For those who sold their CD Collection - any regrets?

Yes I agree some Hi Rez recordings can sound excellent.Native DSD can sound very good.
Mostly they sound good however because the recording is very good.
The Stockfish stuff is very well recorded.If you down sample it to 16/44 and burn it to a disc it still sounds very good however and extremey hard to pick from the high rez version [on a good CD player]

The jury is still out on hi rez audio as a playback medium.There are obvious gains in the recording process but apparently very little or none in the playback.

Of course all this relates to personal experience.Most CD players [with their one bit DAC chips and crappy op amp output stages]sound just as flawed as computer based systems but when you hear a really good one you get a very different perspective

 

That sounds like the perfect way to ensure the CD collection retains no value whatsoever. That would be like keeping all of one's vinyl LPs, but throwing away the jackets and sleeves.

Considering how much money I have in my CD collection, getting rid of them simply makes no sense to me...

1. The space isn't that important to me. What would I use the extra space for? I'd probably end up buying some other junk I don't need.
2. The money I'd get in return would be miniscule compared to what I spent on them.
3. The CDs make for the perfect backup if my computer (and the backup drive) would ever bite the dust.

 

Yeah, what's it to ya?

 

In the cases I've bought expensive CDs, it's either been indie stuff that just never had a very large production run. It just seems these are the exact folks who would have some kind of bandcamp-ish third party arrangement to sell me their stuff. The other instance were Dead Can Dance SACDs, which were made by Mobile Fidelity, and I could fill a book with things I don't understand about MoFi.

 

Not a thing...

 

The problem that I have with paying top dollar for a cd is that only the packaging is truly limited. The content can be found on a digital file and more than likely for free.

 

I put some of my cd is binders and kept the liners. Most of the cds are in good shape, certainly not mint. Saves space. It doesn't matter to me if those cds retain value since they are only worth 50cents each and I ain't sellin'.

1.Space is somewhat important to me.
2. I agree, I paid between $10-$15 for most of my cds (Excluding the MFSL, AF, DCC, AP, etc.) and I'm not selling them for less than a buck a piece.
3. Yes, another form of backup, not to mention making your files legal.

 

Sold my all my CDs save for a handful of common discs and a couple Bowie RCAs I'm not willing to part with yet.

I'm glad to get rid of the clutter. But I'm upset how streaming, for all its positives, has completely marginalized music collections (physical and even digital). There was a sense of pride/memories attached to gradually building a collection -- "hey, I remember when I discovered this band" or "I bought their record before they got big" or "I bought it on a whim and ended up loving it," you get the point.

That feeling doesn't exist nowadays. Your music collection is worthless by virtually every measure when 90 percent of it is available for free on Spotify, IMO ... and that's an awful thing.

 

Maybe,maybe not. After all, for the most part, those streaming will be listening to garbage SQ wise. Streaming through computer speakers and average to s***house D/A conversion. Let the baby have its bottle

 

The difference (improvement) in the sound is because the burned media has less jitter than the pressed media. But this is only the case if a top notch burner is used and expensive media is used. The TY SPMPT CD-R, for example, has incredibly low jitter due to the manufacturing tolerances including being as perfectly balanced as possible - something you never get with commercial pressed CDs and nearly all blank media (unless of course you buy the equipment to do this).

I could play you an original CD and one burned using the above process and they will both sound noticeably different, especially on high resolution equipment. But they will both contain precisely the same data.

 

My response came from my own experience. I was ripping my cds to itunes lossless and thinking things were great until I was listening to Roger Waters, Amused To Death. The spatial qualities this album is noted for were greatly diminished through the computer.

After some research I decided to rip files as AIFFs using XLD's bit perfect ripper. Once I had bit perfect copies the ripped files were indistinguishable from the cd; as they should be, meaning the dog was once again barking behind my listening chair.

The cds are played on my Resolution Audio Opus 21 cdp. The Opus 21 has dac inputs so the ripped files are played through the Opus 21 as well. I use the Mac Mini's optical output fed to a Monarchy Audio Super DIP and take the BNC output to the Opus 21.

I'm not sure why, but I sometimes feel the computer files sound better. YMDV

 

There is no difference between burned media. It's just data transferred. It's not being streamed.
I really have a hard time with this one. You could argue that it's nothing to do with the data but only the hard drive medium itself (if streamed from). Thus mediums with the lowest possible electronic interference would end up being processed by the DAC easier and better timing to the analog output. If so, then talking about CD's whether CD-R or commercially pressed would not be the optimal medium for streaming from. Of course this is all irrelevant if you don't stream from that medium. Thus they should sound identical, just like when I transfer my library from one hard drive to another makers hard drive. I hear no difference because I'm not streaming from those drives (usually from memory) and the data has not changed.

