I bought my first ever CD on the weekend.

[JazznFunk]

Um... it's the other way around... You would be shocked at the amount of work that was/is required to fit most music onto an LP.

This. LPs have a vastly reduced dynamic range and time constraint compared with CDs, which is why they have to be mastered and sequenced differently, often with a bass cut that a proper LP preamp has to add back in (the RIAA Curve). CDs have so much more dynamic range that it got exploited to a negative degree with the loudness wars of the early/mid 2000s. You can master a CD to sound just as 'warm' and dynamic as a record if you want. You just have to want it and have someone who knows how to do it.

There's a lot of confusion and misinformation about 'compression' and what it is/isn't when it comes to digital audio. There's audio compression/limiting of the recording and initial master before it goes into any physical format or even a digital file for the end user - and then there's compression of the actual digital file(s) depending on the format/medium, which also affects the end result of an MP3. They are not the same thing - but they affect each other. Things are often mastered differently for different streaming platforms too.

I adore vinyl too, but CDs have their advantages as well.... and I'll take either any day over streaming.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

Stating up front I'm a Millennial, so the context is the 90s-current time period, but here's my music media experience:
1st format - Radio, as it's broadcast and you don't have to buy anything but a basic radio. FM stations were still decent back then (early 90s). MTV and VH1 were also playing music back then too.

2nd format - Tape, they were easy to come by and not "cool" by any means. It was the budget option, but you could get portable tape players used and tapes for decent $$.

3rd format - CDs, got a little boombox (hand-me-down) that scratched up CDs like crazy, but I loved it. You had to save up for CDs as this was the late 90s and they were THE format. Got a portable some time later in the early 2000s.

4th format - MP3s, as Napster was the thing and was blowing up like crazy. Not here to argue the morality of file sharing...I was 13 at the time and not concerned about anything but stretching my $$ to the max. I would burn these to an MP3 CD or regular CD to listen to on my CD player. The quality sucked a lot of times (this was via 56k dial-up internet...), but we dealt with it because it was free.

4.5th format - MP3s via MP3 player...thought I died and went to Heaven. WAY easier to stow an MP3 player in your pocket (to listen to at school), used 1/4the batteries, stored WAY more music and never got scratched up. Totally worth the tradeoff IME.


Now today, I have/use Spotify in the car for nature of convenience. Making playlists or whatever to listen to when driving or in the background while cleaning the house. If we're talking fidelity though, I am a big proponent of CDs. I have a media server in my house and will rip CD audio for preservation. Generally, I'll use my Nakamichi CD deck hooked up to my HT speakers if I wanna go for fidelity and such. A proper rip to MP3 or FLAC can sound pretty great too.

MP3s stored on a thumb drive do sound better than streamed audio via Spotify for me, the difference is pretty apparent in my car. A lot of cars don't even include CD players or the USB port (and some don't even have aux-in). To be fair, it could be the Bluetooth audio compressor that is to blame, and not Spotify, though on my PC I can still tell a difference and everything is hard-wired.

Sometimes you can get used CDs for cheap here in the States, I've had decent luck at thrift stores and will buy new CDs outright from artists I REALLY like (The Beaches "Blame My Ex" is next on my hit list, as is "Pink Noise" by Echo Ladies). Not everyone does CDs and sometimes the CD doesn't sound very good/different from streaming options. The CD for Black Marble "It's Immaterial" was rather disappointing....love the band though!!

 

[groovaholic]

Buying a modded iPod classic 5.5 with an upgraded battery and storage, Wolfson DAC and to get some IEMs to tie it all together

There ya go!
I still have a 1000+ CD collection and a traditional stereo in my basement.
I also have two of the iPod 5.5s for the very reason that the Wolfson DAC just sounds better, IMO.

Adding CDs to iTunes is great/convenient, but if your CD player has a headphone out, I'd recommend taking the time to listen straight off the CD too - the clarity and dynamic range is untouchable.

 

[JazznFunk]

MP3s stored on a thumb drive do sound better than streamed audio via Spotify for me, the difference is pretty apparent in my car. A lot of cars don't even include CD players or the USB port (and some don't even have aux-in). To be fair, it could be the Bluetooth audio compressor that is to blame, and not Spotify, though on my PC I can still tell a difference and everything is hard-wired.

