Will Anyone Else Miss CDs When They Are Gone?

Leswes on 31/10/2017 - 21:59

I've always enjoyed listening to CDs (pop and hip-hop mostly) and have found them to be a good compromise between form and function. Smaller and much more portable than vinyl but still with excellent sound quality. I also really enjoy reading liner notes and love CDs with great artwork. However, they seem to be on the way out (though vinyl is making a resurgence) as more people opt to stream music or buy/store music electronically.

Will anyone else miss CDs once they are gone?

Do people who've gotten rid of their CD collections in favour of streaming or owning music electronically miss having liner notes to read or something tangible to hold/admire/throw into a CD player?

Poll Options

  • 16
    What are CDs?
  • 78
    Nooooo, please don't leave!
  • 189
    Good riddance!
Entertainment

Comments

    • ItsMeAgro on 02/11/2017 - 10:14

      you don't own your digital content, you lease it.

      This is also the case with CDs though; dumb copyright laws make it technically illegal to rip discs and back them up.

      We've been ripped off all along.

      • ItsMeAgro on 02/11/2017 - 10:15

        And they want it both ways:

        Want to share with a friend? NO! You bought the right to listen! You can't copy it to someone else! Buy another one.

        Scratch the disc, and want to download a copy or use a backup? NO! You bought a disc, not the right to listen! Buy another one.

  • BertieBrown on 01/11/2017 - 09:23
    +1

    My feeling is that there will be a niche group of enthusiasts who will still prefer to have physical copies of their media but ultimately CD's are being phased out. So, yes and no I guess would be my answer. I guess a bit like vinyls? There is still a niche market for the media but overall the mass market has moved away from physical types of storage in favour of convenience.

    • terrys on 01/11/2017 - 09:51
      +2

      "physical copies of their media but ultimately CD'"
      To be pedantic, the Cd is a physical sample of the media, whereas vinyl is a physical copy of the actual sound wave. You can get the sound off with a toothpick and a paper cone however the treble is boosted and the bass attenuated so the groove doesn't break through to the adjoining circuit…

      • BertieBrown on 01/11/2017 - 09:55

        Nah, that's a fair enough point. TBH, I'm not 100% on the CD vs vinyl stuff, I've read conflicting things about each being better than the other.

    • casho on 01/11/2017 - 10:22

      *vinyl

  • Cheap Steve on 01/11/2017 - 11:19
    +2

    Good riddance to this unnecessary landfill.

    Digital music - the planet thanks you!

    • PictureMeBroken on 01/11/2017 - 15:41

      And where do you think comes the energy from to keep all of the servers running 24/7? The cooling of the processors, rooms and buildings? The resources to build faster networks? The upgrades of existing systems to keep the hunger of the digital age satisfied?

      • Cheap Steve on 01/11/2017 - 16:42
        +4

        The internet will be running anyway.

      • Gronk on 01/11/2017 - 20:05
        +1

        And where do you think comes the energy from to keep all of the servers running 24/7?

        Hence the recent push towards renewable energy sources…

        • payless69 on 01/11/2017 - 22:14

          windmills and perhaps they will bring back the water wheel

        • ItsMeAgro on 02/11/2017 - 10:17

          @payless69:

          water wheel

          So hydro-electric power? Which makes up a significant portion of today's power…

      • idonotknowwhy on 02/11/2017 - 11:26

        The cooling of the processors, rooms and buildings?

        Nah, we don't need to worry about this, spotify runs in the cloud!

        And where do you think comes the energy from to keep all of the servers running 24/7?

        Servers? That's so 2015, everything is serverless these days!

  • Herodotus on 01/11/2017 - 11:54
    +3

    Great for repelling birds from balcony

    • PJC on 01/11/2017 - 14:09
      +1

      Yes, no bird poo on my verandah for 15 years now.

  • kahn on 01/11/2017 - 13:01
    +2

    Without CD's, how will people discover the wonders of AOL?

  • Zondor on 01/11/2017 - 14:34
    +2

    I like them for display purposes, also chucking one on encourages you to listen to a whole album.

