Does It Still Make Sense To Buy CDs?

Yeah, though a smaller one than vinyl!

That depends, but as a general statement, you get better audio quality from a CD than MP3 - if audio quality matters.

Also, unless you have a good backup plan, MP3s can disappear with a disk crash. At least with CDs you can rip them down again.

I don't feel comfortable with the options to CD's.

I keep the CD's that I really like as stored masters and burn copies for general listening. I like to be able to hold my music in my hands. Like you said, everything can disappear in a flash. I like having my master CD's to burn from.

The "touch and feel" perspective is probably best appreciated by those who grew up with vinyl. Something younger people can't relate to. The album cover was important and integral to the experience of buying the music.

The best advantage of digital music is that the "wear and tear" doesn't result in more noise artifacts being added to the signal -- unless you count skips.

I agree with others. Having that physical copy to fall back on is important.

(And I'm sure any horse owner would tell you that you really can't have a meaningful relationship with a car.)

Hello Kramarat,

Just wondering how you will handle the extinction of media in your system. That is to say, how will you continue to move your collection forward when the inevitable demise of the CD arises.

As an instructor of technology, I have a learning module about archiving and it always generated good discussions. Up until electronic media, all information was retrievable via the human eye and then decoded. Information thousands of years old are still accessible. Currently, we have piles of media, tapes specifically, that contain information that cannot be read without the reconstruction of the read/write machine that created them. As we leap from one media to the next, we leave more and more electronic artifacts behind and lost to the future.

Your thoughts sir?

John

As far as CD's go, (at least for music), I think they'll probably be around at least until the last of the baby boomers die off. I think we may see them disappear from the store shelves, but we'll still be able to download music in clean, CD quality that we can burn to disc..................which is fine with me. I don't mind paying for it either. I'm sure we've all bought a record album or CD because we like 2-3 songs on it. I've got photos burned on photo CD's that say they'll last for 100 years.

Some sort of flash drive will probably replace CD's. As far as really long term storage, I read an article within the last few months about some people that were working on embedding short messages in DNA. The information would be there, and also be passed from one generation to the next. I can't remember where I saw it.

For long term archiving of things like movies, I think we're too obsessed with storing them in a useable format, when all we really need is to store the unique sequence of 0's and 1's that make up a movie.............the information itself. The 0's and 1's could probably be laser etched on metal plate, (maybe with a film of gold on it), and stored forever. To reconstitute the movie, we would just scan the metal plate. There are probably plastics that could be used too, but they would have to be kept completely fire safe.

Kind of like this.

http://www.engraveyourtech.com/2008/06/10/microscopic-moleskine-200x-view-of-engraving/

I appreciate the thoughts.

Digital storage on gold provides a reasonably long archive time assuming our future archaeologists will have the ability to decode the information...just need a bit of a digital Rosetta stone and they should b good! :)

I find this amusing, I still have reel to reel taped and vinyl recordings.

16 bit music is over processed to get the fidelity that was left out.

The reel to reels sound better. I have about 400. I have about the 200 in vinyl but they wear fairly quickly and are best to copy to a better medium from the start. About 300 CDs as well. Most of my CDs are burned onto my hard drive.

I am in the process of digitizing my reel to reels. Keep the originals to have proof of ownership. Down loaded music is still the music companies per the acceptance agreement. They change the rules and you are at their mercy.

Every one of my recordings have been bought. Now I look for new artists that self publish because I find the mainstream music sounding for the most part the same over processed picks of the recording industry.

As for back up, .5 tb drive in the fire safe.

Does It Still Make Sense To Buy CDs?

Well, personally, I think gold makes a better investment. CD rates are still pretty low and I expect that won't change until the Fed raises interest rates.

If you read the long long not so fine print you have very little rights and do not own a down loaded song. And no right to recourse if you are not happy.

The hard copy still rules.

itunes set the standard for limited leasing of their music to users and the rest followed when no one complained.

Another trade of liberty for convenience.

On the other side of the coin I can side with the artist with regard to pirated music.

My take on it is that I should be able to buy music (in whatever format), copy it and replay it in any other venue or format I choose.

I draw the line if I were to give or sell copies to other people (unless it is my copy and I do not keep it anymore), but if I want a copy for my computer, iPhone, car, and home stereo, then there may very well be multiple personal copies and I do not feel obligated to buy multiple licenses for each and will not.