Best Ever Albums

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

dholl — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 22:12:35 GMT

Author: dholl

Posted: 02/23/2019 03:12

This has been a nice thread, chaps.

i've had to up my budget-per-CD to get some big favourites in my collection: Musik von Harmonia & Iva Bittová's Dance of the Vampires both got me spending into double-figures for the first time with €12 & 10 (including postage) respectively.

Worth it 😁

Yesterday I blasted my recently-bought CD versions of Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole & Underworld's 2ndtoughest on the Discman with my Shure SH940 closed-headphones while doing the big weekly shop at the local massive supermarket. Now that was an epic listening experience! Big hi-fi sound and the Discman didn't skip a beat.

Great albums deserve their own little physical space in our world, as strange as that may sound.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

TracyJacks — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 16:52:46 GMT

Author: TracyJacks

Posted: 02/20/2019 21:52

I only buy CDs and never buy songs/albums online. I still have cassettes as well which I sometimes listen to. My record player is broken so I can't use it these days but I also have vinyls (both pop/rock and classical), I listened to them a lot in the past.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

Liedzeit — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 08:09:09 GMT

Author: Liedzeit

Posted: 02/20/2019 13:09

There is a fourth medium. Cassettes. My order would be 1. cassettes, 2. vinyl, 3. CDs, 4. online

And it has nothing to do with quality or convenience. It is a strictly autobiographical order. My heart jumps listening to old cassettes, I feel really good listening to LPs (even newly bought), CDs to me are just background noise (and I do own a couple of hundreds!) and I listen to Online music only if and when I have no other option. E.g. when working thru the 1001 Albums I am supposed to have listened to before death. (And this is the toughest task I ever committed myself to.)

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

RoundTheBend — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 23:27:53 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/19/2019 04:27

True stories.

I think Dave Grohl said something like, I don't care if you steal my music so long as you come to my show. It's easy for him because he like is a one man band as far as the record company, etc. goes. Some of those mastering joints get paid a single fee, so they actually don't care if it is bought 10 times or a million.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

Tap — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 23:11:24 GMT

Author: Tap

Posted: 02/19/2019 04:11

baystateoftheart wrote:

Also I heard that if you want to support artists, the best way is to buy concert tickets, as they get a much bigger share from those.

but if you love recordings of music then the recording and mastering engineers and other behind the scenes folks and sometimes even the label will all need your support for that to continue being a thing that happens.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

baystateoftheart — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 23:05:24 GMT

Author: baystateoftheart

Posted: 02/19/2019 04:05

Actually, it's good that a wide variety of music is now easily available at little to no cost, because it allows low-income people to participate in listening to music as a hobby. But yeah if you have the means, I endorse paying for music as much as possible.

Also I heard that if you want to support artists, the best way is to buy concert tickets, as they get a much bigger share from those.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

RoundTheBend — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 22:50:57 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/19/2019 03:50

One logical fallacy I had with my CD's is I would almost always buy them used, so my money never went to the artist anyway :(.

Otherwise great stuff Romanelli.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

Romanelli — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 22:26:55 GMT

Author: Romanelli

Posted: 02/19/2019 03:26

My entire collection is on CD. I've never had one go bad on me. Not one. It's just like vinyl...if you take care of your shit, it should last you pretty much forever.

Mine are on CD for one reason. I had a large vinyl collection that was stolen. I had a decent sized collection of cassettes that were falling apart faster than I could buy more. CD's? I gave it a shot, and CD's have never once let me down. Good sound quality, and a fantastic amount of old music was released when CD's became the thing. I like them. I preferred the size of the LP's (bigger album art), but they take up a fuck of a lot of room. And albums now...I see prices that artists SHOULD be screaming to high heaven about. We could sure use Tom Petty about now to keep the prices reasonable.

