a 100 disc changer (The Jukebox) connected to my Pioneer receiver with a turntable, dual cassette player and DVD. Use it daily. Practice with it, run the TV through it, entertain company with it. My technological ambitions petered out around 1998... I feel old now.
FullumMusic
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- Oct 13, 2022
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Exactly. The fact that you can point to the one instance where you got a CD and listened to it. And you know you’re in an extreme minority at this point.If I walk away from a show with a CD, I'm putting it in my car player on the way home, or listening to it on the old Bose player when I get home - just insert it there and off we go. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
But then, I'm an anomaly, and at this point don't go to a lot of shows ... and probably not the target audience for most bands anyway. I've got nothing against streaming either, as another option. Still value in the older formats, for me.
Somewhere around 10 years ago I used to have friends hand me their CDs and I’d be like, “first off, don’t give me a CD when you can sell this and just send me the WAVs/mp3s without giving away a sellable disc. Second, just give me the files. I have no way to listen to this or even import it to my computer.”
CDs don’t blast you with ads between every song. CDs more valuable to me now more than ever. I can listen to just music and not a bunch of bull crap companies spewing their garbage at me, of which I give absolutely zero ****s about.
I grew up on people using huge speaker stacks where I lived and high quality CDs. Before that, it was all casettes and I used to listen to casettes that my sister and brother in law had.
I used FLAC for most of my life for my own music, used to hunt these releases and keep them around in huge, multi gigabyte big folders across my devices until music streaming became a thing and then I could not be bothered anymore.
Changing tags on files, looking for FLAC, sorting it on my own and adding any edits to each file/album/artist.
I don't buy CDs, releases, EPs, vinyls and I do not subscribe to services. Listening to music is a small part of my life, I just have no need or want for it most of the time. It helps that I do not really listen to many artists and the ones I do listen to tend not to release music that often.
Point is - I'm no stranger to "high quality cds" and I think planning to get into vinyl in the future is a great thing, actually. It's often very artistic, it's a bit more than just buying a cd (some art and extra goodies are sometimes added) and I get to support the artists that I want to support, hence totally circumventing your disdain for me not supporting musicians.
About 3 weeks ago, I just bought a brand new Rotel CD14 MKII Cd player for my home stereo.
I own over 2,000 Cds and I'm going to keep on playing them. For now, I'm not into DACs and streaming.
In 2020, I had to get a new Toyota Rav4. No Cd player! I was and still am very upset about that! (I don't know how to go MP3 and burn unto a thumb drive.)
Finally, I still play Lps with a collection of around 3,000.
I own over 2,000 Cds and I'm going to keep on playing them. For now, I'm not into DACs and streaming.
In 2020, I had to get a new Toyota Rav4. No Cd player! I was and still am very upset about that! (I don't know how to go MP3 and burn unto a thumb drive.)
Finally, I still play Lps with a collection of around 3,000.
You mean like this?
Yeah, in my opinion, listening to music without paying, is the same as stealing from the artist.
Sorry, I didn't buy any of it. It was available to us with no cost due to work stuff. Just got lucky that way.
The new tech replaces old tech, and life is always like that, so I don't see the logic in clinging to the old. I've been wireless here for close to 15 years and cable-free for even longer, and I haven't really felt like I've been missing anything much by not having access to a technology that I would only use on rare occasion to listen to locally produced CDs that I'd probably only listen to once. It's just not worth the space they take.
Also, Apple stock has given me a comfortable retirement, so I'm not so negative on them.
After years of home stereo speaker wiring messes, I purchased a Bose unit (has a top CD player plus AM/FM/AUX and a lower section that holds, and shuffles 6 more CDs). I'm set for playing the countless number of CDs I have. What's scary is the amount of money I spent on those disks.
