Physical CD's

[jtwrace]

I'm in a position that I'm sure most are in or will be at some point.  I have thousands of CD's that are in boxes and have been for nearly 9 yrs.  I don't use them and use TIDAL.  I keep hanging onto them but realize it's silly as I keep trying to minimize my stuff and I'm down to bare bones now but have a hard time parting with 30 yrs of CD's.  I've looked at the Binders that hold 400 but that would then require so many of them and quite frankly I'm not sure that keeping them is really needed anymore.  

 

I'm so close to just donating them all and being done.  

 

What do you guys do?  

[jhwalker]

Just now, jtwrace said:

I'm in a position that I'm sure most are in or will be at some point.  I have thousands of CD's that are in boxes and have been for nearly 9 yrs.  I don't use them and use TIDAL.  I keep hanging onto them but realize it's silly as I keep trying to minimize my stuff and I'm down to bare bones now but have a hard time parting with 30 yrs of CD's.  I've looked at the Binders that hold 400 but that would then require so many of them and quite frankly I'm not sure that keeping them is really needed anymore.  

 

I'm so close to just donating them all and being done.  

 

What do you guys do?  

 

I'm in the same position, and with DVDs / Blu-Rays as well   Just commenting because I expect a lively discussion.

[davide256]

I hang on to mine "just in case". Who knows, maybe "son of Roon" will come out some day with a better ripping format for streaming playback

[Bystander]

13 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I hang on to mine "just in case". Who knows, maybe "son of Roon" will come out some day with a better ripping format for streaming playback

As long as you're using a lossless format at the same sample rate and bit depth for the files you've ripped, you can always convert your music to any superior future format that may arrive at some point. It's not possible to extract any additional data from the CD, regardless of what future formats may bring. So there's no need to hold on to the original media if that's your only reason.

[kumakuma]

16 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I hang on to mine "just in case". Who knows, maybe "son of Roon" will come out some day with a better ripping format for streaming playback

 

I'm also keeping mine as a physical backup. I take them out of the jewel cases and put them in one of these together with the booklet and inserts:

 

https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-8062/

 

The jewel cases go into the plastic recycling and the CDs into Rubbermaid bins.

 

 

[jtwrace]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

 

I'm also keeping mine as a physical backup. I take them out of the jewel cases and put them in one of these together with the booklet and inserts:

 

https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-8062/

 

The jewel cases go into the plastic recycling and the CDs into Rubbermaid bins.

 

 

How many Rubbermaid bins for how many CD's?  

[davide256]

1 minute ago, Bystander said:

As long as you're using a lossless format at the same sample rate and bit depth for the files you've ripped, you can always convert your music to any superior future format that may arrive at some point. It's not possible to extract any additional data from the CD, regardless of what future formats may bring. So there's no need to hold on to the original media if that's your only reason.

The problem with the future is we are clever enough to think of things that we didn't 10 years ago. In 10 years we may all be playing ISO images stored on 10TB drives with home networks of 10gbps

[Bystander]

1 minute ago, davide256 said:

The problem with the future is we are clever enough to think of things that we didn't 10 years ago. In 10 years we may all be playing ISO images stored on 10TB drives with home networks of 10gbps

But with lossless music you can literally recreate the exact bitstream from a CD. Like, what difference does it make whether the exact same data is stored on a CD, hard driver platters or solid state disk? What sort of scenario are you envisioning that could possibly require the original medium in order to convert the stored data into a new format?

[kumakuma]

8 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

How many Rubbermaid bins for how many CD's?  

 

Haven't bothered to count but CDs stored in these sleeves are about 1/3 the width of CDs in jewel cases.

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, Bystander said:

But with lossless music you can literally recreate the exact bitstream from a CD. Like, what difference does it make whether the exact same data is stored on a CD, hard driver platters or solid state disk? What sort of scenario are you envisioning that could possibly require the original medium in order to convert the stored data into a new format?

 

Look for a dissenting opinion to be made once our friend from down under wakes up... 

[Bystander]

3 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Look for a dissenting opinion to be made once our friend from down under wakes up... 

Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't have asked. Didn't actually want to derail the thread that way...  

[church_mouse]

In the UK it is illegal to copy a cd (even for personal use).  It was made legal in 2014 but overturned in 2015.  The Government decided not to appeal, placing its hope on a change in European law (pre Brexit, of course!).

 

There is a good argument that whilst loss of cds is insurable, loss of ripped copies is not. 

 

As a paranoid measure, I keep all of my cds in storage in plastic sleeves in DJ cases designed to hold 500. 

[Ralf11]

I keep most of mine in cardboard boxes that fit the plastic cases.  The boxes are scattered around the house & garage, making it difficult for me to find a particular CD.  A few are on shelves in the living room (a few means < 1,000).  The plan is to keep only SACD & DVD discs in the living room... but it is surprisingly hard to eliminate the silvery lil' buggers in any organized fashion...

 

I use Time Machine to back up my ripped Apple Lossless files, and should eport the whole thing onto an external HDD which also contains older time machine backups and eventually finds its way to offsite storage...

[gdpr]

In Belgium, it is legally allowed to take a 'backup' from your CD's.  (The law is not explicit if the backups can be used to play back your music, but no one is making a problem of it.)

However, you must be able to proof that you own the original - physical - CD's.

I keep mine (about 2000) in their jewel cases.

