Does poor CD packaging turn you off?

I don't mean postal packaging, I mean cardboard sleeves and digipacks. I'm a jewel case boy and always have been but I can cope with a proper digipack, the ones with the jewel case inner glued to the cardboard. Sleeves though, where the CD is just slid inside a folded recess...I find these cheap and nasty. Recently I've picked up the Foo Fighters' latest, Noel Gallagher's latest & NG's previous release and all three came in these wretched cardboard sleeves. They're the sort of packaging that newspapers used to give CDs out for free in. I dislike them intensely because the CDs get scratched and you often have to touch the playing surface of the CD in order to drag them out. I'm of the opinion that nobody should ever have to touch the playing side of a CD and that no packaging should ever rub on it. Jewel cases were perfect, and the first digipacks were acceptable too but man these cheap sleeves!

For £5 back catalogue stuff I can just about live with them but I'm looking at the McCartney deluxe archive stuff and we're talking £16 for each album. £16 for it to come in nasty cardboard sleeves which easily wear, crush, pick up smells and more importantly damage the CDs. There is talk on these very forums that CDs are turning up scratched just from being inserted into these cheap cases during the manufacturing process! So where do people stand on this? I'm seriously pondering not buying this Macca stuff purely due to the packaging and I find that a depressing thought.

 

...this current trend of housing a CD inside nothing more than a flimsy piece of folded card stock SUCKS!
Bring back the traditional digipack with the plastic disc tray or even better the full plastic jewel case. Sheesh!

 

I prefer the look of digipacks to jewel cases but they really do need the plastic disc holder to avoid scratching.

 

I prefer a nice packaging, plastic trays (except when it's a good quality mini-LP), thick booklets with tones of notes, pictures, , etc, but that's not enough to prevent me from buying an album I like.

 

Hey, but it's Earth-friendly
Joking aside, if they assured me cheap editions would save the planet, I would be in, but I think they're actually saving some record companies

 

I hate any type of digipack. Jewel cases did their job well, they housed the CD, protected it from nearly everything, including spills, and if it broke it was easily replaceable. Some of the digipacks weren't so bad, they at least used a CD style tray that held the disc in place, but if the teeth holding the disc got brittle and snapped off, you still had a major problem. These little fold over things that have a pocket to slip the disc in are the worst. They might look appealing to the eye but after a couple of years it looks like you've been using your disc as a hockey puck.

The cheapening of the packaging is one of the many reasons I went back to buying vinyl.

 

It wouldn’t put me off buying the CD, but I’d probably moan about it on here.

I like ‘proper’ digipaks, though obviously you have to look after them. Like others, I hate the cheap, cardboard sleeves that record companies are churning out now. Recent examples being the Buckingham McVie and Noel Gallagher albums. Nothing collectible or nice about them. They might as well print, “You should have just downloaded it” on the back.

 

The Japanese anti-static sleeves are excellent to keep those cd's in mint condition. A few European/American editions include them (the Bowie boxes, the deluxe The Queen Is Dead).

 

Original LP packaging is great!
For LP's.

 

The CD itself is plastic so it kinda makes a mockery of their green claims. Sure less plastic is better than more plastic but if being eco is their aim then they could make a far more deluxe eco offering! How about cloth CD sleeves which then slide into the cardboard packaging? That way the consumer is getting decent protection for their outlay. I have CDs I've owned 25 years that are in mint condition, yet these new CDs aren't even mint after a few weeks and they're sometimes scuffed upon arrival.

 

I'm less troubled with this trend when it comes to these huge mega box sets that are more and more common. I shudder to think what my 60 disc classical sets would look like if they'd put everything in fatboy jewel cases (much as I love those things).

All the same, when it comes to new releases, I'm firmly in the "jewel case is best" camp. This bunko about the cardboard somehow being "environmentally friendly" fails the sniff test. First, I fail to see how more durable plastics are somehow worse than deforestation, so there's that. Second, I fail to see how the need to buy new copies and junk the entire first one because the sleeve bit the dust or gradually deconstructed the disc it was ostensibly designed to house makes any kind of good sense from a sustainability point of view.

Whatever people can say against jewel cases, not only are they replaceable, but they are replaceable in a modular sense. Broke a hinge? Just replace the lid. Teeth busted out of the tray? Pop in a new one. No need to just chuck the whole thing and start over.

When you need to start buying those round-bottom plastic sleeves to protect your discs from the packaging they shipped in, someone failed at basic engineering.

#savethejewelcase

 

Japan mini lpcds why not in Europa and USA ??

 

That's great to hear, any company doing what they should to ensure the quality of their product and doing what they should this day and age deserve more credit than they get. But that's the issue, they should all be taking these type of steps to ensure what they make lasts. Of course it becomes an expense that they can cut, and many purchasers would probably toss the extra sleeves anyway, at least for typical releases.

 

Not as depressing as it will be for poor old Macca. He needs you to buy it!

 

I like good quality digipaks and Japanese style mini-LP sleeves. I always thought that jewel cases looked cheap and nasty. Yes they can be replaced but then the only part of the product which is exclusive to the purchase is a tiny booklet and the tissue paper thin rear artwork. They remind me too much of the dreaded music-cassette cases we had in the 1970's. Digipaks allow for more and better (more expanded) artwork. Done properly they can give you some of the feel of an LP gatefold.

 

no

 

To add to my previous post, the jewel case was a very smart design . The CD didn't rest on the plastic tray, it floated above it since the hub in the center was raised.

 

I prefer the "traditional" hub to some of these new fangled type which require you to gently compress two "levers" in order to free the disc. I've lost count of how many have arrived pre-broken or which I have broken the first time I've tried to free the discs!

 

Imagine this one with jewel boxes!

 

Yes, I hate it. All I want is a nice, functional CD jewel case that I can easily replace if it gets broken. I don't need fancy packaging that makes it hard to remove or put the CD back or custom cases that are impossible to replace.

 

I've never bought into this 'jewel cases are boring' argument but I accept that a minority have it. To me they're practical in that they protect the disc, so it's job done so far as jewel cases go. You can still see the artwork and as a previous poster mentioned, they're modular so any wear or breakages can be swiftly & cheaply dealt with. It seems that a relatively happy medium between both camps is the digipack with plastic insert. The newer cardboard sleeves are lousy unless they come with inner sleeves (*and even then I'd still rather have a jewel case or old-style digipack).

 

It's time for a 2-disc Greatest Hits housed in a lovely jewel case!

 

Absolutely. The only reason I tolerate those envelope-like cardboard sleeves is if they are part of a box set. I much rather have jewel cases and fatboy double/triple jewelcases, but I guess nowadays it's more ecofriendly to offer flimsy digipaks that damage your discs. Not all digipaks feel cheap, I can tolerate the sturdy, mini LP stylish packaging, but I still prefer jewelcases.

 

Although you can't judge a book by its cover, poor packaging of a CD affects the way I perceive the music it houses. It makes me take an album less seriously than I otherwise would if it had been enclosed in a nice, sturdy jewel case and accompanied with a decent booklet. Digipaks remind me of cheap CD singles from the 90's, and card wallets are one step below that. On the other hand, real CD LP replica covers, like the ones manufactured by some Japanese companies and seen in the Beatles Mono Box, can be acceptable when done well (i.e., with tip-on sleeves).

 

Cheap digipacks give scratches to the cd.
The digipacks that are more exclusive i like the new R.E.M.s are good and nice to see