Youngsters these days.

jhills,

Did you type this on an Underwood and have your grandson upload it to the internet?  I too, like my old CDs and LPs, but I find it more convenient to upload them to a streamer (about 5,000 CDs).  It is far easier to search my collection on an iPad rather than thumbing through the 5,000 CD's (I still have them shelved), plus, I don't have the hassle of reshelving the CDs I do decide to play.  Streaming services are also a good way to discover music that is new to you.  Internet radio stations are also good for finding new music.

I have found that with many older recordings, the particular versions/masterings that are available from streaming services often sound crappier than the original CDs; this is not always the case, so, it is not an issue of inherent inferiority of streaming, but, a choice on mastering that the re-issuing party made.  That is on reason for keeping your old CD's in either their original physical form or ripped to a server. 

I've never bothered to turn my LP's into music files, so I do spin records once in a while.   

You know, I recently went through a change of life. I sold all my records and stereo equipment, and with the money I made from the sales I bought a Bluesound PowerNode 2i streamer, a pair of ELAC speakers and some HIFIMAN HE-400i open backed headphones. With the rest of the money I could get a 60-year Qobuz subscription. Funny thing is,  now I don’t spend time or money looking for, buying, cleaning or organizing records. But I listen to MORE music, newer music, different music. Maybe listen to your grandson and let him buy you a streamer. This old dog learned a new trick and is loving it.

You have to consider a lot of youngsters are starting from scratch. They don’t have large CD or vinyl collections. From that point of view, you can either spend tens or hundreds of dollars a month building a (relatively small) collection or spend $10 per month to have access to pretty much every song ever made. From that perspective, it seems like a no brainer. And it sounds pretty good.

I’m not quite a youngster, but I’m definitely not an old guy. Haha. I am building a CD collection for a number of reasons:

1) CD’s simply sound better. In my experience and with my gear, CD playback sounds better than streaming in every scenario I have tried. Since my main priority is sound quality, CD is a no brainer.

2) I prefer to own music. There’s just too many things that can go wrong with streaming for me to use it as a viable format for my main rig. The internet’s down? Forgot your password? The app won’t load? The streaming companies servers are down? Whoops, you no longer have any music. Internet connection slow? Now the song is "skipping." Your favorite song got replaced with a poorly remastered version? Now your favorite song sounds like crap. That’s all completely unacceptable to me. I want to put a CD in the CD player and hear music. Period. No nonsense. I stream in my car and at work and on my phone. I’m not opposed to streaming, but it has no serious place in my main rig.

3) With CDs, I can pass my music collection on to my kids. The worst scenario I can think of is if I passed away and my kids asked my wife, "What music did dad listen to?" and instead of saying, "Go check out his music collection," she has to say, "We don’t know his password so all of his music playlists have vaporized." Music is too important to me for that to be a possible reality.

PS: Count me in that group that appreciates "Walkmans." I recently discovered that they can produce very good sound as long as you feed them clean, well regulated power.

DJones +1

We sold our house in MD and are in the early stages of having a home built in Western, NC.

To prepare out house for listing we "de-cluttered" and "staged" and am somewhat used to having less stuff in our living room.

So, instead of having an audio cabinet, receiver, CD player, speakers connected with wiring, etc. I decided to order a pair of KEF LS50 wireless speakers, which we'll drive with wireless sources (Spotify and Roon).

I suspect that the "younger generation" won't like the idea of matching this source with that amp, with those speakers, with those cables, etc. etc.  Streaming quality is so good now, no need to buy CDs and vinyl.  And that gives the manufacturer the opportunity to match the built in amplifier with the drivers, etc.

I do have a much more "high end" music system for another room, with over 1000 pounds of "traditional" equipment, but I'll be hiding out in my "man cave" to enjoy that.  But in our living room, de-clutter is the way to go!