Well, I feel a little disingenuous claiming that "I buy CDs" because I haven't actually bought a CD in months... but when I do buy music I buy it on CD. I do not download, I don't own an iPod, I don't do the Virtual Media thing, and in general I act like a cantankerous old fart when it comes to anything iTunes-ish.
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I still buy CD's. Do you?
- Thread starter TheVoiceless
- Start date
Buy CDs and have a huge collection,even though I have several mp3 players. 1st, one never knows when an mp3 player is either going to get lost/stolen or the drive go bad, resulting in loss of music - and it's a heck of a lot easier to reload stuff if you have your originals on hand, rather than having to download stuff a second or third time; 2) CDs sound a heck of a lot better when played through good speakers (or even decent headpnones) than mp3 files; and 3) I've got so many CDs, I hate to think how many mp3 players (or even micro SD cards at 4 or 8 GB each) it would take to load all of them (over 2,000 at last count...)
I do not own a single MP3 tune, or any tunes that are not the actual recorded version on the original CD with it's original packaging.
The liner notes and stuff are very important to me. The CD is actually worthless to me without the original liner notes and stuf still in tact. Same goes for movies.
I can not stand the thought of listening to music that I know is dumbed down to keep the file sizes small. I know I can probably not actually hear the difference, but just knowing that the non-CD version is not all it could be is enough.
I also like to have the original tune on CD because then I can copy it to whatever medium I choose at any time... And I always have it as a hardcopy.
I also believe in supporting the bands I like by actually purchasing the music on CD.
I am 100% against people who steal the tunes from the interweb, or get pirated copies of the CD. This is just plain old stealing no matter how you slice it.
The liner notes and stuff are very important to me. The CD is actually worthless to me without the original liner notes and stuf still in tact. Same goes for movies.
I can not stand the thought of listening to music that I know is dumbed down to keep the file sizes small. I know I can probably not actually hear the difference, but just knowing that the non-CD version is not all it could be is enough.
I also like to have the original tune on CD because then I can copy it to whatever medium I choose at any time... And I always have it as a hardcopy.
I also believe in supporting the bands I like by actually purchasing the music on CD.
I am 100% against people who steal the tunes from the interweb, or get pirated copies of the CD. This is just plain old stealing no matter how you slice it.
Great post. Yeah I think that music is more personal when its bought amongst other humans. Some of the smaller places are full of interesting people. I totally agree.
On a slight tangent - the difference between listening on a CD and listening on MP3. A friend of mine - who has the best ears I know of - imports his CDs at a bitrate of 320, which obviously makes them big files.
I import MP3s at a bitrate of 192, and I asked him why he chose 320 given the extra size that generates. he says 320 is near CD quality and 192 gives a far less quality sound.
Can anyone else hear the difference in MP3s encoded at different bitrates?
I import MP3s at a bitrate of 192, and I asked him why he chose 320 given the extra size that generates. he says 320 is near CD quality and 192 gives a far less quality sound.
Can anyone else hear the difference in MP3s encoded at different bitrates?
I own 400 cds, most of them pre-2006, when I started downloading. Its often not possible to find the music I want on cds at any price, or even on ITunes. And I got very tired of buying an album based on a great single and finding out the rest of the album was crap. That's not worth my money.
Now I measure my music in gigabytes (currently at 15, not counting ripped cds I already own). Is downloading stealing? Yes. Would I download a car? Yes.
Hell, I'd download a Ford Festeva if more people would seed the torrent.
Now I measure my music in gigabytes (currently at 15, not counting ripped cds I already own). Is downloading stealing? Yes. Would I download a car? Yes.
Hell, I'd download a Ford Festeva if more people would seed the torrent.
i dont get why people have this attitude.. my older brother is like that.
if i can, sure, i buy the CD itself. but to buy something off itunes is sometimes cheaper, you dont need to get out of your chair, and youll own that music in about a minute. not to mention it has litterally anything your looking for..
some argue that CDs sound better. while this may be true, how many CDs can you fit in your car? a dozen maybe? if they were all an hour long thats only 12 hours worth of music. my 30g ipod thats not full has 17.5 days worth of music on it..
its way too convienent for me to pass up.. 17.5 days worth of music in a little box that takes up no more pocket room than a cell phone. so worth it..
I disagree with this! Most of the downloads I've gotten are 256kbps or better and most times 320kbps! In addition, not all sites just deal in mp3's. I've gotten quite a lot of lossless FLAC and WAV files from many sites and from artists directly!
