In the past, I have purchased CD’s from sites like Amazon. However, I rarely listen to them. I copy the files to my computer and put the CD away, never to be taken out of the case again. I’ll listen to the mp3’s on my computer, or plug my hard-drive mp3 player into my car stereo when I’m on the road.
I now have broadband, so I am seriously considering buying an mp3 album on my next purchase from Amazon instead of buying a physical CD copy. By doing this, I expect to:
Save a few bucks
and
Get the music in a short period of time as opposed to waiting a couple of weeks for the CD to actually show up in the mail.
How many Dopers do this regularly? Do you prefer to actually have a CD recording of an album or just buy and download the tracks? And for what reasons?
Generally I prefer to purchase downloads - I’ve patronized napster canada, puretracks, itunes canada, and emusic. For the first three, most of the downloads are DRM instead of true MP3s, so I actually burn a CD copy first thing after purchasing just so that I have a source for the music in case there’s a DRM snafu.
There are a bunch of reasons - I like being able to just pay for the tracks I want instead of full albums in most cases. With napster canada I can even ‘try out’ a lot of music on the monthly subscription program and buy the stuff what I like best. emusic has a fairly limited subscription, but generally the prices are great. And I like to support the notion that media can be sold over the network instead of spending the money to print and distribute physical items.
I prefer to have a CD, and I play my CDs. I don’t like to have music coming at me from the computer. I do have an iPod and another MP3 device, but I use them for exercise and language learning, so what goes on them is relatively constrained. I like liner notes, too.
I buy CDs when I’m reasonably sure I’ll enjoy an entire album or it’s something that my girlfriend would want to listen to as well. For everything else, I buy single songs off iTunes.
I probably split 50/50 on purchasing music online (iTunes) and buying physical CDs
When I can, I prefer a physical CD for two reasons.
DRM. iTunes encoded AAC files play only on iTunes, which for an Apple program is astoundingly bloated and awful.
Encoding. iTunes purchased music is AAC, 128kbps. Which isn’t bad - but it isn’t the best out there. I’m really into digital music compression, and believe me - you can do a lot better than AAC. My biggest complaint is gapless playback. iTunes has a kludge implementation and on continuous mix albums it shows. When I buy a CD, I rip it with EAC, max compress it with Monkey’s Audio, split it into tracks, encode the tracks with Nero’s MP4 encoder, burn the APE track+MP4s onto a CD, have an excellent redundant backup, then play the tracks with the wonderful Foobar (lean, configurable)
That said, iTunes does have two great benefits:
Speed. I can purchase an album and have it within 15 minutes. Since the nearest CD store is at least 10 minutes away, this is nice.
Selection. Unless you like crappy corporate radio music, the chain music and big box stores are unspeakably awful for CD selection.
I buy nearly all of my CDs used, online, because I like to play them in the car and don’t have a mechanism to do that with MP3s. For music at home, I rip them to my computer as soon as I get them, and use the speakers from my stereo system as my computer speakers as well.
ETA: Also, the sound quality is better on CD, and while I’m no audiophile, I can tell if I’m paying attention. I like to have the higher-quality available to me.
Used CDs are frequently cheaper than downloads, and I feel like I’m getting more for my money - the files (which I rip at higher quality than you get in a download) and the actual CD.
I haven’t bought an actual CD in years. I have bought at least half a dozen full CDs from iTunes and then burn them to disc if I want to add it to my 400 cd player (yes, it is ancient, but still works), or to put a CD in my wife’s car to listen to while driving.
I have heard people complain about iTunes and DRM issues, but I haven’t run into the problem, so I’m not sure what the issue actually is. I don’t think I’ve ever burned more than 2 copies of the same CD, so maybe there is a limit to the number you can make. Or maybe i’m breaking the law and don’t know it.
As far as liner notes, I think I can get them from iTunes. I know I can get the album art, but don’t mess with it much.
I only purchase CD’s. I want the higher quality and want to have the original on hand for conversion as needed. My car radio has a USB port so I do convert songs to MP3. I can carry around an 8 gig stick easier than I can carry 4 days forth of continous music. Not to mention the security risk of losing CD’s if my car is broken into. It’s like having a CD changer in the trunk with 100 CD’s in it.
Some advice, though, can I buy songs in their uncompressed form? I use Pandora and find this an excellent way of finding new songs. I would like to be able to buy songs in their original high-quality format.
I would add that I like the art and liner notes of CD’s and I also need the original to compress over to WMA for my phone.
I only purchase CD’s. I have never downloaded a single song, despite my computer fetish, and have no intention of doing so in the near future. I still like having a physical thing and I like the leisure of having other tracks on an album grow on me over time. I listen to music at home at times, near constantly in a vehicle ( with the occasional digression to NPR ).
One factor is that I dislike all portable music players - don’t like carrying them, don’t like the isolating effect. I’ve never owned even one - no boombox, no walkman, no discman, no Mp3 player - nada. This no doubt has contributed to my resistance towards progress.
