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Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

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Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

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Old 07-24-19 | 09:33 PM
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Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Yes, I'm officially done as of December 2018. I have not purchased a CD since. The last few I picked up off Amazon were The Corrs latest album, Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack and The Greatest Showman soundtrack.

I have a CD player in my 2018 Kia Sportage and I will still use it occasionally for whatever I feel like listening to of my remaining collection. But, I'm not investing anymore money in this dead music format. I don't buy too many albums anymore, but if I do it will be digital.

Old 07-24-19 | 09:55 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I have not bought a CD in at least 5 years. With the advent of streaming services I would never purchase a CD, vinyl, tape again.
Old 07-24-19 | 10:11 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Yes, I still buy them when they are a more viable option than vinyl. For example, I recently bought an album where the only vinyl option was an out of print pressing that sells for over $100 and the CD was under ten bucks. And I bought a EP CD for six bucks while the only vinyl option was a picture disc (with likely inferior sound) for over twenty bucks. I still like buying music on physical media, so sometimes I still need to resort to a CD.
Old 07-24-19 | 10:14 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

If it’s something I really want I’ll still buy CD’s. I don’t buy nearly as many as I used to. I’ve gotten three this year so far, and one of those was actually one that I got free. I basically buy albums by my favorite bands, which I’ve limited and I also like buying certain soundtracks (more film scores than actual soundtracks with licensed songs).

Last edited by Mike86; 07-25-19 at 08:55 AM.
Old 07-24-19 | 10:17 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Over the last few years I've only bought new Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor CDs, as I'm a collector and like to have each release in every available format if I can. That's been in for awhile now though, and I doubt I'll ever buy another non NIN CD ever again.
Old 07-24-19 | 10:42 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I still purchase occasionally from smaller bands merch tables.
Old 07-24-19 | 11:05 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Not sure why, but while I’ve become very ok with purchasing movies digitally, I won’t even consider buying music in digital.
Old 07-24-19 | 11:24 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I actually had my Official Stopped Buying CDs Certificate notarized the other day ...

But yeah, I tend to go for downloads but will still buy used CDs occasionally, and if I buy a new release CD retail I'll do it as close to the band's pocketbook as possible. wait what?
Old 07-24-19 | 11:32 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Yup. I stopped. The only CD I would buy is if a new Enigma album is released which to me is also a collectible. I own everything of Enigma music.
Old 07-24-19 | 11:57 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Originally Posted by Trevor
Not sure why, but while I’ve become very ok with purchasing movies digitally, I won’t even consider buying music in digital.
I’m actually just the opposite. I’ve come around to buying most albums or songs digitally, but I don’t foresee myself ever going fully digital with movies or tv shows.
Old 07-25-19 | 12:18 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I still buy CDs. Although it's far more common that I'll buy older CDs, mainly original pressings or, if possible, audiophile labels like DCC, Audio Fidelity, and MFSL.

Remasters (mostly) tend to be stupidly loud and compressed.

It's pretty rare that I buy any music format, other than CDs or vinyl.
Old 07-25-19 | 05:43 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I'll never quit buying them. I do it in spurts though. I may go a year without buying any then catch the bug and buy a hundred or so over a few months.
Old 07-25-19 | 07:06 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Yeah I've quit with the exception of my favorite artists and I've limited those to just a couple.
Old 07-25-19 | 08:54 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I started this thread when I was moving: https://forum.dvdtalk.com/music-talk...-rid-them.html

I've pretty much stopped buying CDs all together and just stream... even in the car.
Old 07-25-19 | 09:13 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I almost exclusively buy music on CDs (as recently as this month!). Every once in a great while I'll buy an album digitally, but generally that's just if it's not available on CD or would be prohibitively expensive to import.
Old 07-25-19 | 09:17 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I buy the CDs of my favorite, Pearl Jam, as I have a whole shelf full. Otherwise, I think even when I bought the new Beck record on CD I've only listened to it digitally. Got it as a $6 stocking stuffer, and it was much less than buying the MP3 album. This was before I got into Amazon Unlimited this year.
Old 07-25-19 | 09:42 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Yes.
Old 07-25-19 | 09:55 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Originally Posted by story
I buy the CDs of my favorite, Pearl Jam, as I have a whole shelf full.
What completely turned me away from buying any further Pearl Jam cds, was when they released a gazillion live concert cds back in y2k.

(Back in the day, I use to listen to a Live In Atlanta three-disc cd set "Dissident" from 1994. It was the only live Pearl Jam cd which didn't sound like crap at the time circa mid-1990s, and it appeared to be official).
Old 07-25-19 | 10:02 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Originally Posted by morriscroy
What completely turned me away from buying any further Pearl Jam cds, was when they released a gazillion live concert cds back in y2k.

