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To CD or not to CD?

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warren0728

warren0728

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So i am in the middle of a divorce :( and just moved my cd collection to my new (much smaller) place. I don't have a huge collection...probably 300-350 cds and i am looking at storage solutions and got to thinking (which can be very dangerous in my case!)

I'm trying to decide whether to keep all these cd's or just convert them to mp3s and sell the cd's at my local used cd store so i don't have to store them.

I really don't actually play them that often....i usually listen to my mp3's that i have already converted and ones i've bought on iTunes.

Has anyone here gone digital and gotten rid of their cd's and if so do you miss having the actual cd. I have bought some of my collection strictly because i thought the cover was cool...some were good and some sucked :D

discussion.....

ww
 
Hmmm good question. I have boxes full of them and CD cases full of them that are scattered around the livingroom. What about buying an external HD and archiving your tunes to that? You have a bunch of CDs and this sounds like a logical solution. CD slips are cool though and you could at least save those if you wanted to but then you wouldn't get good prices for a blank jewel case. You could scan each CD insert and archive those too but that's going overboard.

.....archive on another dedicated HD and sell your CDs. It's 2007.
 
Bummer about the divorce Warren as they can be painful. Double bummer about your cool music room. I'm sure that you'll be happier later however.



About the CDs: Do you play them in the car? Or do you have an IPOD that you play through the car stereo via radio transmission or cassette thingy?

I personally like CDs, but they do take up a whole lotta room. If I ripped them all to mp3s I'd do so at a high quality. I don't like how people are becoming acclimated to low quality mp3s. Of course, that would increase your storage needs.
 
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my car stereo plays mp3 discs and also has an auxiliary in that i can plug my ipod into. I rip my mp3s at the highest quality too....

i like having the cd's....they are just starting to get out of hand!

of course if i sold them all i could probably get me one of them Zonkin' Yellow Screamer thingies! :DR

ww
 
Oh man, I am sorry to hear about the divorce. Really sorry.

The CD's - I would get rid of them and just keep the mp3. Actually, maybe store them in a lossless format such as Ogg Vorbis instead. If mp3, keep the bitrate really high, like 256 or higher, or you lose sound quality.
 
warren0728 said:
my car stereo plays mp3 discs and also has an auxiliary in that i can plug my ipod into. I rip my mp3s at the highest quality too....

i like having the cd's....they are just starting to get out of hand!

of course if i sold them all i could probably get me one of them Zonkin' Yellow Screamer thingies! :DR

ww
Click to expand...
D'oh! Of course I paly mp3 CD's through my car stereo all the time. My brain hardly *ever* works.

Get rid of the CD's then. I dig the covers & the liners, but really how often are you sitting listening to music grokking the cover.

Go lossless as Robert sez.

Used to happen quite a bit in the old days if you know what I mean. ;)
 
warren0728 said:
of course if i sold them all i could probably get me one of them Zonkin' Yellow Screamer thingies!
Click to expand...
Then you must sell them all IMMEDIATELY!! :eek: ;)

Seriously, if you have the patience to rip them all to MP3 or another digital format (BTW, Ogg Vorbis is not lossless compression--see HERE--though it is superior to MP3 in sound quality) and throw them on an extra hard drive, that's sounds like a great solution. A lot of the covers are available in electronic form now, too.
 
Robert said:
Oh man, I am sorry to hear about the divorce. Really sorry.

The CD's - I would get rid of them and just keep the mp3. Actually, maybe store them in a lossless format such as Ogg Vorbis instead. If mp3, keep the bitrate really high, like 256 or higher, or you lose sound quality.
Click to expand...


Warren, I also am very sorry you are having to go through this.

I agree with Robert and the others about ripping them at as high a rate as you can and selling, except maybe classics. Maybe even them. WackyT has a good idea about getting a hard drive to archive them.
 
The artwork is worth having, but it's still possible to live without it.
I'd put everything on a drive and then burn CD's when you want them. Less clutter = more space for a new guitar - which you'll be able to afford after selling your CD's.;)

Sorry about the life change thing. If you start heading for the bottom PLEASE PM your buddies here and talk to us. Some of us can relate and say the perfect stupid things to pick you back up. "That's what friends are for," tra la la.
 
Thanks VDM for mentioning that, I didn't know. Ogg Vorbis does sound really good anyway.

Remember that hard drives can easily fail. Best bet I would think would be to burn mp3s or Ogg Vorbis to DVDs for long term storage. Wouldn't it be a bummer to have hundreds of CDs on a hard drive and then it has a mechanical failure and all is gone? By this time the CDs have all been sold.... sounds like Murphy and his law is interfering.

I put some video of my father on a hard drive a few years ago. I didn't keep the original tapes. Then hard drive crashed completely. I was sad. Sorry for going off track here - just make a good choice for long term storage!
 
First of all I am sorry to hear about the divorce, but I am quite sure that you will explore new ground soon and maybe enjoy the new situation sooner than you thought. Hopefully, you had no kids involved in all that...

Regarding the CDs I heard about a product called the Digitainer that stores DVDs and CDs in their entire quality. Don't know, but for me it was already a bummer to gor from vinyl to CD and I think MP3 are even worse - quality loss. For me it makes a difference to listen to a CD or an MP3.

What I would suggest is that you go through your CDs and try to get rid of at least 150 of them. Keeping 100 Cds is a piece of cake, even in a smaller surrounding.
 
warren0728 said:
Has anyone here gone digital and gotten rid of their cd's and if so do you miss having the actual cd. I have bought some of my collection strictly because i thought the cover was cool...some were good and some sucked :D
ww
Click to expand...

don't you already know that CDs ARE digital,
 
warren0728 said:
yes i do....i think most people knew what i was talking about....

ww
Click to expand...

oh, well then, I have mostly LPs and tapes, but I only have some 14 or so CDs, all of my media I have on MP3s so I can use them wherever, but unlike LPs, CDs and tapes are portable, but Lps and tapes sound better than CDs, either way, MP3s are the most portable (duh!!), so I'd say it's worth it.
 
well i think i am going to keep them for now....found a decent way to store them....plans are to slowly weed through them....convert to high quality mp3s and sell them a little at a time....

as a graphic designer i really like the inserts and such so for now i'll keep them!

ww
 
Hey Warren.. sorry again for your divorce.. must be a hard time for the kids too.. my parents divorced when I was 6 and that was a delicate subject for years to come.

By the way.. I'd keep all my favorite cds, and sell those that you really dont listen to anymore, or that ain't the kind of music you like the most.
 
I doubt you'd ever be sued by them, but if you found yourself dragged into court by the RIAA they probably would want to see the physical CDs and not just accept that you've got a big ol' hard drive worth of ripped music that you once had the physical media for. I know it's stupid, but that's what these clowns are getting away with these days.
 
Marnold, I don't think he'd have any issues with the RIAA unless he decides to put the ripped CDs up on a peer-to-peer network, such as bit torrent or emule. I haven't read of any cases from the RIAA so far in which they go house to house looking for ripped media.
 
/\ internet radio? I think that's going to need explaining, oh and marnold:
that's a hilarious "motto" you wrote down. It made my day, which wasn't too bad to begin with.
 
man, you guys explain a tonne of new stuff to me, I've never heard of internet radio before.
 

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