Downsizing CD Collection?

Yes, but it would be in the thousands

 

First 2 posts= threadcrap. Awesome! always a good feeling when you start a thread.

 

I got rid of 200 a couple of year's ago.
Don't miss them cept a few titles.
Got good trade on them as well.

 

If you listened to 2 CD's per day all the way through, it would take 13.7 years to listen to them all. That means you have too much music.

 

What's the ideal figure for collecting /listening. One thousand titles ?

 

Ones that you definitely don't want, sell on Amazon!

Yes, they take a chunk of the profits, but you'll get much more than a dollar each.

 

Too much is an understatement, and to her credit my wife is tactful about it.

Everything is packed for the move, but I'm listening right now to a bonus disc from one of the The Wedding Present reissues that I downloaded onto iTunes. I bought four of those reissues, 3 CDs each, that's about 12 hours right there. Jeez. Still, a criminally undervalued band I think.

 

I purged hundreds of my cds.Not all at once.It was a long process leaving me with still my favorites.

 

I am somewhat in the same position(not near as many) as I am fine tuning my collection. However, I couldn't come up with a plan so I just put what I didn't need in boxes and taped them all up. I'll figure it out some other time.

 

Sell them on Discogs! About 1/2 of my CDs have gone that way, which financed a turntable restoration project and a new phono cartridge. Now I can simply play the original vinyls of CDs I bought when I wanted to hear an old record but had no turntable. A certain symmetry there, like Newton's third law.

Digitize them, sell, and then buy a new _________ with your proceeds!

 

Good to have stuff to trade.
Vinyl /blu Rays instead.

 

A few years ago my wife and I were moving from Kansas City back home to the west coast. I was downsizing my music collection for the move, and had 200+ jazz cd's to give away. Rather than trade the cd's for more cd's, my wife found a jazz music school run by a couple who are trained music educators. Youngsters from 8-18 get lessons and play in a band and learn to solo. The rehearsals are in the historic KC musicians union Hall, a place where musicians gathered to jam back in 30's through 50's...Count Basie, Lester Young, Charlie Parker.

The school was delighted to receive the cd's, plus some framed posters of jazz musicians. Even if a music store does not place much value on a cd, there are people and organizations who will accept those cd's with great thanks.

 

Unless it was a spare copy of something, I've always regretted anything I sold or gave away. Thankfully, I held onto my vinyl collection during the great vinyl selloff of the early 1990s, so no regrets there. I'm holding onto all my CDs now, and adding more thanks to the low, low prices.

I've been ripping my collection as lossless files and putting the CDs into storage in recent years. Having a hard-copy backup keeps me from worrying so much, and it frees up space in the house while also allowing me to have easy access to everything in the computer.

 

It's truly a sad day when Marie Kondo is cited on the venerable SH.tv forums as support for a decision to cull the herd.

 

If they're taking up too much space, why not discard the jewel cases, and get some jazzloft or similar sleeves?

 

I can understand just "downsizing" can give regrets later. Don't do this job too fast. But for me, a success. I had around 700 CD's, and got rid of all those I had not listened to for decades, and I'm very happy with that choice. I also got rid of my loud sounding "remasters" with a bad dynamic range, and replaced them with older CD's. I will soon approach 700 CD's again, buying old stuff.

 

There's only so much time to listen to all this stuff. I made the decision a while back to travel as light as I can and keep only what I need.

 

As much threadcrapping as your post, if I'm not mistaken.

 

I see. That's exactly what I did - selling all my CDs - so I at least talk the talk and walk the walk. Then, like Sax-Son said, pick a number - let's say, 5000 - and choose those you can't do without.

 

Downsizing red book in favour of SACD's. Ultimately, would love to switch to vinyl.

 

Take Lenin's advice - Better fewer, but better.

 

I have always "managed" my collection. First rule of thumb is a personal rating of the albums for my interest. If it doesn't rate a "3" or "Average" on a scale of 5 being best then I have no need for it as I will not listen to it nor care for it. Out you go. It is an easy starting point for me. I have eliminated multiples of the same titles opting to keep the version I deem best. I have eliminated box sets and deluxe editions for the most part as my interest in what they offer usually wanes very quickly after I have obtained them. Limit my live and "best of" or "greatest hits" selections only to those artists where that is all I'm interested in by them. I don't do "hits" by bands I have other primary albums. Doing these things has pruned my collection to a manageable size bush.

 

You should be able to go from 20 to 3 or 4 (or just stick with Furtwangler-- easy-peasy). But works for which you have one recording, even if you don't listen to the piece at all often (or at all), at least for now-- don't toss them out.

 

If we're talking for example about the Brahms 1st symphony, I probably have 4 or 5 from Furtwangler alone!