# Compact Discs - keep them or ditch them **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2022, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480 "2022-12-13T19:58:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/41 "2022-12-14T12:27:25Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > there’s something about owning a discrete chunk of music that I just find more satisfying than streaming it. I literally feel more invested in it, since it represents an investment of time, decision-making and money. This, for me. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/42 "2022-12-14T12:31:11Z")
Maybe it’s because I was pushing 40 when vinyl originally went away, I’ve got a ton of vinyl but probably less than 100 CDs. I’ve never gotten into streaming, and while I have some music collections on a thumb drive for listening to in the car, at home I listen to music in the living room while relaxing or reading a book, and CDs are easy. Nostalgia, schmostalgia - getting up every 15-20 minutes to flip a vinyl LP or put on a new album gets old fast. If people are thinking of getting rid of CDs to de-clutter, y’all might want to list the ones you’re getting rid of here! I bet you could find takers for them. I’d certainly be willing to pay shipping plus a couple dollars per CD for anything I wanted. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Steve Miller will only sing of “funky kicks” going down in the city, I heard that one in the grocery store the other day, and they played it with “funky _shit_,” thankyewverymuch. I’m not worried. ETA: And yeah, I like owning music on a physical medium; I know it’s not going away. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/43 "2022-12-14T12:39:21Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > And any purchased download (as opposed to streaming) in the last 15 years or so from Apple, Amazon or just about every other big store is DRM free, which means they have no way of taking it away because of changing polices. For me at least - others’ MMV and surely does - it’s a matter of missing stuff when I go from one computer to the next. Don’t ask me how or why, but it always seems I never pick up all the folders where stuff is stored. I had digital photos from when the kiddo was little that AFAICT are gone forever. And I know I’ve lost digital music as well. When I ‘lose’ a CD, it’s still somewhere around the house, I know I’ll trip over it sometime. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/44 "2022-12-14T12:55:50Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > When I ‘lose’ a CD, it’s still somewhere around the house, I know I’ll trip over it sometime. That is completely true with digital media is that you have to back it up yourself and keep it “alive” from computer to computer. That could be cloud storage, that could be local storage (backed up on a separate drive, of course) or both. And you have to be somewhat good at organizing it (I don’t have much of an issue, as I have a separate drive for media.) I still prefer non-physical to physical music these days (when iTunes first came out, I sure as hell didn’t), but those are real concerns if you are buying digital media. That said, I was shit at taking care of my CDs, so a good number ended up scratched and skipping, so I’m better off with digital, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/45 "2022-12-14T13:03:38Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I listen to quite a bit of stuff on Apple Music, but on my system it doesn’t sound quite as good as when I play the physical disc. I don’t know if you mean you play them on two different stereo systems, but if you mean lossy files, there is an option if you go to Apple Music \> Preferences \> Playback that has an option for lossless files for both streaming and download. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/46 "2022-12-14T13:10:35Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > but those are real concerns if you are buying digital media. TBH, I don’t buy much in the way of digital media. I stopped buying CDs of new stuff ca. 2000 because it always seemed that I might like at most a track or two of the songs that hadn’t already gotten airplay. (Also because they were _expensive_ - new CDs were still going for around $16 a pop. That’s one reason why I never bought that many CDs: when music went from $8-10 on LPs to $16 on CDs, I wasn’t going to buy a CD I didn’t really, _really_ want.) Since then, I’ve bought individual tracks that I like, made playlists, and put them on thumb drives to listen to in the car. I’d guess I’ve bought maybe 2-300 individual tracks over the past two decades. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/47 "2022-12-14T13:23:00Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > I doubt CDs will ever come back to any real popularity. They are better technology than 8-tracks or vinyl but they are, for all practical purposes, much worse then MP3s and streaming. Can you elaborate on this? I cannot, for any reason I can imagine, understand how you think that losing 90 % of the information in a digital music file is in any way shape or form better apart from the storage factor. And with storage as cheap as it is, I wouldn’t consider that a factor either. But I’m an old guy, ready to be enlightened. ETA: It is of course depending on how you listen to music. If it’s from the built in speaker on the phone, no format will sound good. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/48 "2022-12-14T13:41:23Z")