But in the end, it's all about what works for you. Personally, (and this is just me)...I don't like the digital music because (1) it doesn't sound as good, and (2) it seems to me to be way too...disposable. Today, you can stream something, and if you don't like it, you can just pass. You can download way too much music for free (I do not believe that ANYONE should give away their art for free...but again...that's me), and you can add a gazillion albums to your "collection" with pretty much little to no personal investment. I guess I'm old school...I believe that if you are going to call something yours, you should have a physical copy of it. I understand that a lot of people do not feel that way, and that's okay. But that's what works for me.

CD's? Buy them. At the very least, buy your downloads directly from the artist. Support the people who make the music that you love. But remember that artists don't make shit from downloads. See the ones you can live and buy CD's or vinyl or cassettes from their merch table. You can't do that with everyone, obviously...but do so when you can. It's like a good book...it's always better when you can hold it in your hand.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

RoundTheBend — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 22:10:53 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/19/2019 03:10

Tap wrote:

but also the next time I move I'm not gonna be like "fuck Im gonna have to get so many boxes for all of these FLACs"

🤣

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

Tap — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 02:56:32 GMT

Author: Tap

Posted: 02/18/2019 07:56

dholl wrote:

Tap wrote:

they can also surpass cd quality's 44.1 khz limitations.

I buy cd's sometimes but I mostly buy digital because I don't really care about physical objects, I just want to listen to music. and it's so easy to listen to the whole thing, like you just put it on and then do that.

the human ear can't appreciate better than uncompressed 44.1khz. higher sample rates are useful for producers: micro-editing, correcting, downsampling etc but for pure listening there's no real benefits.

I mean yeah it's probably the bit depth increase that really makes the difference for music with high dynamic range so you can turn it up with less distortion, but that would probably only make a difference on an extremely audiophile setup. still figured it was worth mentioning that FLAC is at the very least not going to be different from CD, and it just becomes a matter of DACs and headphone preamps and other things.

but also the next time I move I'm not gonna be like "fuck Im gonna have to get so many boxes for all of these FLACs"

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

RoundTheBend — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 22:31:30 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/18/2019 03:31

baystateoftheart wrote:

dholl wrote:

what are vinyls best at? taking up space?

Being a keepsake. Having value as a collectible. Making listening to an album feel like more of an experience. Having a warmer sound. There's a certain mystique and you don't have to be a hipster to acknowledge that.

I've never collected vinyl but I might start someday.

Ever since I was a kid I've always thought it fun that you can turn off the amp, but let the record play and just listen to the needle vibrate. In a similar fashion I've been fascinated with the grooves you can see and with a high dynamic range song, it's really cool.

What I will caution anyone getting into vinyl with, is the maintenance. Dust is just something you have to constantly worry about it seems.

CD's have been hit and miss in this arena too. I've had "poorly" imaged CD's that start deteriorating (along with some that are coming on 30 years old which sound great still).

For both of them, my biggest frustration is me having butterfingers and ruining them.

For the future... I'd love something that is a master of the absolute best version of something that's ever been (sometimes the remaster is better and sometimes it's worse... some things breathe better on vinyl and sometimes the response of digital is indeed better) that then has some kind of visual thing along with it - whether it is a music video per song or something like a short written to go along with the album... idk... some kind of visual to go along with the music.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

baystateoftheart — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 22:22:57 GMT

Author: baystateoftheart

Posted: 02/18/2019 03:22

dholl wrote:

baystateoftheart wrote:

Digital music is best at one thing, and vinyl is best at another. CDs are an unsatisfying compromise.

what are vinyls best at? taking up space?

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

RoundTheBend — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 22:12:11 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/18/2019 03:12

Wow, I'll be honest, didn't think so many preferred CD still. Nothing wrong with any choice really, so long as you love it and enjoy it and get the most out of it.

Again, I'm looking at a $100 gift card from my work as a bonus to spend at Amazon and I'm thinking vinyl, but a lot of the classical releases seem slightly bogus (odd pressings not from original) or really expensive album era releases. And if I would just buy the CD, that'd be anywhere between 10 to 50 albums I could buy if I had a nice CD player setup. I suppose I could rip and then put into my phone or something.

