What have you done with all of your old CD's?

[C-Man 27,227]

I'm a child of the 80's. I began collecting U2/Cure/REM/Smiths/Etc CD's in middle school and kept on going until the digital world caught on. I probably have close to 500, maybe more.

My wife is getting itchy to start getting rid of "clutter," which includes old hockey equipment and, yes, those pesky CD's. I've been told it's all on Spotify -- it's not -- but that's beside the point. Those of you who have been through this, what did you do? There are some that I will 100% keep -- some boxed sets and other classics that I simply will not part with. What to do with the rest? I don't just want to put them on a box on the curb for bulk trash and I also know nobody really buys them -- or do they (Half Price Books???)?

I have a tendency to hang on to things -- like hockey equipment. I doubt I'll ever play again but you never know, right? 😉

[Celery Man 20,950]

Presumably still rattling around under the seat of my ‘96 Pontiac Sunfire, wherever it may be.

[jimmyjazz 45,957]

I have never (intentionally) gotten rid of a CD, and won't.  That said, I'd probably do a lossless rip of every one of them, and then check to see if any local library might want them as a donation.

[Herpa Derpa 6,126]

I unloaded a few years ago when I made a cross-country move and couldn't justify lagging crates worth of stuff that was now all available online. I kept a decent amount (around a dozen) that held super sentimental value and a handful of box sets that had unique packaging. (i.e. Misfits Coffin Box).  Took everything first to a Used store to see what had value and the rest donated to library. If you got any young ears in your orbit that are music geeks, I'm sure they'd love them and you'll pass it on.

I actually ended up keeping more vinyl than CDs. The general lack of tactile draw and an exact digital file that was much more portable made CDs irrelevant. YMMV.

[Red Five 40,859]

Taking up a lot of space in a closet alongside a bunch of albums and VHS tapes. 

[phdhorn 6,224]

There are few things as worthless in life as a commercially-released CD.  Other than unique collector's cuts which might not have a vinyl counterpart, they're never going to be worth anything.  Other than personal stories or sentimental value, they're essentially trash - they didn't emerge in any sort of pioneering era of communication, and their obvious obsolescence gave them a eye-blink 15 year run.  It's getting difficult to find anything that can even play them, and unlike turntables they have little commercial or collectors' value.

Other than your personal story/save reason(s), that's it.

Best to use them as such:


(VHS tapes have a bit more collector's worth/value as they were THE first portable video mode, so they can draw some serious cash - both players and tapes.  But there's virtually nothing except your own personal life recordings that aren't now out digitally, so it's pointless to save most of them for anything but personal value, too).

[jimmyjazz 45,957]

It's not difficult to find a stereo CD player whatsoever.  There are some 3 dozen at the link below.

While CDs have no resale value, they remain my preferred choice of commercial distributed music in terms of audio fidelity.  That's "value", if only to me and a few other weirdos who care about sound quality as much or more than convenience.

Audio Advisor

[Al_4_ISU 12,463]

I have a couple of wallets full of them in a closet.  I tend to run older, cheap vehicles for my personal vehicle, and it seems likely that for at least the next decade I'll be in proximity to a CD player.

[yoladu 4,094]

in the attic. out of sight, out of mind.

I ripped all of them to mp3s back when that was a thing (took forever) and are still on my 15 year old I-pod. The young kids in my office look at it in wonder.

yes, i have all the files backed-up on an external drive.

[Buzzrock 14,920]

It’s been awhile but I slowly ripped my collection and put it all in my Amazon Music account back when they allowed that sort of thing. I was grandfathered in so it’s all still there. I kept a handful of them and took the rest to a used store and got next to nothing for them.

For awhile it was handy because some artists (like Tool) weren’t on any streaming service. But now I mostly just listen to the local bands etc that were part of the collection. It’s nice to have them all available anywhere.

[utee94 15,823]

I also have several hundred.  Several years back my wife got rid of the all the jewel cases but kept the labels and liner notes, and put them all in several huge CD wallet/scrapbook things.  They're alphabetized and, since I'm not adding to the collection, they remain so.

I've slowly ripped most of them to lossless formats, so eventually I won't need them at all.  But my kids have a jam box in their playroom and they still love to get out the CDs and play them.  And so they remain, for now.