  • Seraphin7 on 01/11/2017 - 14:41

    I barely have the time to listen to my music these days, let alone read the note or admire the artwork!

  • OneMoreTune on 01/11/2017 - 15:15

    I will deffo be missing them, what other unit of measurement will we use for nipples?

    • Gronk on 01/11/2017 - 20:15

      Christmas decorations!

  • smpantsonfire on 01/11/2017 - 16:22
    +4

    I don't buy CDs anymore, but I support the artist by buying the Vinyl, and then downloading the album. That way, they get their money, and I actually have a nice display piece, especially if its beautiful artwork.

  • Gronk on 01/11/2017 - 20:24

    I moved away from CD's years ago, I was never any good at preventing them from getting scratched anyway…

    It's mostly Spotify for me now, it's not as comforting as owning your very own copy but it works well for me, for now…

  • hawktalk on 01/11/2017 - 23:12
    +1

    Is there a 1:1 service where the stream quality matches a cd perfectly ? I went through a phase where I was happy to download a digital version (bigpond music was great for mp3s back when I was having trouble ripping my own version off of a purchased cd). I don't buy as many cd's as I used to, but when I do I encode the cd to FLAC format on my computer and then distribute accordingly (make mp3s for my phone and tablets etc).

    • TimeWaster on 02/11/2017 - 09:01

      I'm not sure if it's 1:1, but Tidal (http://tidal.com/au) is a music streaming service that focuses on providing high fidelity lossless audio. I'm not too sure on the size of their library, but it seems to be quite respectable and they do also offer a free trial period.

  • bardlee on 02/11/2017 - 09:18
    +1

    Wont miss the 29.95 price tag. Flew to USA on a holiday in the 80's and cds were 11 US dollars or 14 with the exchange rate. We were so ripped off. Came home with over 100 cds.

    • eswes on 03/11/2017 - 08:28

      Remember doing the same thing when I went to the US in the 90s.

  • SynthZomBot on 02/11/2017 - 09:34
    +2

    I basically only use CDs, lossless rips of CDs and purchases from Bandcamp because they provide lossless media. I only recently started using the CDs more as I had gone down the path of vinyl but even though the sound quality and novelty is nice they are just too clunky, not to mention stupidly expensive. My boxes of CDs are on the way out of storage and going back on the wall on some new shelves.

    Have also been buying up CDs at garage sales for dirt cheap.

  • solidussnake on 02/11/2017 - 09:54

    Most CD's I have I get on Spotify for $12 a month at a higher bitrate and because Im with OPTUS its unmetered !!

    • idonotknowwhy on 02/11/2017 - 11:28
      +1

      Most CD's I have I get on Spotify for $12 a month at a higher bitrate and because Im with OPTUS its unmetered !!

      Huh? CDs are 1411kbps. Spotify is up to 320kbps.

  • techhead on 02/11/2017 - 11:05
    +3

    I still buy CD's, tbey are at the lowest price point in the life cycle and excellent bargains can be had. usually second hand early releases before they were "Loundend" and of course new releases but avoid "remastered" discs as they generally sound boomy and terrible. I rip them to FLAC and stow the CD. Encoded comptessed media (iTunes etc) just doesn't sound anywhere near as good on decent speakers. I love vinyl but have only a few discs (50) and it's purely about aesthetics, they degrade so fast and unless it's a 12 inch single, the dynamic range is pretty bad. I use Spotify (premium) but mainly for the Sonos and to sample music, the 320Kbps OGG is decent for compressed media.

    • Cluster on 02/11/2017 - 19:27

      The Loudness Wars are a disgrace to quality music. Have a look some examples shown here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

      Buying older CDs is often the only way to purchase old music the way it was meant to sound. Later releases, including everything on iTunes and streaming today, has been afflicted with the mentality that 'the louder the better!'

    • eswes on 03/11/2017 - 08:21

      Agree that used CDs are excellent value.

  • UltimateAI on 02/11/2017 - 11:51

    I agree with the posters DVD quality is superior to most of the streaming forecasts.
    However haven’t used a CD or DVD in 12 months and won’t miss them.
    The convienience of modern offerings is excellent. Paranoid though when all the physical media has gone will the prices of the streaming services increase?