Almost exclusively downloads at this point (well, mostly downloads. We still buy the occasional cd.) We have put all of our cds on iTunes, and have burned many cds for car use from it, with playlists made up for whatever whim strikes us.
I myself an avid music fan and somewhat of an audiophile, so I always purchase CDs. Besides quality and having a backup copy, I take great pride in having a physical collection, and I like having the artwork and liner notes. Downloads just seem to take away some of the charm in buying music.
Also, Best Buy sells most CDs for under $15, so it’s actually generally cheaper to buy CDs that way.
If I’m in my hometown, I buy downloads (or just go to the library) unless iTunes doesn’t have the album I’m looking for. The ONLY exception to this is if there’s something brand new that I really want and someone has given me an Amazon.com gift certificate- then I buy the CD. Wait, I lie, there’s a second exception: I sometimes buy CDs from people I see in concert.
When I’m at university, I download when I just want one song, or the CD is so dorky that I don’t want one of my best friends, who works at the CD store, to know I bought it. Or I decide I want in the middle of the night.
But I try to buy CDs while I’m here, because 1) My friend works at the local CD store*, and 2) When I go home for Christmas, any new music from fall semester either has to fit my 8 gig iPod or be on CDs, since I don’t have my computer with me for that month.
One of the silly reason I like to have CDs is that so far, I’ve always been the first person to move into the dorm room that I end up sharing with one other girl. Having my DVDs, CDs, and books up before she gets here means that even if I’m out of the room when she arrives, she can instantly tell I’m a nerd and proud of it.
*If you ever shop at Budget CDs in Missoula, she’s the only female employee, sort of goth, with the back of her head in dreads.
I listen to a lot of netradio these days. If the resulting music is available on CD, I make a note to buy it, but buying CDs is a ways down The List, and other things like food tend to get in the way.
Thanks for the input, everyone. I’m leaning towards downloading my next album. For the record (heh) it’s the new Nerf Herder album, which is being released next Tuesday. So I don’t expect there to be any used copies on CD for several weeks. I also can’t tell the difference in sound quality. To me, a 128 kb/sec mp3 is practically indistinguishable from an uncompressed wav. As for iTunes, I have no use for it. I have a Creative Zen, so I’d rather have unencoded mp3’s, which I can play on it without any hassles. I do prefer to buy an entire album. I like giving every song a chance and at least listen to a couple of times. Amazon doesn’t have mp3 tracks of this album available yet, but I assume they will on release day. The CD is listed at $13.98, but most downloads of albums are only $9.99, so that’s a pretty reasonable price, especially with 12 tracks listed for this album.
I see absolutely no reason to buy CD’s in 2008; at best, they’re a terrible and unattractive format, and I immediately just rip them to high-quality mp3’s or even FLAC or wav files for easy transportation and storage. I have, however, spent thousands of dollars on vinyl - most of it new releases, or reissues - in the past year or two alone. There has to be a reason to buy a physical product in 2008 with the availability of downloads, and a lazy jewel case with an inferior CD and some shoddy liner notes simply is no longer enough to compete. But a big, beautiful record with full-sized art and thick 180 gram vinyl is a true object of desire that I’m more than willing to shell out for. Extra bonus points if it comes with a code to download the album in high-quality mp3, or even a CDR of the album tucked in.
Still purchasing CDs only, although I haven’t bought music of any kind in a long time. After buying a CD, I usually transfer the files to my hard drive immediately and don’t touch it again.
I don’t purchase downloads for a combination of reasons, but mainly it’s a matter of greater permanence.
1. Anything stored on a computer is ephemeral: files get deleted, files get corrupted, files get lost, etc. My CDs tend toward 10-20 years old and still work. 2. Anything electronic is ephemeral: computers get toasted, iPods get dropped, moving parts (like hard drives) just tend to wear out and die. My CD player will eventually die, but the disc can still be used. 3. The goodwill of a corporation toward its customers is ephemeral: Sony has released harmful DRMs, Apple is just generally flaky, and Microsoft has just announced that “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers.” Once I purchase a CD and take it home, I know that the store can’t do anything that will change how it plays on my stereo.
I can understand how you feel about losing files. But when I download music, I intend to burn it to a CD so I do have a hard copy in case of hard drive failure. As for harmful DRM’s, the ones I’ve encountered from Sony have been on the CD. I’ve purchased tracks from Amazon before. They are DRM free and I’ve had no problem transferring them from my PC to a portable player or burning them to a CD for that matter. It’s occurred to me that since I don’t actually listen to the CD’s anymore, but the mp3’s instead, I might as well go the download route and get them in that form anyway.
CD. Classical music. I still listen to classical music cds I bought back in the 1980s.
CD. Boxed sets. Usually since they come with books and/or dvd extras.
I download most other music. Usually popular music that I probably won’t be listening to in 20 years.
And I like to support the notion that media can be sold over the network instead of spending the money to print and distribute physical items.