I have other reasons for downloading music. First my eyesight is such that I can no longer read liner notes as the font is so small, it's rediculous! Second, the music I listen to is pretty much not found anymore at retail sites. I listen to Jazz and old school r&b and Funk. Retail no longer caters to my needs!
I still buy CDs, though as of late, I've started buying vinyl. There's a record store in my town that has a pretty large selection of vinyl, a lot of it for only a $1 per LP. Like many people here, I like being able to hold a physical medium. Plus, I like look at an album as a whole; that means everything from artwork to how the songs work together as a snapshot of part of an artist's career. I'd probably be buying a lot more music than what I'm current buying if I weren't a po' grad student.
Don't get me wrong - I do on occasion download a song, usually because my band's covering it. I think that the digital revolution has been a good thing, since it's largely put a lot of power back into the hands of the artists, where it belongs, IMHO. I'm not against technology; I worked in IT in another lifetime. I just enjoy a physical medium and all of the experiences that come with it.
Don't get me wrong - I do on occasion download a song, usually because my band's covering it. I think that the digital revolution has been a good thing, since it's largely put a lot of power back into the hands of the artists, where it belongs, IMHO. I'm not against technology; I worked in IT in another lifetime. I just enjoy a physical medium and all of the experiences that come with it.
I download if i can't find cd
One of my album took me 15 months and $35 to buy
But really, the musicians deserves the money we pay for the cd
And the sound quality is better or is more original i think
One of my album took me 15 months and $35 to buy
But really, the musicians deserves the money we pay for the cd
And the sound quality is better or is more original i think
mp3s don't sound bad. but hey, here's a thought. Why WORRY ABOUT HOW your hard drive keeps information and how well it performs, and buy the cd to support the band? with computers, it only takes a mistake to lose something forever unless you are VERY careful.
I don't know about the intermediate bit rates, but with iTunes I can hear a big difference between the 128 and 320, so I've uploaded most of my CD's at 320. I find the 128 intolerable except for really casual listening. It's not as "crunchy" as the worst MP3's I've heard, but lots of space and detail disappears, especially in the high end.
I just got a new computer, and downloaded the new version of iTunes, which defaults to 256k for importing CD's. That should be fine.
I just want to make it clear that we are talking about legal retail downloads as opposed to buying physical cd's. All my downloads ARE legal ones. I don't think anyone is talking about illegal downloads here. Having said this, I will repeat that the music I'm interested in has very little presence in retail stores so my only recourse is to buy through the internet. I prefer digital downloads because I just can't read the liner notes and secondly, I no longer have room to continually store cd cases so I prefer digital downloads.
A file that is encoded at 128kbps with a 'good' encoder will sound fine. I do prefer 256kbps min-320kbps max VBR encoded files. In addition, I will not accept retail downloads encoded at 128kbps. I think that's being cheap! My car stereo has a USB slot so I put a ton of mp3's on a 4gb stick and can for for months before adding and removing music.
yes i do. i don't like to have ripped cd's unless there is no choice. they have a stores called the beat goes on in a number of cities around here and they are fully computerized so i access what is called a wish list ( a list of titles that i am looking for ) and when they come in i get an email. they get a lot of good and obscure titles so with that and a couple of used stores around town i do okay with finding stuff. i have a couple of cds on order now so ...
I still buy CDs on occation. I LOOOOOOVE album art! And, for that same reason i also still buy LPs.
Shoot, even when i download MP3's i still usually burn them to a CD. My MP3 player is only 8 Gig, haha and i have a MUCH larger music collection that 8 Gigs.
I'm also still a fan of the mix CD/tape, and that's just something that can't be duplicated with MP3s
Shoot, even when i download MP3's i still usually burn them to a CD. My MP3 player is only 8 Gig, haha and i have a MUCH larger music collection that 8 Gigs.
I'm also still a fan of the mix CD/tape, and that's just something that can't be duplicated with MP3s
I don't understand why you don't get a PDF or something with the liner notes when you download an album legally. I did it once. Didn't get even the cover art. Great. Because of that, I don't download legally anymore.
I'm happy that there's services available like Spotify though. If you don't know about it, check it out. It's THE best thing that's happened in the music business in a very long time. With it, I can now legally listen to any music I like whenever I want without having to buy anything. It works like any media player on your computer with the only difference the music is not on your hard drive, so you can even jump back and forth in the songs. It's far better than Pandora (when you had access to that from over here) or youtube, for instance. Just don't know if it's available worldwide or only in Europe.