    Somehow miss the felling of owning my own media.

  • [Deactivated] on 02/11/2017 - 16:04

    please dj aux put on the chain smokers they my favorite

  • Tidy on 02/11/2017 - 16:21

    I only use my laptop now, and it doesn't have a CD drive.

    I borrowed a maths textbook from my university library and it came with a CD that had solutions to the problem sets on it. Couldn't play it myself, I went to uni and none of the computers there had CD drives!!

    It's kinda sad but no, I will not miss CDs.

    • PJC on 02/11/2017 - 17:34

      None of them? Wow! 17 years ago a normal DVD player was $1,000 and now MSY have LG's DVD-RW for $17.

    • smpantsonfire on 02/11/2017 - 19:57

      I'm learning Japanese, and the textbooks came with a CD, and was like, well I'm gonna have to find my CD drive and plug it in to rip them to MP3. It was a lot of effort!

  • Sammyboy on 02/11/2017 - 19:39
    +1

    Disc rot is starting to become an issue. I dread the day it starts to affect my collection.
    https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/02/cds-are-starting-to-rot/
    I also have a few HD Audio discs for the now defunct HD DVD player. Its a pity blu-ray audio died too.

  • SirFlibbled on 03/11/2017 - 11:41

    I've never been an audiophile. I got rid of my 400+ CD collection about 10 years ago and went completely digital. Haven't missed them at all (including the room they took up).

  • juicy j on 03/11/2017 - 14:59

    CD’s are great, but I do like using an ipod or a usb. I cant throw my huge cd collection away, i’ll die! lmao

    My first CD was Gangster’s Paradise by Coolio followed by The Fugees Killing me Softly, cant throw special shit like that away haha

  • MAKAMAKA on 03/11/2017 - 17:18

    CDs are great, but the digital is more portable. Sure thing people will miss them.
    They prefer portable .mp3 than high-quality music nowadays.
    Even iPod is going to be die today.

  • Baa on 03/11/2017 - 19:47

    I have kept my CD collection, but possibly haven't bought a CD for 15+ years.

    I have some stuff in flac, however spotify is my weapon of choice.

  • pennypincher98 on 05/11/2017 - 16:26
    -1

    As sad as I'll be too see the day CD's go, I can say economically digital music is a much better option, more efficient and way less space.

    CDs are great, but digital music reigns supreme.

    • ThirdRonnie on 07/11/2017 - 10:21
      +1

      digital music is a much better option

      CDs ARE digital!!!

      • pennypincher98 on 07/11/2017 - 11:30
        -1

        I didn't know you were going to be so anal about it otherwise I would have clarified.
        Btw their data is converted to an analog format before its played.

        • ThirdRonnie on 07/11/2017 - 12:55

          their data is converted to an analog format before its played

          All digital media, whether CDs or audio files have to be converted to analogue format when playing, otherwise we would not be able to hear it. Ears are analogue!

  • g12345567 on 06/11/2017 - 22:19

    Still have my cd collection. Just haven't purchased a new CD in ages. Gone were the days when they used to cose $30 for a new cd or before internet was popular abd had to go to a store and import the cd.

    If I do buy a cd its usually from a second hand shop for about $1 or $2 which is A bargain. Have forund some rare gems this way and titles I wouldn't normally purchase if they were at new retail prices. Still find CD handy for playing tn the car.

    My CD player is an Onkyo DX-C390 6-Disc changer. Also plays Mp3 fom writable data CD but thats fairly useless these days. Was purchased 23rd October 2010 and still working perfectly.

    I doub't CDs will fully dissapear any time soon. They atill sound great today. Much better then tapes and LP. Although I do see CD singles almost dissapeared. Gone are the days when you used to buy the album and then get the CD single for all the additional tracks and mixes.

    • eswes on 10/11/2017 - 15:11
      +1

      Good points, not sure why you were negged.

    • PJC on 10/11/2017 - 15:44

      Have a plus-vote.

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