I won’t bother because i don’t believe this is a sincere question. You made your point even though you fully understand mine. You are simply disagreeing in the form of a question. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/49 "2022-12-14T13:46:28Z")
Despite listening to music mostly via a desktop computer, I’ve kept my CD’s, which number somewhere in the 600’s. They are my physical, no-loss backup that is ready to be ripped anew, any time it needs be, to any size / fidelity. And they are Compact, so they don’t take up all that much space. I have no other hobby that took nearly as little storage space as my 30 years of buying and consuming music via CD. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/50 "2022-12-14T13:47:55Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > but there are rumors online of people claiming they’ve made purchases from iTunes, and later on the songs are no longer available On the times I have to buy from Apople, because the music just isn’t available anywhere else, then I make a AIFF copy that Apple can’t call home if they decide to. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/51 "2022-12-14T14:18:26Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If people are thinking of getting rid of CDs to de-clutter, y’all might want to list the ones you’re getting rid of here! I bet you could find takers for them. A nearby music store sells all used CDs for one dollar. I’m not even sure they take them anymore, even for free. That’s how flooded the market is from people burning and dumping their CDs. Used LPs, on the other hand, are $1 to $20 and higher, depending on condition and demand. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/52 "2022-12-14T14:35:25Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > A nearby music store sells all used CDs for one dollar. I’m not even sure they take them anymore, even for free. That’s how flooded the market is from people burning and dumping their CDs. Damn, I had no idea! I really have no idea where I’d find a place that sells used CDs. Hell, I have no idea anymore where in meatspace one buys LPs or CDs, new or used, in my area. But if used CDs are now going for close to nothing, I want to get in on this. ---
**Author:** ![Keith1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6de8d8/32.png) [@Keith1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keith1)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/53 "2022-12-14T15:15:04Z")
Last time I checked, used CD/Vinyl shops in my area were paying roughly $1.00 for a traded CD. depending on what it is. They pay more for vinyl trade-ins, again depending what it is & condition. Vinyl is a hot commodity these days but personally I think that will start to wane somewhat once people figure out that 1) It’s a pain to have to get off your ass every 15-20 minutes to turn over or change the disk. 2) They realize that a $1,000 sound system isn’t going to give them any noticeable difference in sound quality. For that matter, neither will a $20,000 system depending on the particular disk - some are better, some not. Cost is another factor unless one has bags of money. Streaming is another matter. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/54 "2022-12-14T16:05:11Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If people are thinking of getting rid of CDs to de-clutter, y’all might want to list the ones you’re getting rid of here! I bet you could find takers for them. I’d certainly be willing to pay shipping plus a couple dollars per CD for anything I wanted. In the interest of copyright laws, please don’t do this if you have ripped the CDs and plan to get keep the electronic version of the music. Otherwise, it’s the same as having free, illegally-downloaded versions of the music. > [@zbuzz](#): > > What promise in perpetuity? Which music streaming service promises their catalog will be available in perpetuity? And any purchased download (as opposed to streaming) in the last 15 years or so from Apple, Amazon or just about every other big store is DRM free, which means they have no way of taking it away because of changing polices. For music you listen to via a streaming subscription, yeah - there’s no expectation it’ll be there forever. Same as if you give up your subscription. Somebody grumbling about losing access to a favorite there gets no sympathy from me. I was talking about specifically PURCHASED music. As far as DRM-free: that, of course, depends on your having made a backup copy for that purpose, versus just assuming you can re-download it. Not everyone bothers. Plus, then of course you’re back to having CDs 😃 (or a spare hard drive, or a large-capacity thumb drive, or whatever). The closest parallel would be ebooks - which are a different matter. The seller can turn off your access for whatever reason they like, and it’s pretty hard to fight them. Amazon has gotten a lot of bad press for doing just that - and their ebooks are (generally) NOT free of DRM. The correlation to the CD question would be if you scanned all your dead tree books, then threw them out (or sold or gave them away). Or if you hacked all your ebooks to remove the DRM, and gave copies away. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/55 "2022-12-14T16:45:52Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > The closest parallel would be ebooks - which are a different matter. The seller can turn off your access for whatever reason they like, and it’s pretty hard to fight them. Amazon has gotten a lot of bad press for doing just that Has it done so since 2009? That was when it [pulled copies of George Orwell novels that it didn’t have the rights to sell](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon/amazon-offers-to-replace-deleted-copies-of-1984-idUSTRE58400920090905). It did indeed get a lot of bad press for it, and they apologized and offered compensation and determined never to do it again—and, as far as I know, they never have. So I don’t think it’s worth worrying about unless you know of an incident from within the past 5 or 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/56 "2022-12-14T17:08:33Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > A nearby music store sells all used CDs for one dollar. > [@Keith1](#): > > Last time I checked, used CD/Vinyl shops in my area were paying roughly $1.00 for a traded CD. Arbitrage, anyone? 😀 The store I cite may not be typical. They have thousands of CDs, but last time I went I skimmed their entire selection and found 3 worth paying a buck for. Their layout, displays and pricing indicate a strong lean toward the vinyl crowd. ---
**Author:** ![Keith1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6de8d8/32.png) [@Keith1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keith1)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/57 "2022-12-14T18:03:34Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > Their layout, displays and pricing indicate a strong lean toward the vinyl crowd. I sold 60 vinyl LP’s to a used shop a year or so ago. Got $200 for them. Maybe could have got more had I listed them myself but it wasn’t worth the hassle to me. That shop didn’t even bother with the CD market so weren’t interested in those that I had to sell. And no, I wasn’t unloading my collection. Just getting rid of those I no longer wanted. But trends change. I recently read that cassette tapes are making somewhat of a comeback. Now that, to me, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Related; I came across a bunch of old cassettes a few months ago while cleaning out a closet. Most were mixed material I’d taped myself. So out of curiosity I dug out my old cassette deck. Naturally it didn’t work. So I bought new belts & replaced them (it’s nearly always the belts whether cassette, turntable or CD player). Most cassettes sounded like shit. A lot of stretch and who knows what deterioration. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/58 "2022-12-14T20:10:44Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Has it done so since 2009? [This is the story I was thinking of](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-customers-kindle-deletes-account) (and per the article, it was later than the Orwell fiasco). They ultimately made it right, but not until they got a LOT of bad press over it. This was not just the books in question that the user purchased using a UK address, it was ALL her content. Amazon refused to offer the buyer ANY explanation, basically a big “fuck you” and “but we’re keeping your money”. You can always back up your Amazon content to a computer, by plugging in a USB cable, but I expect that if your account is wiped out, the DRM’ed books won’t open. The Orwell thing was just unfortunate. Someone goofed by making the book available for sale, and Amazon did make it right by refunding everyone. Anyway, all this is just peripherally related to the OP’s topic. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/59 "2022-12-14T20:22:36Z")
I have 1000s of CDs, literally. I occasionally haul out a pile in to sell, but I’m also a bit of an obsessive collector (all Zappa while he was alive, but only the 1995/1996 Ryko issues, not the 87 or the new ZFT ones, and so on). I’m a fan of tactile media, and I like to be able to see everything stored physically. I got a new car a few summers ago and a CD player wasn’t even an option, sadly. I still like the ALBUM experience. Either hitting shuffle on the iPhone or having to deliberately program a playlist for a long drive is an irritant when I want to just hear a classic record from beginning to end. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480/60 "2022-12-15T00:18:56Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > On the times I have to buy from Apople, because the music just isn’t available anywhere else, then I make a AIFF copy that Apple can’t call home if they decide to. Once again, if you’re worried about losing access to your purchases, Apple doesn’t do that and can’t do that. If the file is not encumbered with rights management software, you have nothing to worry about. You can transcode a purchase all you want, but it won’t make it any safer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/compact-discs-keep-them-or-ditch-them/976480.md?page=4)