 

[phdhorn 6,224]

I don't think CD players and discs will disappear 100%.  But as I said, they're getting harder to find stuff to play them on.  Yeah they still manufacture stand-alone players (the olds are probably holding that market up for a little while longer before it crashes, see ahead), but in 2010 almost 80% of cars had them - now it's down to 25% and predictions are around 10% after 2025.  According to a YouGov poll, 53% of CD's (and players) are bought/used by 55+ers; only 6% of 18-25 year olds have/listen to CD's and players.  Perhaps the biggest crash - pun half intended - is in the computer market.  Of course with the emergence of the phone as the primary digital device for young'uns (under 35's especially), things have bottomed out for CD's.  In 2018, 83% of games and music were downloaded (i.e. MP3 type stuff), while only 17% were CD's.  And that percentage has declined by 11% in 2019 and 2020.  This article from the RIAA is rife with facts detailing the essential death of the CD.  Most striking is the clear plunge in CD revenues; even over the year 2019-2020 it went from a measly 5.5% to a 2.3%.  Most of the major CD retailers are done with them; BestBuy stopped selling them in 2018 and Wal-Mart and Target have cut their inventories by about 75% since 2015. 

Then there's this little graph which is really interesting - the CD market is now almost where it first emerged in 1985 - from essentially nothing:



Anyway, the point is taken - there will always, like vinyl and cassette tapes, be a collector's market for CD players and disks.  But CD's are  now a niche market, almost completely out of the norm of purchase for music.  Time/Life will continue to push for the olds a little while longer, and they'll survive.

I don't dislike CD's and hope the market sustains that very tiny slice that nostalgic forms do.  But very, very few CD's will be worth anything on the market - they've easily been ripped and there's not really much nostalgic value in the physical product (very unlike vinyl).

So the point is sure, keep your CD's if they mean something to you (and for a lot, they do, even that physical case & disk).  But if you dump them there is pretty much zero chance that in 20 years you'll regret doing so.  There are just too few rarities only on CD form to bring any money.  Sentimental value is about it.

[jimmyjazz 45,957]

2 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

So the point is sure, keep your CD's if they mean something to you (and for a lot, they do, even that physical case & disk).  But if you dump them there is pretty much zero chance that in 20 years you'll regret doing so.  There are just too few rarities only on CD form to bring any money.  Sentimental value is about it.

Well, despite the early hysteria that CD's wouldn't "last forever" as claimed by marketing, they pretty much last forever if you don't play Frisbee with them.  So, I have zero inclination to go exclusively ripped to hard drive(s) or the cloud, simply because I *know* those things fail.  

If I could purchase new releases in lossless format (at least 16 bit 44.1 kHz) for $10-$15 per album and have an expectation that I could always replenish a lost file, I'd be less reluctant, but I'd still be faced with merging my current library (thousands) with new purchases.

Interesting discussion . . . probably isn't helping @C-Man one bit.  Ha!

[sidis 9,828]

i actually just recently bought a great marantz cd player and receiver to go with my audioengine speakers and have rediscovered the love of my 1,000s of CDs.  sounds so good.

Edited June 27, 2022 by sidis

[Guest]

Am I wrong that I still keep a case in my truck? It seems way easier than dealing with wi-fi, bluetooth, Apple adapters, etc.

Just put a CD in and it plays. 

[Chad Fuck 17,682]

I still have all of mine.  Several hundred.  I rarely use them.  But I can't seem to get rid of them.  Tried to start burning them to a drive, but kind of lost interest in that.  

So there they sit.

[utee94 15,823]

8 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

I still have all of mine.  Several hundred.  I rarely use them.  But I can't seem to get rid of them.  Tried to start burning them to a drive, but kind of lost interest in that.  

So there they sit.

I've just been doing a couple per week while I work, for years.  I work from home so it's easy enough to have that running in the background.  Toughest part is pulling out the big CD scrapbook things from the top of the guest closet, and then putting them away when I'm done.

 

[Chad Fuck 17,682]

16 minutes ago, utee94 said:

I've just been doing a couple per week while I work, for years.  I work from home so it's easy enough to have that running in the background.  Toughest part is pulling out the big CD scrapbook things from the top of the guest closet, and then putting them away when I'm done.

