[GrosseFugue]

Despite all the options -- streaming, downloads, YouTube, etc. -- I still like to listen to CDs. There's something about putting a disc in the player that promotes close listening, gives me that old timey feeling of dropping a needle on the album. You made the effort, now you make the time. Plus you get to hold a booklet.

The welter of digital options seem to almost promote ADD-style listening. I've even shuffled tracks of Beethoven's late string quartets (yes, I know, sacrilegious!) on my phone. There are like tens of thousands (more?) of albums available to me via Primephonic (great site, btw), but sometimes it can feel like being in a library and trying to skim through every book vs. just taking one home with you. I realize it's a state of mind. But wondered if other listeners still liked their CDs (or LPs). In fact, I think part of why LPs are popular again is the pleasure of holding and using a big tangible item (plus you get all the cool artwork, etc).

 

[Rogerx]

Good to know, me too :angel:

 

[consuono]

Me three. However, I was saying that about vinyl LPs back in the 90s and now I don't even have a turntable.

Still, I like having physical media that I can actually physically *have* and isn't just floating in the ether somewhere. I don't use a tablet for sheet music either. It seems so antiseptic and sterile. I like my stacks of music, some of which goes back to when I was a kid.

 

[mikeh375]

Me four.
The decline of the CD format has been a gain though for us all with charity shops selling master recordings and performances for next to nothing. I've seen CD's that I bought for upwards of £20 thirty years ago on sale for £1.
I'm more flexible with film, now preferring to buy or rent via streaming, rather than physical DVD's and BluRay as 4K and UHD are more than adequate.

 

[Bill Schuster]

Absolutely, still love my cds. I also love my records and my digital files. They all have their value. Most of my listening tends to be using Bluetooth devices and digital files. When I truly have time to just sit and concentrate on the music, rather than using it as my soundtrack for other activities, I prefer cds or records. Records, in particular, are a commitment to more active listening, due to their limited playing time and inability to skip tracks, without manually moving the needle. I also fully agree that there is a plethora of cheap physical media available now. It is so easy to find old cds and records for ridiculously low prices. I picked up the 8 disc Beethoven complete quartets set by the Cleveland Quartet for 99 cents, not long ago. So, yes, cheers to cds!

 

[Animal the Drummer]

Please allow me to join the throng. I continue to enjoy CDs, plus the occasional LP and even cassette tapes (which were SO much better than CDs to burn stuff on to), and can't imagine ever ditching them for online options entirely.

 

[Dan Ante]

Same here, I can hear what I want when I want and I shudder to think of the cost of my collection approx 2000 at a time when a top label and recording would be approx NZ$ 35/40 and Naxos about half that price and just as good.

 

[GrosseFugue]

Please allow me to join the throng. I continue to enjoy CDs, plus the occasional LP and even cassette tapes (which were SO much better than CDs to burn stuff on to), and can't imagine ever ditching them for online options entirely.

Oh, cassette tapes! It was how I first got into Classical. One can never lose one's place with a tape. And seeing those little wheels turning was cool. Such a pain to fast-forward or rewind to a certain spot that I'd treat each listen like going to a concert -- pay attention, no skipping around.

There's a 2014 thread asking if tapes would ever make a comeback: Do you still have any classical cassette tapes?
Well, turns out they have! Seems old stuff is cool with young folks: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexle...-tapes-are-making-a-comeback/?sh=3b5e81aa50ad

One of the cassette makers gave a great comparison (though I'd go further and say the "fireplace" analogy can extend to CDs in the face of today's hectic streaming and downloads; the sheer ease of downloads makes it so you just want to accumulate rather than LISTEN):

It's like heating. In your home, you have heaters in every room-high numbers-and that's not going to change. That's digital. But you can also have a single fireplace, and it takes time to experience something different-this is analogue. The fireplace isn't going to replace your heaters and the heaters won't forever kill the fireplace.

 

[Haydn man]

Yes, still like CDs and buy them as they are cheap as others have said. But I then immediately rip them onto a hard drive to listen on the Sonos system we have.
CD sound quality is good enough for my as a recovered audiophile
Sorry, you are very welcome to your records and cassettes, there is always nostalgia for old stuff but you can keep the clicks, pops and hisses.
Now let me find my headphones with the gold plated unobtanium drivers for that special experience whilst you guys take out the ashes and get the fire lit out there in nostalgia land

 

[Malx]

The only time I'll get rid of my CDs is when I have no physical space to store them.

 

[Axter]

same here, and even more than that I like Vinyls as well.

 

[consuono]

Oh, cassette tapes! It was how I first got into Classical.

I used to have a bunch of those. The only one I have now is Istvan Kertesz conducting Mozart's Requiem...but I don't have a cassette player anymore. I also remember recording music from the local classical station onto cassette. I built up quite a library with that. :lol:

 

[Merl]

Yeah, my cd collection is still growing at a scary rate. However, my tape collection came to an abrupt end around 2008 when I dumped the whole lot in Stalybridge recycling centre. I always hated cassettes. Horrible, hissy, annoying medium that I loathed from day one but grinned and bore until I'd replaced all of those shitey tapes on cd. I miss neither scratchy vinyl or hissy, 'difficult to pick out individual tracks' cassettes. Have you noticed how secondhand cds are now beginning to get more expensive? There's still plenty of bargains around but they've definitely started to get dearer.

 

[Handelian]

Sadly I still like CDs. Every time I think of giving upon collecting them the urge comes back!

 

[ORigel]

I listen from Youtube, because it's free and I can listen anywhere with an internet connection. When I hear a recording I love, I purchase a CD because the sound quality is so much better.

My latest CD purchase was the Karajan 1963 Beethoven cycle.

My next CD purchase will be Klemperer's Mahler Symphony 2 with Ferrier and Vincent.

 

[joen_cph]

Ditto-very-much-and-certainly-so from here!

 

[Coach G]

I started with classical music as a teenager in early 1980s with LPs. By the late 1980s, I had already switched over to CDs, but was still buying LPs because there was a lot that was still not available on CD. In the 2000s I started to download digitally but then later I went back to CDs. I think I get better sound on the stereo system, or maybe it's just my imagination.

 

[Zauberfloete]

Same here. I still prefer listening to my music on CD, even if I have a digital backup of all my music CDs. The only exception is when I'm not home, then I listen to music on an MP3 player.

My old cassette tapes are no longer playable, but I've been trying to re-acquire everything I had on tape in CD format.

 

[mbhaub]

I still like my cds and during this pandemic the massive hoard has been a godsend. I had a daily music festival of the highest quality and variety. When people say the cd is dead I point out the hundreds of new releases reviewed each month on musicweb international, and Classics Today, and the large number of releases of unusual repertoire on Records International. Maybe cds are dead to people who listen to pop/rock/rap and other, more ephemeral music, but the format seems to be alive and well in the classical arena. All of those super bargain boxes that have been coming out are irritating - some of those I paid a small fortune for in individual releases when they came out. Now you can get them for a tiny fraction of the original price.

I do have a real concern for all cd collectors: cd players are getting scarce, especially affordable stand-alone units that have decent quality. If you want to play SACDs options are really getting limited. Oppo and Onkyo both used to make sacd compatible units for under $500, but they're gone. Check out the pricing for players from Sony, Marantz and others: it'll shock you. Even Red Book cd players are going away - stock up while you can.

 

[amfortas]

This thread has been reassuring: At least a handful of fellow dinosaurs are out there, still hanging on to CDs. And at my advanced age, that may be just fine.