Why Do ~You~ Still Play CDs?

I have a huge collection, I still buy new ones and I prefer the sound of CDs on my player vs. Streaming.

It's still a fun way to explore music in a tactile sense.  I don;t do vinyl but buy/sell it to help fund hobby.  Next up will be streaming and probably hesitated to now for lack of understanding enough of the tech to make informed purchase decisions and also the time it may take to surf thru the music.

Assuming a certain percentage of streamed music would appeal to me, I would need to have a way to select, organize and categorize an online library for future listening as I do not always remember the artist, album, music by name and would want to minimize searching of music I already selected that I like.

That probably means choosing a streaming service in which I would plan or hope to have a long term relationship with. It would bother me to either lose music I like if the streaming svce decides to drop that music or loses the library settings, etc.

Then there is the time to explore the offerings itself.  I have kept what I consider the best albums I want to keep in my collection which is approximately 400+ cds at the moment.  While I have decent equipment, I do not typically listen to music for hours on end.  So there's the commitment to listening for enjoyment, relaxation, to energize, etc.,  Time becomes another factor in commitment.

Other than that, who knows.  maybe I would really like streaming especially for de-cluttering.  But...I think I would always keep the CDs/SACDs that meant the most to me, so a combination perhaps?

Several reasons. 

I still like physical media. 

Living in LA, there are quite a few brick and mortar stores selling used CD's. And since I love a lot of obscure, avant-garde, progressive music, browsing Amoeba's, Counterpoint's, CD Trader's used avant-garde classical section, or jazz section, I will often come across a CD by a composer or artist I am not familiar with, that looks intriguing. So, I will usually take a chance and buy it, and often come across something truly brilliant. 

With streaming, I would have never have come across these sort of discoveries.

I subscribe to Qobuz, which I like a lot. But they don't have everything by a composer or artist I may like. 

For example, I love a serial piece by composer, Ernst Krenek, called "Static and Ecstatic". Qobuz does not have it. I have a CD version recorded by the Cleveland  Philharmonic, and an incredible vinyl recording by the LA Phil chamber orchestra.

I am also a huge fan of an avant-garde prog band called Univers Zero from Belgium. They have 11 releases between 1977 and 2023. Qobuz only has 4, Tidal also has only 4.

So, unless I have my CD and vinyl collection, I would be missing quite a few of my favorite recordings. 

@simonmoon

I almost didn’t post to this thread, but then I saw your message. "Univers Zero", you say?? An audiophile after my own heart!

UZ is just one of dozens of "Rock in Opposition" and USSR artists that I’ve loved for decades, and which are mostly ignored by both Tidal and Qobuz. If you didn’t, like me, buy the Cuneiform CDs and LPs when you had the chance, or trade American albums for locally produced discs/disks with Euro & Soviet-bloc penpals in the 80s, your only online source today for those progressive-rock, jazz, and RIO releases is YouTube.

But for me, the dealbreaker is that Tidal & Qobuz have a tendency to simply delete albums without warning. Admittedly, this is at least sometimes due to content-owner licensing issues, but regardless, I’ve been burnt too many times when I foolishly relied on a streaming service to make favorite albums available in perpetuity. And not just vintage Soviet-era European releases — Yoko Ono, Terry Riley, 1950s-60s academic electronic-music anthologies, and even Chick Corea, Sia (!), and Yes releases, have all vanished abruptly from my Tidal playlist during just the last few months.

So that’s the reason why, despite streaming most of the time, physical media remains my preferred delivery mechanism. And — I hope you’re listening, Netflix — all of this applies to movies as well as audio albums.

@simonmoon, if you’re a Univers Zero fan, you’ve got to also love Art Zoyd, right?

I’m surprised more haven’t said CD to avoid additional tech and screens in their listening rooms. Gen Y is now the biggest buyers of CD. For myself, it is so nice to enjoy that time away from phone/computer/tablet and just listen to music. I like to look at the booklet and lyrics on paper too. I’m a millennial fwiw. Too much tech all day for work.