I have around 1000 CDs collected over many years but find myself increasingly using streaming (Spotify and Apple) along with my vinyls. I am moving house, and SWMBO has intimated that they all need to go. What do you think? Keep 'em or ditch 'em?
My wote is to keep special editions only, rip rest to hdd (if there is time) , keep paper covers and recycle plastic..
I’d rip every last bit of it and store on multiple HDDs for general listening. But I’d also keep the entire collection (somewhere out of sight out of mind). Computers die, formats change, things are eventually rendered incompatible by design. The collection represents a $15000 investment which ensures that your music listening isn’t held hostage to the internet. Break out the CDs, unplug the Ethernet cable, and continue listening without interruption. Some people stockpile weapons and food. CDs and vinyl aren’t bad things to have around either.
I would keep them all too. All to often what seems a good idea at the time has you regretting later. Keep 'em 🙂
I would keep them all too. It's my favorite format and also the most reliable 😉 .
I'm ripping mine and it is a big job. About 1200 are done now and I'm starting on the classical ones. But I'm keeping them. Quite a lot of them have issues ripping but they play without a hitch on a real cd player.
I also have a couple cases of CDs in my closet I never listen to anymore since my streamer sounds so much better than any cd player I could get. But I only have about 100 of them, so easier to store. They are handy for roadtrips if you dont have internet radio in ur car like me. My plastic cases and even paper booklets are long gone though, probably lost in a move yrs ago.
You can rip a CD and retain the original's resolution, with zero loss, zero compression. Storage medium, E.g. Solid State Drives, are so cheap these days, money is not an issue. Steely Dan's Aja uses 424 MB. I calculate you fit 2,358 Aja's on a $90.00 SanDisk 1 terabyte SSD.
Your greatest obstacle is time. Ripping a typical CD takes around 3-4 minutes. You can fill up your SSD with tons of music, but at 3-4 minutes a pop, you do the clock math.
Sounds like your motivations may come down to wife/marriage politics. Get yourself a SSD, start ripping your collection. You can tell the wife, "But baby, this takes time. See, I am working on it."
Depending on your phone's memory capacity, you can put your music on your phone, and have it available 24/7. Samsung phones accept memory cards, so there is potential for a bonanza of your favorite music in your pocket, on device your already carry around.
Your greatest obstacle is time. Ripping a typical CD takes around 3-4 minutes. You can fill up your SSD with tons of music, but at 3-4 minutes a pop, you do the clock math.
Sounds like your motivations may come down to wife/marriage politics. Get yourself a SSD, start ripping your collection. You can tell the wife, "But baby, this takes time. See, I am working on it."
Depending on your phone's memory capacity, you can put your music on your phone, and have it available 24/7. Samsung phones accept memory cards, so there is potential for a bonanza of your favorite music in your pocket, on device your already carry around.
Don't become a slave to the interweb - keep 'em!
I ripped a large proportion of my CD collection to a portable hard drive.
However, it languishes there as I've found that way of listening to music to be soulless.
And what's this with "vinyls"? It's "vinyl" for Pete's sake!
I ripped a large proportion of my CD collection to a portable hard drive.
However, it languishes there as I've found that way of listening to music to be soulless.
And what's this with "vinyls"? It's "vinyl" for Pete's sake!
I have over 3000 CDs, and they take up a lot less space if you ditch the cases and use paper CD sleeves instead.
https://www.amazon.com/Maxtek-Premium-Sleeves-Envelope-Window/dp/B00GXOOL4S/ref=asc_df_B00GXOOL4S
https://www.amazon.com/Maxtek-Premium-Sleeves-Envelope-Window/dp/B00GXOOL4S/ref=asc_df_B00GXOOL4S
Compilations and low-cost late reissues with minimal or no booklet can be discarded directly, because it is unlikely that you ever want to hear them again (streaming playlists are more convenient), or that they will recover some value if and when CDs will be sought after again as collectibles. No need to rip them either, the content owners have mostly uploaded their catalog on youtube and it is technically possible to download the stream with a popular open source software much faster and easier than ripping a CD. It will be compressed but the quality was not stellar to begin with. The only valuable item is the plastic case, useful to replace the cracked ones from other CDs. Thrift stores don'even accept them anymore were I live. Asking prices for this kind of used CDs on online markets are basically the price of the plastic case. You can easily purge this kind of "fillers" from your collection and make your wife happy, while keeping the good stuff.
Many years ago after several family members computers failed without backups I bought a NAS containing 2 2 terabyte drives. My CD collection was only around 400 or so. I ripped them all to the server I then converted them all to MP3 so I could put the music on my phone or USB stick to play in my car or the outside stereo. I have since bought an additional NAS device with 2 4terabyte drives. You could also pay google or any other cloud storage company to store the music for you. After working in data centres and service bureaus during my working time, hard drives fail when you least expect them to. Back up the back ups. The boxes of CDs are in the basement somewhere, just in case. Stuff happens.
In my move 3 years ago I did just that - I departed from them - all 1300. A representative from a record second hand shop visited me and went through my collection - it took him an hour and then declared that about 30% of the CDs was something that he wanted to buy and gave me a price for these - then he told me that he would take the lot for 1.5 of the initially offered price - I took that offer 🙂
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I say ditch them,
I checked out a place online that offers a very convenient way to sell whatever you have. Their offer for a pristine cd of Miles Davis
“Miles Smiles “ was 28 cents.
I’m sure a more popular selection may yield more but geez, 28 cents!
I’m considering donating them in mass to whom ever wants them.
I checked out a place online that offers a very convenient way to sell whatever you have. Their offer for a pristine cd of Miles Davis
“Miles Smiles “ was 28 cents.
I’m sure a more popular selection may yield more but geez, 28 cents!
I’m considering donating them in mass to whom ever wants them.
Keep them.
I still buy CDs and rip them.
I ditch the jewel cases and store them in folders. Store the liners in zip bags. All from Amazon. I add metadata to each rip cd_loc set to a.b.c where a is the folder num, b is the page num, and c is the slot on the page. Liners are stored in page order one zip bag per folder.
Much less space used and stuff is still easy to find...
I still buy CDs and rip them.
I ditch the jewel cases and store them in folders. Store the liners in zip bags. All from Amazon. I add metadata to each rip cd_loc set to a.b.c where a is the folder num, b is the page num, and c is the slot on the page. Liners are stored in page order one zip bag per folder.
Much less space used and stuff is still easy to find...
Keep them. My 2000 CDs were not horrible many to just be stored away in cardboard boxes. And: By selling only a couple of them, the whole collection paid for itself (most were purchased on flea markets 20+ years ago).
Keep the CDs. Rip them and store them in a closet.
I have about 200 CDs. They have been sitting in a closet for two decades. I no longer own a CD player, just computers with optical drives.
Ed
I have about 200 CDs. They have been sitting in a closet for two decades. I no longer own a CD player, just computers with optical drives.
Ed