 

Covid would've been the perfect time to do it.  I need to just make myself do it.  

[gsoda3 3,262]

i keep some of them in my 50 CD stereo.  the rest i keep in my study closet.

[DoobieWah 1,437]

I had over 800 once upon a time. Ripped them all to mp3 and about fifteen years ago took some 400 of them to a big house party and let everyone pick thru them. Some dude from Australia took the last ten or fifteen at the end of the night.   

BUT that was fifteen years ago. 

I still have maybe sixty or seventy. AND I have an original 30gb iPod similar to the one above and use it every day when my dog and I do our mile walk. I haven't listened to a CD in years tho. 

[Pato del Muerto 52,498]

CDs nutz 

[Dennis Taylor 18,825]

 

[Scooter Monzingo 821]

I’m an audiophile, I keep everything. Besides CD’s, I have a nice collection of albums, cassettes, 8-tracks and both 4” and 10.5” tape. 
They all sound very different to me. Though I understand few others would  bother to care. 
 

[C-Man 27,227]

4 hours ago, yoladu said:

in the attic. out of sight, out of mind.

I ripped all of them to mp3s back when that was a thing (took forever) and are still on my 15 year old I-pod. The young kids in my office look at it in wonder.

yes, i have all the files backed-up on an external drive.

I have the same 256 of 512 GB iPod somewhere. It's probably a few days away from being 10 years old.

[Dbeasy 15,051]

I have 600 and will force my kids to take them one day, extending my perpetual music license to infinity and beyond. 

[Post Oak 20,213]

I sold hundreds of them in college for beer money to spend at the square in San Marcos.

 

[Rip76 4,928]

I regret nothing also….

Edited June 28, 2022 by Rip76

[Fuga 180]

In the same boat, C-Man. Some 1500+ and am ripping most to lossless. Hoping the library will want them!

[DougO 5,248]

Bunch of them here right behind me. Hundreds more in the next room, extras and bootlegs. I also still have some old LPs, cassettes and even 8-tracks. But I haven't listened to any of them on quite a while, just jam on flash drives and youtube video, mostly.

[Rimbo 25,936]

I got a big ol vinyl binder with 8 CDs per page (4 on each side). Stuck the discs in with the inserts; tossed the jewel cases. I keep it on my shelf for archival purposes.

[Scooter Monzingo 821]

12 minutes ago, DougO said:

Bunch of them here right behind me. Hundreds more in the next room, extras and bootlegs. I also still have some old LPs, cassettes and even 8-tracks. But I haven't listened to any of them on quite a while, just jam on flash drives and youtube video, mostly.

The interesting thing is the quirky shit. Because they were released years apart. The powers that be added or removed certain songs and or vocals.

Take Kiss’ second album. The song Black Diamond does not appear on the cd. I’m sure it’s some kind of copyright bullshit, but it’s different. It was my favorite song on the fucking album. 

Same with intro to T for Texas on Skynard’s live album. On the CD you get the complete Steve Gaines intro by Ronnie before he plays that wonderful intro. None of that is heard on the album. The same with the Jimmy Carter announcement before Sweet Home Alabama.

Just some examples when comparing the different formats. I love stumbling across the anomalies.

[Bookman 4,639]

I still buy CDs.

[DougO 5,248]

15 minutes ago, Scooter Monzingo said:

The interesting thing is the quirky shit. Because they were released years apart. The powers that be added or removed certain songs and or vocals.

Take Kiss’ second album. The song Black Diamond does not appear on the cd. I’m sure it’s some kind of copyright bullshit, but it’s different. It was my favorite song on the fucking album. 

Same with intro to T for Texas on Skynard’s live album. On the CD you get the complete Steve Gaines intro by Ronnie before he plays that wonderful intro. None of that is heard on the album. The same with the Jimmy Carter announcement before Sweet Home Alabama.

Just some examples when comparing the different formats. I love stumbling across the anomalies.

8-tracks were such a mess because of the jacked up song order to fit and songs interrupted in the middle to change tracks. But once you got used to it somehow it seemed sort of right and they had their own charm.

[Paul Wesley 3,278]

12 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

Covid would've been the perfect time to do it.  I need to just make myself do it.  

