Getting rid of the CD collection?

paddylonglegs

So obviously with the handiness of MP3 players and the larger capacity to rip MP3s to cd quality, I'v been thinnking of getting rid of my CD collection.

I'm having real trouble coming to terms with it though because my collection means so much to me.Looking at the cover of some of them even brings back loads of memories.I'm really proud of my collection too,I feel I have a nice selection and am morethan happy let people have a look through them when they come over.

So what do I do?Get rid of em and have them encased in a little metal box with an Apple logo on it?

Advice please

mike65

They won't go off, stick them in a box tape the top down and put them in the attic.

In many years time you'll be glad you kept them (even if you have nothing that can play them!).

Mike.

loyatemu

buy a few large CD wallets - put the discs and covers in the wallets and recycle the plastic boxes. Instant space saving, its always useful to have a hard-copy of your music that can't become corrupted etc.

Though I'm in 2 minds about whether its worth continuing to buy CDs - the last few I've bought have only left their cases once (to be ripped) before heading into exile on the shelf...

_feedback_

paddylonglegs wrote: »

So obviously with the handiness of MP3 players and the larger capacity to rip MP3s to cd quality, I'v been thinnking of getting rid of my CD collection.

I'm having real trouble coming to terms with it though because my collection means so much to me.Looking at the cover of some of them even brings back loads of memories.I'm really proud of my collection too,I feel I have a nice selection and am morethan happy let people have a look through them when they come over.

So what do I do?Get rid of em and have them encased in a little metal box with an Apple logo on it?

Advice please

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Really don't! I'd say there is a 100% chance you would regret it ..

Like others said, if you really want to get rid of them, just box them up and put them in the attic or somewhere. They can't take that much space.

Nolanger

Dpends on what you have e.g. Q magazine's 100 best albums of all time type CDs are not worth holding on to because they can be got everywhere.
But if you have studio albums from lesser-known bands then hold on to these.
A lot of bands' albums from even the '90s are difficult to get on CD now.

Nailz

PI??? Joking (dry, I know)!

But, no keep hold of them, really just box them up and leave them in the attic like the other lads said. But I'm not a fan of loyatemu's idea to put the CD's and covers in a wallet, I think the plastic is the whole gloss of to CD, it's part of it IMO. Anyway, I wouldn't be bothered recycling.

This bit of advice might come handy in anything, "if you don't want to do it, then don't!"

Rigsby

Nailz wrote: »

I think the plastic is the whole gloss of to CD, it's part of it IMO.

I could n't disagree more ! IMO the plastic casing is the ugliest feature of a cd. I much prefere the cardboard casing with the folder (more like an LP ).

To the OP : Unless they are taking up precious space - KEEP THEM !!

Run_to_da_hills

From a legality point of view you are allowed keep a single copy of a CD you have, this can be in MP3 format. If you ever think of taking up DJing you could be asked by PPI or IMRO to produce genuine copies of your playlist. Also all your MP3s are with the birds if you drop your hdd and don't have back up. I would personally never get rid of any hard copies.

paddylonglegs

I'm also in the frame of mind at the mo at selling as much stuff as possible for travelling. But if I wasn't there then I'm sure I would hold on to them. But like someone said, I find also that my latest cds are being taken out once for ripping, then put on the shelf forever. This is one the reasons I would get rid.

However I love having all my old oasis singles or my Japanese import of Supergrass' Alright - lyrics in Japanese and had stickers with them.Its so good to be able to hold the album in your hand.

I think I may be holding on......Damn I don't know!!!

padi89

Keep them, its worth having a hard copy.I presume you have all your rips backed up too.

noby

Sell them to me at a knockdown price. I'll sell them back to you at a hugely inflated price when nostalgia kicks in in ten or fifteen years time.

mru

noby wrote: »

Sell them to me at a knockdown price. I'll sell them back to you at a hugely inflated price when nostalgia kicks in in ten or fifteen years time.

LOL!
I've actually had the same dilemma, but as I was doing the house up and all that, I decided to make some more space, and ended up selling the CD's online. Just have to move with the times I suppose...

In March of this year I boxed up all my CD's with the intention of selling them. Was planning on going on a bit of a holiday, sent a couple of emails to second hand stores and got a couple of willing buyers. The general consensus was I'd get between €2 and €4 per album depending on condition.

I was looking at a conservative estimate of€600. They were sitting around taking up space in my room and gathering an unmerciful amount of dust. It was a sound economic decision.

Fast forward almost three months later. I still need a holiday, but the discs are still sitting in plastic boxes I bought to transport them to the record shops and I just can't do it.

Call it sentimentality, call it laziness, call it what you will. I just can't do it.
I sympathise entirely with your decision....I couldn't make it. Or I could and then just flip flop anyway

mru

But once you have them ripped, you never use the CD's anyway? I say sell the CD's and enjoy the cash.

Doctor J

A HDD failure taught me not to sell my CDs. I had to rip everything again. If I had sold the CDs I'd have been ****ed, a lot of them were hard to find back when I bought them and would be impossible to replace now.

Besides, mp3 is a **** format, big hard disks are cheap nowadays, rip them all as wav and then, as above, box them and store them. It only takes one accident or burglary and your music collection is gone.

As the saying goes, better to be looking at them than looking for them.

mru

But why not back up everything on an external hd? You can get tera bite sized hd's now. Seriously, it's the way forward lads.

grumpytrousers

I think we got an age thing going on here. I'm with DoctorJ on this. Satan himself will be muttering 'Brr, it's a bit fookin' nippy down here' before I get rid of my CDs. I've got a rake of them. Some of them ripped. Some of them not. Either way, money was paid over for a physical product with artwork etc and dammit i'm holding onto it. And that's just the cruddy jewel case stuff. Then there's the limited editions, out of prints etc that you just can't get anymore.