 

Dirk

 

 

[davide256]

2 hours ago, Bystander said:

But with lossless music you can literally recreate the exact bitstream from a CD. Like, what difference does it make whether the exact same data is stored on a CD, hard driver platters or solid state disk? What sort of scenario are you envisioning that could possibly require the original medium in order to convert the stored data into a new format?

If I knew now what will change in 10 years, I'd be on my way to getting rich in the stock market. It costs you nothing to hang on to your media until it obsolesces and is a blind risk to assume you will never need the originals again.

[rando]

Eyes rolled the last time I mentioned this in a similar thread. 

 

Small pallets, stacked with cardboard boxes containing discs in jewel cases with a layer of thick corrugated cardboard top and bottom to evenly distribute pressure by slightly compacting.  Thick heavy duty non-corrugated L shaped cardboard pieces on all four corners of pallet with a piece of something up top as dust protection.  Write on the outside of the boxes so you know what they hold, stack them up, and shrink wrap the works.  You can even stack and band pallets together (lightly) to avoid tipping over on children or pets.  Small and light enough for a mover to pick up and well protected against wear.  

[Bystander]

23 minutes ago, davide256 said:

If I knew now what will change in 10 years, I'd be on my way to getting rich in the stock market. It costs you nothing to hang on to your media until it obsolesces and is a blind risk to assume you will never need the originals again.

I'm obviously only speaking for myself and wouldn't tell anyone else what to do. Nonetheless I'd disagree on both counts. It costs me something in so far as I have to make space for it, both in physical as well as mental terms. It's something else to "worry" about. I always feel a tiny bit lighter and more free when I get rid of superfluous physical belongings that only take up space and attention. 

I also don't see it as a blind risk to rid myself of the original media, because there is currently no doubt in my mind that I'm still holding on to all of the musical data that I could ever possibly extract from that disc and am therefore losing absolutely none of the information stored on the disc that I'm actually interested in.  If I should be proven wrong and there is some "unknown unknown" involved here that will only become apparent at a later point, akin to a digital copernican revolution, I feel like we'll  generally be screwed in terms of digital storage of information and I'll have much bigger things to worry about than my music.

[Bystander]

I should add, that I do understand one might want to hold on to the artwork, booklets,  cases or the actual discs themselves for reasons other than continued access to the data stored on them.

[MetalNuts]

I stored all my music and movies in my NAS and the only discs I keep now is the 4K UHD discs which in the meantime cannot be conveniently ripped and stored as ISO. 

 

 

[foodfiend]

Still have all my CDs, stored inside custom drawers. In my country, personal back-ups and rips are still deemed illegal, so I am breaking the law by dabbling in computer audio...

[paul_riordan]

I store all of my discs (6000+)in their jewel cases in these http://www.reallyusefulstorageboxes.co.uk/18litre-really-useful-storage-box-c2x12452493 - and yes I do have quiite alot of them. These are now stored in the garage.  My original reason for ripping them was becuase I did not have enough space in my listening room. As said above from a legal perspective in the UK there is a difference between the law and the likelyhood of prosecution.  So long as you have the original CD I would think you are unlikely to be prosecuted but if you sell the CDs on then that is a different story....

[firedog]

19 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I'm also keeping mine as a physical backup. I take them out of the jewel cases and put them in one of these together with the booklet and inserts:

 

https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-8062/

 

The jewel cases go into the plastic recycling and the CDs into Rubbermaid bins.

 

 

I also put mine in sleeves so the take up a fraction of the space.

[sandyk]

On ‎5‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 6:46 AM, kumakuma said:

 

Look for a dissenting opinion to be made once our friend from down under wakes up... 

Boy George .

The simple fact remains that many of you (most likely you as well) are still unable to get as good an SQ from your PC Audio as you can from a high quality CD player, despite having the advantage of being able to play the music from System Memory, let alone extract a higher order of performance from a ripped CD than a good quality CD player is capable of !
Others seem to believe that streamed, paid for music in flac format where you keep on paying for your favourite music over and over again sounds as good as it gets.
W.A.L.O.C !

Dream on !!!

 

[kumakuma]

17 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Boy George .

The simple fact remains that many of you (most likely you as well) are still unable to get as good an SQ from your PC Audio as you can from a high quality CD player, despite having the advantage of being able to play the music from System Memory, let alone extract a higher order of performance from a ripped CD than a good quality CD player is capable of !
Others seem to believe that streamed, paid for music in flac format where you keep on paying for your favourite music over and over again sounds as good as it gets.
W.A.L.O.C !

Dream on !!!

 

 

Haven't owned a CD player for at least a decade. Don't stream. Happy with my music and system.

[sandyk]

35 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Haven't owned a CD player for at least a decade. Don't stream. Happy with my music and system.

 I guess that the main thing is that you are happy with your system.

At least you aren't silly enough to keep paying good money to Ed Sheeran etc. just to hear your favourite less well known tracks over and over again.

 I noticed  too, that another member posted very recently that he hears differences between the flacs of the same recording from different streaming vendors !

 In my case I keep improving my system to try and stop the aging process (79 tomorrow ) from further degrading my appreciation of music.

This morning I replaced a 3.3V low noise voltage regulator in my DAC  from Paul Hynes, with the flavour of the month .8uV noise LT3045, that many members are currently raving about, including John Swenson who is now also using them