One of the comedians on the last Sarah Silverman tour did a bit based on this.  He was doing some crowd work, and asked a woman in the audience if she had any books at home that she bought but hadn't read yet.  Then told her, "Throw them away!  If you didn't read them in May of 2020, then YOU ARE NEVER READING THEM."

[ss13 1,832]

You kids are doing so well until the old drunk Buckeye finds it. Then you’re fucked. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

6 hours ago, Bookman said:

I still buy CDs.

I need to pick up a copy of We Are by Jon Batiste. MP3’s suck. They’re for background music, not for people who want to listen as an activity in and of itself.

This is the most recent disc I bought:

[ss13 1,832]

There it is. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

13 hours ago, DoobieWah said:

I had over 800 once upon a time.

I have more than that just in live Grateful Dead recordings. I’ve thrown away more bootleg recordings than that by a wide variety of bands and still have boxes full of discs that I don’t have shelf space for. I have live recordings sitting on my hard drive that I haven’t gotten around to burning to disc yet. I have a selection of albums that I’ve ripped and stored on my phone but I almost never listen to any of them because mp3’s suck and if that’s your preferred method of listening to music then you either don’t really like music or just have a tin ear.

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

6 minutes ago, ss13 said:

There it is. 

Hey, look! shadow_operative has a sock!

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

10 hours ago, Rip76 said:

I regret nothing also….

You should store them vertically so they don’t warp. 

[ss13 1,832]

Old drunk Buckeye, you have told us dozens of times how cheap, stupid, & old you are. Your life is incredibly sad, we know. 

[DoobieWah 1,437]

13 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You should store them vertically so they don’t warp. 

Thanks!

 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

I had to buy this as a Japanese import. Wtf?

This too.

Both are great albums. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

In case you never saw it.

 

[thrillhammer 683]

i still have over 300. i burned most of them onto my itunes and keep a laptop around that is useless otherwise, so i keep it just for itunes.  i like playing music better there because of the shuffle play.   i used to have a sony cd player that could random play 51, and that worked fine, but it conked out years ago, so my current cd player only plays one at a time.  i like the shuffle play of itunes because i can get a willie nelson, followed by a miles davis, followed by a led zepellin.  

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

31 minutes ago, thrillhammer said:

i like the shuffle play of itunes because i can get a willie nelson, followed by a miles davis, followed by a led zepellin.  

Philistine.

I listen to albums. If you’re not listening to, say, Kind of Blue from start to finish then you’re doing it wrong.

But then if you’re getting your music in a lossy format like iTunes then you’re not really all that interested in immersing yourself in the music in the first place.

Have you never just sat and listened to the music, giving it your full attention, without doing anything else? (Psychotropics excepted.)

Frank Zappa called it listening with “big ears.” How do you listen to songs from Joe’s Garage, or Sgt. Pepper’s, or The Wall on shuffle? I guess you do that while doing something else, something that is occupying more of your attention than listening to the music.

[WhatTheBuck 28,781]

54 minutes ago, thrillhammer said:

i still have over 300.

I have a stand that holds 550 discs. It starts with ABBA’s greatest hits and cuts off toward the end of my King Crimson collection. I have a few other smaller stands after that. And boxes. And DiscLogic cases.

I bought that stand at Borders. I should’ve bought 4 of them. At least. In a perfect world, all of my bootlegs would be labeled and shelved. 

[CooterBrown 18,012]

Mine are in a box in the garage. I peaked at around 1,200 CDs. Whittled it down to maybe 250 over a decade ago. I mostly kept local Austin bands that don’t show up on any streaming service.

[utee94 15,823]

Some albums are great to listen to start to finish.  A Kind of Blue is one of them.  So is The Cars The Cars.

Many albums are products of the music industry and have a shit-ton of filler on them, forced by ahole record execs to stretch out the good songs over multi-album deals.  Those kinds of albums tend to have some great singles and then some shite.  Still, for many of them, it was cheaper to buy the entire CD, than to buy the singles of the 4-5 songs you actually liked.  Those albums I have no interest in listening to from beginning to end.

 

[utee94 15,823]

10 hours ago, Bookman said:

I still buy CDs.

username (sort of) checks out