It's highly unlikely that if i put all my CD's into one big box that they'd ever get stolen, as burglars, by their nature, tend not to be bodybuilders.

Mind you a pal of mine, for reasons best known to himself, has gone to the trouble of ripping all his cd's to WAV (putting a little red id sticker on the spine once it's done) and he's still keeping them. Admittedly that makes no sense even to me, but I suppose he can, at the drop of a hat, burn himself a copy of that Teenage Fanclub album rather than...oh wait, the original is on the shelf there!

but i digress. No. OP do not sell your collection. Do not think of doing it. Do not pass go and keep yer filthy mitts off £200

Whatever the hell else, and without wanting to get all Hornby-esque about it, most every CD purchase you made was a snapshot of you at a particular time of your life and all the 1's and 0's on the external HD will never replace that.

mru

grumpytrousers wrote: »

every CD purchase you made was a snapshot of you at a particular time of your life and all the 1's and 0's on the external HD will never replace that.

Ok, that's a v good comment. Maybe it's a personality thing, but for me the idea behind a CD and the product itself stops with the music. I now buy all my music online, and can't imagine having ever done otherwise. What brings all those memories back for me, is the actual song itself and not the packaging. Probably because when I was growing up all my music was contained on memorex tapes!

Doctor J

I just wouldn't trust a hard disk with something I want to keep forever, they're way too easy to damage, it's as simple as that.

If I had a fault tolerant setup and taped backups, yeah possibly, but on a pair of external HDD's, no chance. I'll be keeping my cd's for a while yet.

cornbb

The CD will die as a format before mp3 or vinyl do. Hang onto them anyway, they'll have some nostalgic value decades from now when music sold on a physical medium will doubtlessly be increasingly rare.

Doctor J

I would say mp3 will be gone before the CD. It's **** quality and with ever increasing broadband speeds and ever increasing capacity drives at ever decreasing prices, I can see digital audio moving back to wav, back to decent audio quality, sooner rather than later. The medium the wav is stored and transported on may change, but I think the CD will hang on a bit longer than the mp3.

cornbb

Doctor J wrote: »

I would say mp3 will be gone before the CD. It's **** quality and with ever increasing broadband speeds and ever increasing capacity drives at ever decreasing prices, I can see digital audio moving back to wav, back to decent audio quality, sooner rather than later. The medium the wav is stored and transported on may change, but I think the CD will hang on a bit longer than the mp3.

Maybe I should have phrased that differently... The CD has quality limitations of its own, the bit depth and sample rate are set in stone and do not satisfy many people's demands, particularly classical music audiophiles. MP3s are usually ripped at a poor bitrate but if ripped at high enough bitrates the difference is completely indistinguishable. Plus the mp3 format does not have bit depth/sample rate limitations so there is a potential for better signal to noise ratio and frequency resolution.

Unfortunately in real life mp3 isn't that good. It would be good to see a similar file format with better, lossless codecs, take over. I think the advantages of keeping your music as files (be they mp3, FLAC or whatever) far outweigh the benefits CDs offer (which are very few IMO). They're just far too convenient.

paddylonglegs

True,the convenience is undeniable. I think that this is a case of sentimentality. I am also unconvinced when playing my mp3 player through a stereo system. I know that some stereos have the like of ipod docks but most just have a function to put into your hedphone socket. I believe the av input jacks to create far superior quality than just plugging into your headphone jack, yet choices are limited for alot of people.

Nailz

Rigsby wrote: »

I could n't disagree more ! IMO the plastic casing is the ugliest feature of a cd. I much prefere the cardboard casing with the folder (more like an LP ).

To the OP : Unless they are taking up precious space - KEEP THEM !!

Well it's all a point of view really, but I'm not a fan of the old carboard casings myself. The edges tent to wear and after a while they might rip unless you take really good care of them.

I'm the exact opposite of you!

carchaeologist

grumpytrousers wrote: »

Whatever the hell else, and without wanting to get all Hornby-esque about it, most every CD purchase you made was a snapshot of you at a particular time of your life and all the 1's and 0's on the external HD will never replace that.

Agree 100%,i can pick up most any cd from the pile and il remember where i was,who i was with,some times for good and bad reasons, but still its all good,even if i was a big shamen fan back in the day!!:D:D

MooseJam

dump them, they are just dust collectors, when the price of blu-ray burners come down you will be able to burn your whole collection onto a few discs at most

Dudess

Jesus don't get rid of them at all - that's nuts! Why do you feel you have to?! Have a leaf through them and maybe weed out a few you could really live without - for the sake of space. Do whatever you want with those - maybe give them to mates, family members, sell 'em for a few cent to a second-hand music shop (literally a few cent - you'll get very little but meh, better than nothing). No need to get rid. There are people with huge vinyl collections and they didn't get rid just because of the advent of the compact disc.

I may have broadband, a laptop and an mp3 player but I would never get rid of my CDs - or completely stop buying them either, for that matter.

Fanny Cradock

I personally wouldn't get rid of my CD's any time soon. Admittedly I often buy a CD, rip it and then leave the box to gather dust, however, there is always a certain tactile pleasure in owning a hard copy. As it stands, I have kept all my CD's and have backed the up onto my computer as well as an external HDD (about 40 GB). I want to ensure as best I can that I never have to back up the collection again.