Streaming audio via Spotify is awful. Satellite radio is pretty bad too, especially jazz over satellite radio. An MP3 on a thumb drive, encoded at a high sample and bit rate, will often sound very good in a non-critical listening environment like a car. So yeah - your ears aren't deceiving you. We old farts who crow on about streaming audio and crappy earbuds aren't just yelling at clouds. We're really trying to help folks listen to audio in better formats and quality.

 

[GretschWretch]

Interesting conversation. I'm supportive of the physical media for the same reason others are here....however, I'm also pretty deterred by just that: it's physical, plastic crap that takes up a lot of space. a few years back when I was considering what road to go down I ultimately decided against it. I have apple music for streaming, and for the artists I love and want to support, I throw them a bandcamp album download.

I definitely miss not being wired in though.

On a forum whose first commandment is "Buy the bass," complaining about lack of space doesn't cut it.

 

[Cloudspine]

On a forum whose first commandment is "Buy the bass," complaining about lack of space doesn't cut it.

It is funny - i use the same rationale to limit myself to two basses!

 

[MasterMonkeyMan]

What app do you use to play music on your phone? I still use an iPod because I find the music players I’ve tried on my phone (Android) are clumsy software. Everyone I’ve tried so far has shortcomings. Phone file managers are not that user friendly either.

I don't usually listen via phone (Samsung s21) but I do on a Galaxy Tablet for playing along with tunes through a Spark GO. The app I use on the tablet (and phone) is Music Speed Changer. Along with being a simple mp3 player it allows slowing down, looping and pitch changing. All in all a decent player.

 

[Low End Scum]

Streaming audio via Spotify is awful. Satellite radio is pretty bad too, especially jazz over satellite radio. An MP3 on a thumb drive, encoded at a high sample and bit rate, will often sound very good in a non-critical listening environment like a car. So yeah - your ears aren't deceiving you. We old farts who crow on about streaming audio and crappy earbuds aren't just yelling at clouds. We're really trying to help folks listen to audio in better formats and quality.

Personally I'm just a sucker for physical media though it takes up a lot of space. I just haven't come back around to CD's as a desirable version of something to have on hand. Mostly for the fragility of jewel cases. Also due to my car and my homebuilt PC being new enough that they do not have a disc drive to play any of that. I suppose the rebuttal is that if I can spend as much as I spent on my turntable, I can spend 20 bucks on a CD player, but I just haven't. In the car, it's spotify/MP3 for ease and for what my car can do. At home though, it's vinyl and cassette (just cause I like the multicolored cassettes some of my fav bands have put out).


This pic's a little outdated. Getting more and more full by the week and I have 7 more ordered off Discogs at the moment.....because I have a problem. lol

 

[Jeff Scott]

My CD collection is probably north of 600 at least.

I'm not sure how many I have. This is the majority of them, I think (and I have bought quite a few since making the photo.

Wow, I bought my first CD in 1986 - Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life.

The first CD I bought was Rush's Signals. Got it in the summer of '84.

 

[Wisebass]

Just wait until you get an LP with liner notes!

Gotta play them backwards for the satanic messages!

 

[JazznFunk]

Personally I'm just a sucker for physical media though it takes up a lot of space. I just haven't come back around to CD's as a desirable version of something to have on hand. Mostly for the fragility of jewel cases. Also due to my car and my homebuilt PC being new enough that they do not have a disc drive to play any of that. I suppose the rebuttal is that if I can spend as much as I spent on my turntable, I can spend 20 bucks on a CD player, but I just haven't. In the car, it's spotify/MP3 for ease and for what my car can do. At home though, it's vinyl and cassette (just cause I like the multicolored cassettes some of my fav bands have put out).

Jewel cases were always the disposable aspect of CDs, good or bad. You could buy a pack of new jewel cases and swap everything over if one got destroyed/cracked. The artwork and CD were still fine. No big deal to me. The pressed CD itself is still the best compromise of sound/portability/durability in terms of a physical medium, at least in my opinion, when they're cared for. Vinyl or CD.... you still have to care for it. When I have CDs that I bought as a kid over 30 years ago which still play perfectly, it tells me the medium is as durable as most of us need it to be, and the audio doesn't degrade - but it's dependent on the quality of CD and materials too for sure.

I haven't thought about cassettes since the late 90s, except for use in my old Tascam 414 PortaStudio, though I still have a cassette player or 2 here or there. Cassettes were always the most troublesome media in my eyes. Susceptible to magnetic degradation and physical damage.... eaten by a rogue player.

