Do you still buy album CDs anymore?

by Leolaia 35 Replies latest social entertainment

• 

  Leolaia

  Or do you mainly download? I have been revamping my '80s music collection this week and resorted to downloading a bunch of music from Amazon to upgrade to higher quality mp3s. I have a ton of CDs that I have ripped my music from as well, but I had to fill those holes with stuff I could only get from online stores. Now I feel like I have a representative collection of '80s music (about 560 songs total from most genres).

  But CDs themselves are getting more obsolete as I listen to music more and more on my computer and iPod. Which is a shame because the sound quality isn't that great. And I hate the quality in some of the tracks I download because they are from recent "remasters" which actually sound worse than CDs made in the '80s. So I try to select mp3s made from old "quiet" masters and then do the limiting and volume amplification myself. But since mp3s are lossy to begin with, even a 224kbps mp3 yields a less than ideal result. In the late 90s, I spent many hundreds of dollars on used CDs to get the songs I wanted for the decade and then Napster came around the next year which made me feel stupid for spending all that money, but now I am glad I got all those disks because I was able to get hi-quality music whereas those 128kbps mp3s that prevailed in the beginning of this decade are now long obsolete.

  Anyway, I am really stoked right now that my favorite bands are releasing new albums in short succession. Metric released Fantasies early last month and the Depeche Mode released their new album a few weeks later. And I can't wait till June until Sonic Youth puts out their new album The Eternal (first album in three years). I do like to support the bands I especially like and I paid more to get a deluxe version of Metric's album and since the band was doing its own distribution, they got a bigger cut of the money than if I bought it at a store. There is something nice still with holding a physical album of your favorite group. Fantasies especially has a beautiful Digipak book-like presentation with nice artwork. And listening to a whole album all the way through still has its pleasures.

  So how have your own music habits changed in the past few years?
• 

  Priest73

  So how have your own music habits changed in the past few years?

  I haven't been to a record store in ages. I perfer to "liberate" my music.
• 

  Chalam

  Hi,

  Not buying many CDs now. Even less vinyl!

  I get most of my stuff from here

  Music Downloads, MP3 Downloads, MP3 songs, from eMusic.com

  Great value, good selection.

  The rest I pretty much get from iTunes.

  All the best,

  Stephen
• 

  Leolaia

  I stopped using iTunes because it is such a pain to convert to mp3. Amazon.com's music store has DRM-free mp3s at reasonably high quality, and the selection so far is pretty good. I haven't tried eMusic.com.

  Funny thing you mentioned vinyl....I am thinking of starting to buy vinyl because music is mastered differently for vinyl and in some cases the quality may be superior to CDs where there is hardly any dynamics anymore. I like my music loud (so I have manually limited the peaks and boosted the volume of many of my '80s favorites) but I don't like having every single thing in a song at equally the same maximum volume constantly.
• 

  beksbks

  I work at a library that has CD's.
• 

  darthfader

  I pretty much purchase CDs from Amazon or other retailers for independent music. Sometimes I purchase the CDs used from ebay or other second hand retailers, but I prefer to pay a little more to purchase new ones to support the groups I like. Once I have the CD I'll rip it for my families' collection of iPods -- I can put it anyplace on any format I choose. I purchase the CDs so I get the best possible sound quality. I have a low end audiophile Linn system at home and I can tell the difference between 320Kb MP3 and a CD (which may be the fault of the encoder).

  Darth Fader

  (progressive rock & metal lover)
• 

  Chalam

  I haven't tried eMusic.com.

  Check it out, its good and cheap too!

  Funny thing you mentioned vinyl....I am thinking of starting to buy vinyl because music is mastered differently for vinyl and in some cases the quality may be superior to CDs where there is hardly any dynamics anymore. I like my music loud (so I have manually limited the peaks and boosted the volume of many of my '80s favorites) but I don't like having every single thing in a song at equally the same maximum volume constantly.

  Yes the loudness war started with digital in the 80s and has been escalating ever since.

  Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Vinyl is nice, I have a pile but has lots of technical drawbacks.

  Gramophone record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  The main drawback is carting the stuff around and storing it.

  All the best,

  Stephen
• 

  leavingwt

  I buy four or five CDs per year. I get most of them on eBay.
• 

  Leolaia

  You've got great ears to hear the difference between 320kbps and lossless. I am fine with music at 224 or 256, but 196 is pushing it. I can't believe I once accepted music at 128kbps. Well, in those heady Napster days, the novelty and convenience of downloading music made the bitrate somewhat palatable but I never was too pleased with the tinny and flat-sounding quality. I ripped my own CDs at 192kbps but now I finding this less acceptable when I listen to my music on my stereo system, so I am re-ripping them...especially with respect to the ones I listen to a lot.
• 

  leavingwt

  I also have a Napster subscription, which gives me unlimited playback (on a PC) of over a million songs. It's about $13 per month and I use it constantly.