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Topic: Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore? (Read 25868 times) previous topic - next topic
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Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #25 –
If I'm at home and have the time and luxury to throw on some CDs and just chill then I still enjoy it.  However, such moments only account for between 5-10% of my total listening.
The CDs never leave the house because I have an input jack for the iPod in the car and I listen to it plugged into computer speakers at work.  The only portable CD device I even own is a little POS boombox that previous owners of my house left, probably abandoned, in the laundry area.  There's no way in heck that thing could deliver better sound than my iPod, lossless or no.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #26 –
While I make mix CDs all the time due to my car's lack of an auxiliary audio jack, I pretty much only listen to any original CD I buy once. Before that, I rip it to a lossless image and MP3 v0 in EAC. After I listen to the original CD it generally disappears into its case and goes to the shelf and eventually to a box, to be seen again only when I'm moving house.
EAC>1)fb2k>LAME3.99 -V 0 --vbr-new>WMP12 2)MAC-Extra High

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #27 –
Quote
So, anyone still listen to their CDs? Honestly, I think someone like myself would be better suited to vinyl, but kind of pointless since all my collection is in CD-audio format, except for like one cassette.


I listen to my CD's occasionally over my reciever. It's cool to have an actual pressing of the record. I would take it over an empty lossless download with no extra added information or features any day even though they are exactly the same.


Quote
I do care about CD inserts and packaging but the iTunes Store is now providing CD inserts and packaging with many of their downloads in the form of PDF files.


It's still not the same as actually buying the CD looking at the cover art or physically having the insert in your hand I disagree.  The new thing with digital distribution methods is to try and "recreate" that feel, but it just doesn't work in my opinion. The point is if it's on my computer besides the cover art I am not going to end up looking at it anyway.
budding I.T professional

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #28 –
I buy CDs and archive to lossless and then convert to lossy for listening. I started ripping my most listened to artists several years ago, but hadn't ripped all my CDs until about half year ago (when my harddrive was large enough), so until then I was still listening to some CDs on my computer or in the car (the car I have now plays MP3 cds and has an "aux in" for my Sansa Clip).

When I used to listen to CDs only I would inevitably have the song titles and track orders memorized. For CDs that I have since boughten and ripped directly to my computer, I could maybe name 80% of the song titles and only put 50% in the correct order. That is one thing that miss about not listening to CDs.  However, having files on the computer is much nicer for enough reasons (shuffle between multiple albums/artists, search, replay gain, etc) that I wouldn't go back

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #29 –
i love cds, i buy lots of cds and i have lots of cds but i rip all of them to wavpack. the reason for that is because i'm just not able to threat my cds well. i don't put them back into their case, i take them to my car, they are getting scratches and i lose (and already lost!) lots of them. that's why i'm now hiding them away and listen to wavpacks only

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #30 –
I listen to CDs multiple times a week. I also listen to music on my iPhone multiple times each week. Each depends on where I am and what I am in the mood to hear.

    - M.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #31 –
Yeah, I listen to CDs in the car and on my "main" stereo/home theatre system which doesn't normally have a computer (or iPod) hooked-up.  At some point, I may dedicate a laptop to my living room system.

Most of my music is from CDs (most purchased, some borrowed & copied).  I have a few hundred CDs, and about 20 (purchased) downloaded tracks.  Almost all of my CDs have ripped to MP3.

Right now, I'm at work listening to Winamp.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #32 –
There's no way to replace a good stereo system on PCs...
(Well, mostly there is Winamp & headphones.  )

However, the feeling I get when listening to "real" CDs is still unbeatable.
audiophile // flac & wavpack, mostly // using too many audio players

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #33 –
Quote from: tuxman on
However, the feeling I get when listening to "real" CDs is still unbeatable.


Depends on your setup. I have an AWESOME Philips Stereo that connects to my PC through USB. No difference in sound vs original CD.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #34 –
Yep but sitting in front of a screen is not as great as relaxing on the couch... with a beer and some surround sound.
audiophile // flac & wavpack, mostly // using too many audio players

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #35 –
.... but the PC can replace any of the inputs to a conventional Hi-Fi - you still get to lounge on the couch....

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #36 –
It entirely depends upon how you have your PC set up, tuxman.

Mine is a home-built system that's plenty powerful enough for gaming on the 32" widescreen LCD TV in the living room yet capable of running almost silently under light media centre duties. The near-silence is achieved via free software to automatically underclock the graphics card when only running in a 2D environment and slow the CPU and graphics card fans down to a crawl when they don't need to be running any faster. It actually lives inside the sofa with remote control provided by a Logitech wireless keyboard, mouse, and remote control handset and a Joytech wireless gamepad.

A smaller 19" 4:3 screen sits on a shelf beside the sofa at head-height for displaying Winamp which, with a few additional plug-ins, provides control of all of my audio and video media and sends video to the main 32" screen. The PC also provides plenty of horsepower for on-the-fly custom video postprocessing if needed, so it's possible to get almost unrivalled image quality even from fairly low bitrate XviD/DivX content. Also, the main screen doesn't have to be switched on except for watching videos or gaming.

Audio is piped to the JVC 5.1 surround amp at the front of the room via an optical digital cable in a length of protective trunking under the floor along with a high-quality VGA cable, an HDMI cable, return feeds for the back speakers, two pairs of screened audio cable for bi-directional analogue audio feeds if I need them, and a CT100 coaxial cable for the TV aerial signal that routes via the PC for use as a PVR with the internal TV card so I can still watch one channel whilst digitally recording another.

An externally housed DVD burner sits on a small coffee table beside the sofa for dropping in commercial DVDs, audio CDs or games discs for viewing, playing or ripping to the archive. I also use this for burning MP3 files to CD-R media for playback in the car. It saves fumbling around inside the sofa to load discs, so it had to be done really.