As much as I advocate for physical media, my personal digital compromise is a reasonably high quality MP3 on my iPods. I have several original iPods (and a NOS final-gen Nano for when I need it) that I use for most of my regular listening when I'm not at home. Even at home, if I don't have time to sit down and throw on a CD or record, I use the iPod when I'm casually listening around the house - it goes into a tube preamp before I hit my stereo system.

 

[Low End Scum]

Jewel cases were always the disposable aspect of CDs, good or bad. You could by a pack of new jewel cases and swap everything over. No big deal to me. The pressed CD itself is still the best compromise of sound/portability/durability in terms of a physical medium, at least in my opinion, when they're cared for. Vinyl or CD.... you still have to care for it. When I have CDs that I bought as a kid over 30 years ago which still play perfectly, it tells me the medium is as durable as most of us need it to be, and the audio doesn't degrade - but it's dependent on the quality of CD and materials too for sure.

I haven't thought about cassettes since the late 90s, except for use in my old Tascam 414 PortaStudio, though I still have a cassette player or 2 here or there. Cassettes were always the most troublesome media in my eyes. Susceptible to magnetic degradation and physical damage.... eaten by a rogue player.

I totally agree that it's a solid middle ground of resiliency, portability, and sound. I think that if my car had a CD player I'd still be boppin them as my mobile go-to. My teens and early 20's were definitely ruled by home burned CD's in addition to the ones I picked up on discount from my local record shop (this was between prolly 2006 and 2015 when I was doin that). I think for at home though, if I'm going to have a rack/bookshelf of physical media, my hipstery preferance is still to go the full monty with wax. That and I'm an absolute suuuuuucker for the bigger artwork. Of course, I realize I'm a niche case cause if I could find a player, I'd be rocking laserdisc as well lol. Cassettes are the riskiest I'd think for the degradation and rogue players, I just have a soft spot for them after having a cassette radio from a garage sale in 2006 and the accompanying cassettes being my first "I purchased this" music.

On a side note, I've dreamed for yeeeeeeeeeeeaaars of finding a laserdisc burner and burning a VHS camcorder edition of a show I did years ago onto it. Just as a fun project. A 2019/2020 recording using a 1980's over the shoulder VHS camcorder with all the artifacting from having used a Grace Quigley tape, then put on laserdisc just to achieve an even higher level of a pointlessly niche version of it.

 

[JazznFunk]

I totally agree that it's a solid middle ground of resiliency, portability, and sound. I think that if my car had a CD player I'd still be boppin them as my mobile go-to. My teens and early 20's were definitely ruled by home burned CD's in addition to the ones I picked up on discount from my local record shop (this was between prolly 2006 and 2015 when I was doin that). I think for at home though, if I'm going to have a rack/bookshelf of physical media, my hipstery preferance is still to go the full monty with wax. That and I'm an absolute suuuuuucker for the bigger artwork. Of course, I realize I'm a niche case cause if I could find a player, I'd be rocking laserdisc as well lol. Cassettes are the riskiest I'd think for the degradation and rogue players, I just have a soft spot for them after having a cassette radio from a garage sale in 2006 and the accompanying cassettes being my first "I purchased this" music.

On a side note, I've dreamed for yeeeeeeeeeeeaaars of finding a laserdisc burner and burning a VHS camcorder edition of a show I did years ago onto it. Just as a fun project. A 2019/2020 recording using a 1980's over the shoulder VHS camcorder with all the artifacting from having used a Grace Quigley tape, then put on laserdisc just to achieve an even higher level of a pointlessly niche version of it.

I'm still surprised that when I bought my new car in 2018 (Subaru Impreza Sport) it came with a CD player stock! It also has a USB and aux input in addition to Bluetooth capability. I was stoked. A car maker that still realizes people use a range of audio formats.

What was funny for me with cassettes is that my parents had a ton that I listened to all through the 80s and 90s and I got so used to all of the dropouts, warbles, and imperfections in sound that they developed that when I heard the pristine CD version.... it was almost jarring and unfamiliar. I came to expect all that weirdness! I used to make mix tapes from CDs (before we had burnable CDs) and used the high bias TDK, Maxell, etc. tapes for the best possible sound. It's insane to think about how much back and forth we did for the sake of portability back then. I was proud of those mix tapes though. I could sequence them on our Pioneer 6-disc changer and they'd automatically sort out the order after programming. I learned a lot about 'post-EQ' sound too, when I learned that whatever the graphic EQ was set at is what made it to tape. So many little steps along my own audio engineering and recording journey that still serve me to this day! Being a 'master of formats' will always be useful.

