kristina

So I've been doing alot of online searching lately, whether it's for new artists to get into, or ones I already know I'm into... and I can't believe how quickly CD's are going out of print. In addition to the high prices of OOP music it seems to be getting harder to find reliable sellers of CD's.
I'm not much into this whole change to dgital music and I was wondering if anyone here on the forum feels the same way? For instance I would much prefer an album be released on CD rather than as an ITunes exclusive. Without the official packaging it's just not the same for me.

nightwing82

If I plan on purchasing the entire album, I will buy the physical CD. If I only want 1 - 3 songs off of it or so, I buy the songs digitally on iTunes.

GenPion

Yes, I prefer CD's. Absolutely.

bigjim25

I'd rather have the CD also. I have yet to purchase any digital music.

WMAangel

I prefer having the full lossless audio of a CD, and then being able to rip it into any format and quality I choose....
Lossy only exclusive tracks/albums = teh suk

TGM

I think anyone in their right mind would prefer to own the CD, unless storage is an issue... but with the price of albums, and the fact that most recording artists these days suck ass with only 1-2 good tracks on a 12-13 track album, downloading mp3 is for me!

Alyoshka

I prefer to buy cds but like many people have said, if the album only has a few good songs, I'll just download those.

kstublen

I dread the day when digital music/movies replaces discs.

rw2516

Any album I want I buy the cd. I will buy single songs from itunes from albums I don't care to own but always burn them to disc and then create a new compilation cd with songs from cds I own using Nero. Don't own an ipod or any kind of mp3 player. Discs only.

Poink

Definitely prefer owning a physical object when possible.

While there are certainly advantages of digital/download-able music such as unlimited supply, more people being exposed to Artist X, I still like actually getting out of the house and going out into the scary, malevolent world to buy a few albums.

One thing I really miss is the element of surprise; Radiohead's Kid A was one of the last albums that was able to really blow people's expectations away when it came out, since nobody really had any idea it was going to be so different than their last album. Nowadays, tracks/albums get leaked so often (not to mention tons of audio/video from performances), that new albums can already feel "old" upon their actual release date.

Also, some of my favorite, life-changing artists I discovered from just reading a listing from a label's catalog or a distributor and taking a chance and ordering a CD, not just listening to low quality 30 second samples.

UAIOE

I'd rather own a CD than MP3's. I've got some MP3's from Amazon, but they were free (mostly via Pepsi).

I can't bring myself to pay for an MP3 because it is neither a tangible object, nor a service (like paying the water bill).

At least with a CD I get to chose what I want to do with my personal copy. If I wanna rip the music, I'll rip it (the record labels can stuff it). If I wanna listen to it in the car or in my home...I can do that too. And I don't have to worry about bit rate either.

fiver

I have a few reasons why I won't purchase downloadable music:

1. I can't transcode from mp3 to another format without quality loss
2. Most mp3 resalers don't keep track of your downloads so you can redownload the track(s) if you lose your collection. There's absolutely no reason why this could not be done and I won't go digital with that kind of risk.


If I could download in a format like FLAC, no DRM, and have a dealer like Amazon or Itunes provide the ability to redownload my collection, I'd probably switch over.

Michael

nodeerforamonth

Physical CDs are much better than some bits/bytes on a file that's on a harddrive.

What I can't understand is why are CDs not selling that well. I find it hard to believe that all of America is illegally downloading everything. I do (and I buy physical CDs of what I like), but when I tell my friends that "this new album is out", absolutely no one has any clue as to where and how to download it. They don't know what a "zip" or "rar" file is. And I highly doubt they're buying songs off iTunes or whatnot.

B5Erik

I want something physical when I purchase music. I want something of the highest quality and durability. I want the booklet.

I don't want to have to worry about losing thousands of dollars worth of downloads if my hard drive takes a crap and will not boot up anymore.

I just don't get why some people prefer downloads to the real thing. To each his or her own, I guess, but it makes no sense to me when you can buy the CD and RIP it onto your computer in seconds if you want the digital files.

The Cow

CDs are digital.

But yes, pretty sure most people prefer lossless audio. I don't care so much about the physical media or the packaging, though.

Drav3n

I use to be all about having the actual cd, booklet and artwork but now not so much. It bothers me that if you buy a new cd, theres a real good chance that a 'special edition' will come out which will have either a dvd or bonus/live/acoustic/demo tracks. i hate having to double dip just for a few new songs or extra content. either give it to us all at once or do it like a videogame and make it downloadable at a cheap price.

the only way ill buy a cd now is if it comes w/ the exclusives on the disc and are not available through digital download.

statcat

FLAC is lossless audio and is gaining more popularity. Honestly I can't tell the difference between it and a high bitrate mp3 though (like 320) At this point I think I prefer digital music just because it's all at my fingertips and I don't have to be fumbling with stacks of cds. I have many cds and I like having them as well, but I've moved beyond the materialism of collecting to just listening.

FatTony

I was all about the packaging and the physical product up until a little over a year ago. I always thought to myself how much I liked having the booklet and the actual disc, but as I started running out of places to keep discs, I came to the realization that I never really looked at the booklet or used the disc once I loaded it onto my iPod, which was the first thing I did after buying it. So really, it became a storage issue for me, and with tons of cheaper options out there than iTunes, 2009 has become the year that I switched to digital purchases for the majority of new releases.

Sessa17

I really use to until I moved, & now I'm getting the same way with books as I'm likely going to get a Kindle soon. For me it's just about one simple thing, I just have too many CDs & Books & not enough room for them. I LOVE physically having movies, that is a medium that I don't need the digital advent for, so I have the room for my movie collection.

But with music, it's just so much easier having thousands of songs at my disposal in my ipod. I didn't want my at one time 3,000 CDs, taking up so much space anymore, so I sold most of them. The convenience of digital music, for me, out weighs just owning actual CDs.

kristina

I like the conveinience of ITnes/Amazon if they have bonus tracks that can be downloaded individualy... I just loathe the idea of re-purchasing an album on mp3 just for the bonus tracks. I think part of the reason I'm not much for digital music is apparently something's wrong with my CD burner... and I've Googled and read so many different ways of fixing it (slowing down the speed, or updating the drives) that it just makes me eager to get a new computer that would actualy work correctly without having to do any extra work.
Also with copying music from ITunes to a blank CD is not that exciting since most blank CD's look the same.

I used to love buying CD's at Best Buy, but upon researching, it seems like Barnes and Noble has a better track record of having OOP CD's in-store a bit longer than BB does.

B5Erik

So what happens if your hard drive crashes and you cant retrieve the files? Buy all the music again? If you had the CD's you could just re-rip them and move on.

Decker

Anyone else here prefer driving to work in their car rather than riding the city bus?

GreenVulture

And if you could just copy all the MP3s back onto your hard drive had you burned them to a CD/DVD. Or copied them onto a flash drive. Or an external drive. Or an online storage site.

Or you could just spend several hours ripping all your CDs again. Whichever works best for you.

Cathepsin

As long as your IPod is functioning, and you have all your files on your IPod, you can simply restore your library from your IPod.

What if your house burns down in a fire, are you really going to buy all your CDs again?

The Cow

Backup drives, RAIDs. Storage is cheap these days.