What will become of my beloved CDs?

roberjerman,

There are a few of us that have not embraced streaming, but the reality is that we are dinosauri. Streaming is gaining traction big time. Reading above posts from 16 years ago, I really felt like Marty from Back to the future movie. It just happened that I stopped by a local library basement today and browsed through the CDs they are selling. $1 a piece, all donated. I would guess there was a few hundred of them, maybe 600-700, ranging from 1970s German pop star, to traditional Chinese music, to multiple versions of Beethoven’s piano works, and anything in between. Someone left them there and that is, with actually nice outcome so far, a big part of the answer to the original post. Someone had no use for CDs anymore. Not so long ago, I would browse boxes with records there. They are no more. Probably whatever could be sold was sold and remainder ended up in the landfill. They do not take them in the library anymore. Maybe, 16 years from now, there will be no library to dump your CD collection at, either.

When it comes to digging out CDs someone did not want, two or three years ago I came across an unopened CD in that same library basement. I bought it for $1 and liked it a lot. I went on amazon to see if others had similar response. The first thing I noticed was the price. $200. It has decreased since then and is only $91 now although used and only "good" and "very good" condition. Having said that, I would not sell it for $200 despite having it on hard drives and who knows where else. I like having it, as irrational as that may be.

Been buying a lot of used cd's lately because there are so many out there & they are so cheap. I'm very fussy about the titles but have found some great stuff & I enjoy it. I also believe DAC technology will keep improving making these even more enjoyable in the future. This is reminiscent of what I did with vinyl in the early 90's. Still buy vinyl, just less than I did a few years ago.  

Technology is a funny thing. Back in 80 something I bought a very nice TT rig at the dawn of the CD era......practically over night record stores dried up and many of the larger labels stopped making them altogether. It got very difficult to find new vinyl....and I was SERIOUSLY P'ssd. Keep in mind, this was pre-internet, so online shopping hadn't been invented yet. Today I see the same thing happening with streaming/downloading music. Companies have a financial interest in pushing the newest technology that they have invested in........often at the expense of those who choose not to board the train.

Take heart, CD's are NOT going away any year soon, although, like vinyl, new releases will probably become harder to find........One of the advantages of CD vs vinyl is that unless abused, they really should play as well in 20 years as they do today, so buying used is unlikely to be a major problem.

What I CAN see becoming an issue is playback hardware and it's already starting. I think that soon you will have two choices if you still want to spin discs.............low budget, low performance or more money than you might want to part with for a good machine. I expect most of the in-between machines to go away.

Myself, I just purchased a new, high end machine, at least as high end as I can reasonably afford. I expect it and I to grow old together, with or without downloading anything.

Lots of nice, used CDP's available now because many people are jumping ship to the latest and greatest. ..........If you have a tight budget, pick up a good quality used machine........or even two if you really have a ton of discs that you still want to be able to play. Put the second one in a box in the basement until the first one dies. You'll be set for years. 

As for sound quality, I think it's already about as good as it can reasonably get. Red book CD, which I mostly listen to, can sound extremely good.....on a good system, which I have.....Many of the blogs and reviewers that I've read don't seem to "hear" much or any advantage to HQ, MQA, DSD, upsampling, etc.....vs the lowly red book on a good system.............At some point more bits are simply more bits..........I do have SACD and on some discs it does sound a little better than red book, but many of my better red book discs sound close enough that I don't have much of a preference. To a large degree, it's system dependent. If you have an amazing set up, you may hear more of a difference.....I don't.

The latest and greatest, often isn't...........people still routinely compare even the best digital gear to the poor old , hissy, poppy, 33 1/3 rpm record......Quite a compliment when you consider how far technology has come in 30 years...........Technology will always move forward because it CAN, but newer isn't necessarily better, just different.

CDPs aren't going anywhere, soon. Check out this thread from A'gon:
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/if-you-still-spin-cd-s-their-is-a-reference-level-transport-for-reasona
Right now, for the price of a decent server (which will be obsoleted in about 6 months) you can get a CDP and DAC that can rival some of the best PC gear out there. Sure, it's kind of old fashioned but who cares?


All the best,
Nonoise