Once the PC was built, it only took one weekend to set up the rest, so it wasn't very time consuming to get things exactly the way I wanted them, and I'd have had to spend a small fortune to build a system of the same quality using Hi-Fi and video separates. There isn't a single cable in sight anywhere either, so it looks very tidy too.

In summary, there's no need for a PC media centre experience to be any less user-friendly than a conventional Hi-Fi system if you exercise the little grey cells.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #37 –
All our CDs are in boxes full of little envelopes that just contain the disc and covers. I don't even keep the jewel cases anymore. Haven't listened to a CD in years.

My "office" is in a room next to the den, so I just went through the wall between to connect my PC to my receiver and HDTV. This gives me a "Home Theater PC" in a separate room where I don't have to worry about the fan noise, etc. and it has a gigabit connection to my NAS. I can sit in the den and control it all with Remote Desktop from my laptop.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #38 –
Sort of, I buy CD's, rip them to flac and make a 128kbps ogg encoding for my portable and burn a CD-R from the flacs to listen to in my car rather than let the origional CD get scratched and muddied up by my mates grubby fingers.

Although having said that, i've turned an EEEPC netbook into a portable media center (along with a FM transmitter) so the can select a song/album off that  and i can clear out my glovebox.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #39 –
My car has an MP3/CD deck. I usually listen to MP3 CDs, but occasionally I'll listen to a normal CD. I burn audio CDs for listening, especially when previewing and getting to know new DJ mixes that I'm working on.
 

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #40 –
I use my CDs only to look at them (nicely shelved, alphabetically... yummy!) and to read the booklet from time to time, whilst listening to my FLAC rips.
Apart from that I will sometimes borrow a disc to a friend to introduce him to a new band. Usually my CDs leave their case only once to have them ripped, though.
I don't even have a CD player and I wouldn't buy one, for the sole reason that I don't want to stand up and change discs every time I wish to listen to a different album.
The downside is that I have to turn on my PC everytime I want to listen to music, even if I'm not using it for something else.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #41 –
Quote from: tuxman on
Yep but sitting in front of a screen is not as great as relaxing on the couch... with a beer and some surround sound.


How about having an AppleTV with access to every audio and video file on my computer with surround sound and a Rock Green Light?

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #42 –
Quote from: Anas on
I use my CDs only to look at them (nicely shelved, alphabetically... yummy!) and to read the booklet from time to time, whilst listening to my FLAC rips.
Apart from that I will sometimes borrow a disc to a friend to introduce him to a new band. Usually my CDs leave their case only once to have them ripped, though.
I don't even have a CD player and I wouldn't buy one, for the sole reason that I don't want to stand up and change discs every time I wish to listen to a different album.
The downside is that I have to turn on my PC everytime I want to listen to music, even if I'm not using it for something else.


I can see myself doing this.  Problem is, I don't have my library encoded to FLAC because I was originally worried about space.  Anyone know how many GB's approximately 170 CDs will take up on my HDD.  I have 58GB free on my HDD and don't really want to buy an external drive if I don't have to (on a laptop).

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #43 –
Quote from: kornchild2002 on
How about having an AppleTV with access to every audio and video file on my computer with surround sound and a Rock Green Light?

Sounds funny. 

I think I'll consider buying some equipment when my money allows me to...
audiophile // flac & wavpack, mostly // using too many audio players

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #44 –
Quote from: Sound-of-Muzak on
I can see myself doing this. Anyone know how many GB's approximately 170 CDs will take up on my HDD.

FWIW : It depends on compression rate of course, but I have ripped 95 popular music discs in flac (-6) to 25 MiB. So maybe your 58 MB is just enough. You could use lossywav too, I suppose.

--
No, I don't listen to cd's anymore. I think it's more convenient to have them ripped, archived, tagged, replay gained.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #45 –
I have 761 hours of CD audio in FLAC which averages out at 378MB / hour.

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #46 –
You guys have converted me. I am in the process of ripping to flac in EAC right now. I was just being silly. 

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #47 –
Quote
Anyone know how many GB's approximately 170 CDs will take up on my HDD. I have 58GB free...


I'm thinking about 40GB.  That could be on the low side, depending on many "long" or double CDs you have (and depending on what FLAC bitrates you end-up with). 

Here's a formula you can use to estimate file size/usage:
File Size in MB = (Bitrate in kbps x Playing Time in minutes) / 140

The formula is not exact, because there is some rounding and some unknown file overhead for the various formats.  And, you cannot predict the exact bitrate for a FLAC in advance.  (I've been using an estimate of 830kbps for CD audio, but I see Nick says 881, and Nick has made more FLACs that me!  I think I'll start using his higher number.)

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #48 –
I listen to CD, vinyl and cassette on a home stereo way more than my ipod. The theatre of the experience counts to me. The phyical covers and media play an important role, as does the playback equipment.

I don't like headphones because of the way the music changes direction when you move your head. Plus I never listen on the go as the world is way too noise rich for that.

That said all my collection is available on my pc, but it is too sterile an experience. Why do ipods all assume albums have no back covers or liner notes (not to mention bonus posters!)?

Anyone here listen to their CDs anymore?

Reply #49 –
iPods don't assume anything, the end users do.  iTunes is compatible with multiple album covers so you could effectively assign the album cover, back cover, and liner notes all to one file.  iTunes Store purchases are even come with the front cover, liners, and back cover in a PDF file.

I purchased my first CD today since fall 2008 and actually listened to it in the car on the way back from work.  So I guess I still do listen to CDs even if it is once every few years.