My main reason for ditching CD's was managing them - too much space. And then ripping them right and the such. Often the premium stream is enough, but of the 30% of the time when it sounds like garbage, I really want a better solution, especially of the records I love.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

SleepDealer — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 15:15:12 GMT

Author: SleepDealer

Posted: 02/14/2019 20:15

Never stopped buying CDs, and I'm too much of a purist to change and have my collection split between different formats.

It's really irritating when new albums are released only as downloads or on vinyl, or the CD releases are massively delayed.

No issues of deterioration for me either. I've bought numerous second-hand CDs from the early 80s (mostly Japanese) and they still play or rip fine.

It is more convenient to have my CD collection ripped to my laptop at relatively high quality (320), but it's also nice to peruse my physical collection in my purpose-built bookcase with glass doors when I'm at home. And I can always rip stuff again at a higher quality in the future...

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

Norman Bates — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 14:13:15 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 02/14/2019 19:13

guzguzgarbit wrote:

I am using an 80s philips CD player and it still works perfectly well.

Phillips was a hell of good brand way back when.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

Villain — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 09:27:06 GMT

Author: Villain

Posted: 02/14/2019 14:27

I've never counted my collection of CDs but I'd bet I'd have about 200-300 and I add to it regularly. I have 3 racks that are almost completely full. I enjoy collecting vinyl as well but save that for the stuff I really like because its not odd to pay 3 times as much for a record on vinyl, plus my turntable is pretty bad and I don't really have enough space in my house to get a good one. For those reasons collecting CDs are easier. They're smaller, they take up less space. I take some pride in being able to support artists I like.

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

dholl — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 09:04:39 GMT

Author: dholl

Posted: 02/14/2019 14:04

JOSweetHeart wrote:

I love CDs because they have the better sound and are smaller compared to a record which makes it the perfect thing to ask the singers to sign for you should you ever get to meet them. 😄 😄 😄

haha indeed...no one can sign a digital file (well, they can but you'll only see it on the computer screen when you open file properties and that's just a little...soulless).

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

dholl — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 09:03:13 GMT

Author: dholl

Posted: 02/14/2019 14:03

Anti wrote:

I kinda get that feeling when looking at people's playlists on Spotify since I am quite literally the only person at my med school that collects any kind of physical copy of music. Granted, there are no other music nerds at my med school as no one really goes beyond the Spotify Top 50 or Discover Weekly for new music so when people look at my stuff they are almost immediately confused.

yeah, i suppose most people are like that even in earlier decades: people who were happy with just whatever the radio decided to play. and that's fine too 😎

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

dholl — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 09:01:18 GMT

Author: dholl

Posted: 02/14/2019 14:01

Yann wrote:

we should buy cassettes again. It's been proven that they last longer than CDs or hard drives

i don't miss tapes but did enjoy taping the top 40 radio charts as a kid in the late-80's & early-90's, then chopping out the best songs (minus the irritating DJ-voice) onto a second tape to make a kind of 'favourite songs' personal playlist. as laborious as that sounds it was a fun & involving way to discover musik (and also learn a little about tech).

Re: back to the future: buying CD's again...

dholl — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 08:56:25 GMT

Author: dholl

Posted: 02/14/2019 13:56

sethmadsen wrote:

Tap wrote:

Yeah - it's always cool to get a FLAC download when you buy some vinyl or the such because FLAC rip of a CD likely won't have that unless it's one of those super CD's or whatever they were called for like 10 seconds. Then again there's digital masters for CD which FLAC's and vinyl often just use, so the quality really isn't any different from the source, but like Jimmy originally said, the output is equally important to the equation.

aye, also agree the output is important. personally i like using neutral studio monitors with 8" woofers to listen to favourite musik (not coloured by extra bass or EQ but still meaty enough).