Why Do ~You~ Still Play CDs?


I'm curious why you still play CDs in the age of streaming. I recently got back into CD listening and I'm curious if your reasons align with mine, which are:

  • Enjoying the physical medium—the tactile nature of the case, the disc, the booklet, etc.
  • Forcing myself to actually listen to an album, versus being easily distracted by an algorithm, or "what's next" in my playlist.
  • Actually owning the music I purchase, versus being stuck with yet another monthly subscription.

Others? 

itanibro

@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. 

I'm rediscovering my CD collection with a used Denafrips Ares R2R Ladder DAC connected to my Oppo UDP-205. Cool stuff

And if internet is down will you have music?Upstate audiophile I agree with you.

Jnovak did you read Blisshifi post Topping d90 dac has characteristics of Tambuququi Mola mola dac?