Old CDs and records

LOL...are we being trolled??

@rvpiano I don't know how you decide on a daily basis what to listen to, but looking over your physical library sometimes you must decide to pull something out that you'd half forgotten about.  I have no idea how (or if) the algorithms work on the major streaming sites for classical music, particularly the composers and pieces off the beaten track, but given all the extra expense from where I am now, I'm not inclined to experiment.

I don't believe rvpiano is making claim cd's and lp's worthless in general, rather worthless to him. I'm in pretty much same boat, well over 7k cd's and vinyl, trying to determine fair value entails so much work, daunting task. Yeah, I could sell in batches, guessing at values of many within that batch, may screw myself by greatly miscalculating a hot stamper or other unknown to me valuable record. Most of my vinyl is likely first generation releases, having been purchased back in the day, I've found a couple worth some real money in doing research on just a few.

I like the idea of giving cd's to library or some charity.

I doubt many of us streamers will ever go back to physical media, once your streaming sound quality has equaled or exceeded cd over transport, that's done with. Vinyl has better chance to remain in my system although rarely used, I have to admit vinyl does have it's unique value for me. I do need to cull the herd on vinyl, takes up far too much space, and my taste in music has changed from when most were purchased.

Following on last sentence above, a great limitation of physical media for me is my tastes in music change over time, media remains static, media I no longer play becomes obsolete. Streaming dynamic, leads me down many paths towards new and exciting music.

Yes, this is a deplorable situation.

More and more people are dying these days with substantial collections of books, records, paraphernalia left behind in the hands of those who cannot see anything beyond a financial return for them.

Ok it’s not Citizen Kane, but it’s an issue nevertheless.

What to do?

At the very least everyone should leave clear instructions of what to do in case of their unexpected demise.

It is vital to appoint someone with the legal power to do so.

Not a pleasant task but as far as we know, we will all have to die one day.

This might mean sorting out legal papers in advance.

The more prudent might want to downsize their collections by choice beforehand, before someone else will have to do it.

Recently a very close friend of mine died unexpectedly. He lived alone and had no close family. Now I’m facing the prospect of watching his carefully collated records and journals being ’cleared’ by his housing agency.

He lived his life through his ’archives’ and the thought of what might now happen would have appalled him.

He did once say that I would have to sort his stuff in case anything happened but there was never any paperwork. I didn’t even want to consider such a possibility, and now see what’s happened.

This leaves me wondering about my books, records, comics too.

Should I sell them or should I keep them for nostalgia’s sake?

The music side seems to be heading for ripped MP3s but I don’t particularly like digital books.

Now I'm really confused:

You hear it said a lot on Audiogon,  that LPs are better and more desirable as a musical source than CDs.  I disagree, but many audiophiles hold this view.  They trash CD at every opportunity.   They even 'apologize' if they inadvertently admit to listening to a CD. :)

Then along comes Streaming.  Now audiophiles seem to be saying, the standard for great streaming is, if it equals CD in sound quality.  Am I missing something?

Cheers