(Back in the day, I use to listen to a Live In Atlanta three-disc cd set "Dissident" from 1994. It was the only live Pearl Jam cd which didn't sound like crap at the time circa mid-1990s, and it appeared to be official).
They still release their live shows as bootleg releases through their site (as CD’s or digital releases). I obviously don’t buy them all because there are far too many, but Pearl Jam is one of the bands I still buy CD’s from. Just their main albums or the discs that see wider releases. I kinda like the bootleg discs as they’re nice if you want a certain show or attended a show and want a memento from it.
Old 07-25-19 | 10:08 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I have a massive lossless collection on my hard drive, so I still buy CD's if I can't get a flac download. Most of the time, the CD is cheaper too since I can either find a used copy, or it's sub $10 for the CD, when a MP3 version is $10. So yep, still buy them.

Now basically I rip it, and then never touch it again, as I don't have a CD player in my car, nor do I have one hooked up to my turntable/receiver setup.
Old 07-25-19 | 10:09 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I still buy audio cds, though for reasons completely unrelated to listening to music.

I mostly look for cds with extra basketcase drm which were released back in the early->mid 2000s, such as Sony/BMG and EMI titles which had nasty stuff like Cactus Data Shield, xcp, mediamaxx, etc ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_B...ootkit_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus_Data_Shield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control

These versions are largely gone from store shelves for more than a decade, where most tainted copies were recalled and/or replaced with non-drm cd pressings sometime during late-2005 and 2006. The only places I ever see these tainted versions nowadays, are second hand record shops + thrift stores where they typcially show up for $1 a pop or less.

My main interest is figuring out how these extra basketcase drm schemes functioned.
Old 07-25-19 | 10:21 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Originally Posted by Mike86

They still release their live shows as bootleg releases through their site (as CD’s or digital releases). I obviously don’t buy them all because there are far too many, but Pearl Jam is one of the bands I still buy CD’s from. Just their main albums or the discs that see wider releases. I kinda like the bootleg discs as they’re nice if you want a certain show or attended a show and want a memento from it.
(On a tangent).

In addition to Pearl Jam, I also feel the same way about Iron Maiden though not to the same extreme volume quantity in regard to live cd releases.

It seems like Iron Maiden releases a live album (or dvd) for almost every single tour since y2k. The few I have purchased don't seem to live up to their old classic Live After Death or a Real Live/Dead One albums. Post-y2k it sounds like they are uninspired or bored during these live recordings.

Since then, I have only bothered buying Iron Maiden's studio albums on cd.
Old 07-25-19 | 11:09 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I've never purchased a digital album, nor would I want to. Sure, if they are included with my vinyl or CD purchase I definitely make use of them. But I'd have a hard time paying the same price for a digital album than for a CD that I can rip myself (if no digital copy is included) and still have a tangible backup. I do a lot of streaming with Spotify, but if I discover an album on there that I really like, I usually want a physical copy, just the collector in me I guess. My Blu-ray/DVD purchases have fallen off a cliff though.
Old 07-25-19 | 11:45 AM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

I switched over to vinyl a while back.

The last CD I bought was Opeth's "Heritage" in 2011.

When I was a kid/teenager in the 80s, I bought as many albums as I could on vinyl instead of cassette. The Columbia and BMG record clubs were great for getting lots of albums dirt cheap.

I favored records over cassettes for several of reasons:

One, I thought they sounded better than cassettes. Cassettes always sounded muddy/hissy and had random dropouts. I didn't mind the occasional vinyl pop.

Two, had a record player, so they didn't borrow my stuff and lose or destroy it.

Around 1990 or so, I switched over to CDs, when I got a CD player, the record clubs were offering better deals on CDs, and vinyl started to get scarce.

Then when I found eBay, I started filling holes in my collection.

I found that there were a lot of CDs that were out of print and sold for big bucks back in 2000 or so. I sold my CD of albums like Vio-Lence's "Eternal Nightmare" for over fifty dollars and turned around and bought a sealed LP of the same for under ten dollars. So I sold off a lot of out of print CDs and bought up a lot of cheap vinyl, because nobody gave a shit about it until a few years ago when it started making a comeback.
Old 07-25-19 | 12:30 PM
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Re: Have you officially stopped buying compact discs?

Yeah, I sold a lot of my vinyl around 1999 for a fraction of what they would go for these days, and am seriously kicking myself now.


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