 

[Wisebass]

There seems to be a trend of new movie releases only showing in theaters, with no available streaming.

You mean like a live concert without recording?

=> Folks will go there and hold their cellphones in the air to stream it live for their friends

who will watch it on their i pads?

Great expierience!

 

[Low End Scum]

What was funny for me with cassettes is that my parents had a ton that I listened to all through the 80s and 90s and I got so used to all of the dropouts, warbles, and imperfections in sound that they developed that when I heard the pristine CD version.... it was almost jarring and unfamiliar. I came to expect all that weirdness! I used to make mix tapes from CDs (before we had burnable CDs) and used the high bias TDK, Maxell, etc. tapes for the best possible sound. It's insane to think about how much back and forth we did for the sake of portability back then. I was proud of those mix tapes though. I could sequence them on our Pioneer 6-disc changer and they'd automatically sort out the order after programming. I learned a lot about 'post-EQ' sound too, when I learned that whatever the graphic EQ was set at is what made it to tape. So many little steps along my own audio engineering and recording journey that still serve me to this day! Being a 'master of formats' will always be useful.

Thanks for unlocking a "core memory" that I'd not thought of for many many years. I never experienced getting as into that stuff as you had, but I definitely have memories of my folks tapes for TV shows (and one of A New Hope cut for TV with all the 90's commercials still in it and even missing the first scenes of the movie lol). That and the old scamper folks older than I had of "get the tape in they're gonna play it" and hitting record for radio cuts of stuff.

You mean like a live concert without recording?

=> Folks will go there and hold their cellphones in the air to stream it live for their friends

who will watch it on their i pads?

Great expierience!

I know it's the minority opinion but I am happy for at least one of those situations with a live streamed version of a concert. It's the only way my old band has footage of our performance of Zeppelin II at the Perot Museum in Dallas. We were the ones doing it, but it's unabashedly a cell phone facebook live stream. Glad to have that memory on tap.

 

[JKos]

=> Folks will go there and hold their cellphones in the air to stream it live for their friends

If you are referring to that happening at the movie theater, they are pretty good at not allowing that to happen.

 

[JKos]

"get the tape in they're gonna play it" and hitting record for radio cuts of stuff

Oh, yes, did that many a time. I thought it was pretty special when I called a radio station and asked for a certain song to be played, they said sure, and they did.

 

[Low End Scum]

Oh, yes, did that many a time. I thought it was pretty special when I called a radio station and asked for a certain song to be played, they said sure, and they did.

Also a fav memory of mine for the radio station bit. Called my college radio station and convinced them to play Karn Evil 9. I wanted the whole thing, but they understandably just played the 1st impression pt 2 (if that's the radio version, can't recall off hand)

 

[JazznFunk]

You mean like a live concert without recording?

=> Folks will go there and hold their cellphones in the air to stream it live for their friends

who will watch it on their i pads?

Great expierience!

Nah. Not a good comparison. A live concert and a movie theatre of a recorded film are 2 different animals. One is unique and happens only once.... the other is the same each time you see it.

I think movie studios are missing out on revenue if they don't have a streaming option these days. While I love going to see a live concert, I despise sitting in a movie theatre.... especially for a 3+ hour movie (which most are these days) and $20 popcorns and $25 Junior Mints. Let me buy access to the movie for $20 or whatever and watch it in the comfort of my own home.

 

[Low End Scum]

Nah. Not a good comparison. A live concert and a movie theatre of a recorded film are 2 different animals. One is unique and happens only once.... the other is the same each time you see it.

I think movie studios are missing out on revenue if they don't have a streaming option these days. While I love going to see a live concert, I despise sitting in a movie theatre.... especially for a 3+ hour movie (which most are these days) and $20 popcorns and $25 Junior Mints. Let me buy access to the movie for $20 or whatever and watch it in the comfort of my own home.

Hard agreement on that one. Unless it's special enough for me to deal with the mouthbreathing, mid movie cell phone using, mid movie talking crowds (or niche enough that I'll be the only weirdo in town watching it like the movie Lamb) I'm gonna be streaming it.