 

It confuses me when people take such hardline positions like "RIP your collection and sell your discs! GRR.." or "KEEP your discs, hard drives have no soul! GRR" Unless money is very tight (again we are talking pennies on the dollar for what you likely paid), or it gets to the point where storing them is taking away from your quality of life/costing you more than the discs are worth, why not rip your collection and keep the discs then you have the best of both worlds!

 

It really depends on the CD collection. Some collections are loaded up with the rare and the usual, and it is worth getting the big bucks while one can. Other's bought all the big hits and common stuff and have virtually nothing worth selling. It just depends.

 

...not to mention that it isn't the topic.

So many people who haven't done what the OP clearly described, chiming in with their unsolicited advice and opinions.

 

I'm gonna have to be skeptical of this claim. Jitter is not recorded on the media, from my understanding at least. It is the result in timing errors in the clock being used by the DAC. The data stream on the disc does not contain timing information, and as long as their aren't bit errors then identical files will play identically. There may be something else going on but I don't think it's jitter.

 

I think those who haven't sold off their CDs are capable of providing the OP with valid reasons why not to sell them off. That information may prove to be just as useful to the OP. It certainly doesn't hurt to consider all opinions on the subject before making a decision.

 

Well, this is plausible, and I have done it as well. For example some of the old PDO discs that experienced "bronzing" or "rot" would have too many errors for a standalone CD player to play, resulting in noise, but could be fullly read by a PC CD ROM drive. But it's due to the difference between (many) CD players and the CD drives found on CDs. The drive on the PC can employ more reads and error correction that isn't feasible in a typical player. It's not because of jitter or such pressed into the commercial CD.

 

Of course you have the right to be sceptical. I was also two years ago when I first started burning my vinyl transcriptions to CD-R media. But then I began to wonder why CD-Rs I was burning all sounded different depending on the media used, the burner drive used and the drive speed selected. All of those things change the sound even though the bits are identical. There is definitely nothing "wrong" - it's just a fact that identical bit streams sound different and that difference is because different jitter profiles result in different noise floors and different noise floors change the sound of what we can hear - whether those noise floors are jitter or, for example, different noise shaping algorithms.

And it's not the jitter in the source material or the jitter in the media because we are talking identical bit streams here - it's the jitter created by the inexact process of spinning an optical disk and reading the data off it in real time. The bits are not going to come off the disk with perfect timing - ever - but they are going to come off the audiophile CD-R disk with better timing than they are a typical mass market commercial pressed disk (with very rare exceptions such as some of the Japanese XRCD disks for example). And different pressed commercial disks can sound different too with identical data - it's not just a CD-R versus pressed thing. The bits don't even get transmitted with perfect timing from audio files via DACs because no DAC on the planet adds absolutely zero jitter either - so why would you think CD is any different ? Infact it is much worse because it's not only a mechanical process, but an imperfect optical process as well before it even gets to the DAC section.

In any case so I'm not going to argue the point any further. It never gets anywhere. No one will change their mind, me included but I really wish people would actually try these things for themselves and listen with critical ears on resolving systems first before dismissing something out of hand. I trust what I hear, I have extremely well honed listening skills and I trust my ability to do through testing to ensure the results are repeatable and able to be double blind tested (which they are).

If I could play you two CD-Rs on my system - both identical - you would swear blind they sound so different that I was either performing some parlour trick or they were completely different masterings. You still wouldn't be convinced they were even remotely the same data until you secure ripped them both and then found they both contained identical data.

Anyway, believe what you wish. I'm not going to change your mind but nothing you say is going to change what I continually hear either. By the way, are you aware that Barry Diament and the late Wilma Cozart-Fine amongst others are /were well aware of the issue of different physical disks sounding different despite having precisely the same data on them? Fair enough that you can criticise my listening skills and abilities since you don't know me, but your position becomes a lot more tenuous when some of the best engineers in the business past and present are well aware of this phenomenon and have made their opinions public on it. All I have done is to be able to repeat for myself their own experiences.

 

Hey douche, no one here is buying that garbage you are spewing. Sorry you have to justify your pricey CD player by coming here to this forum, and calling everyone that doesn't agree with your nonsense, idiots. You are a funny, small minded little man.

 

Being skeptical of computer playback, I spun a few discs directly in my player and then in my computer attached to my player using its built-in USB-DAC, and have found no difference. Perhaps my ears and/or the rest of my system aren't sensitive enough. But if you have a CD player w/ a built-in USB DAC, like mine the Marantz SA8005 or the forum favorite Oppo BDP-105, I can't imagine how a .wav file ripped via EAC and the actual disc which are digitally equivalent would sound different when played straight from the disc or via a computer connected via USB. Am I missing something?

And either way using the term "idiot" unprovoked to address other forum members may get attention, but its the same kind of attention my toddler gets by throwing himself on the ground and having a temper tantrum... not necessarily "good attention" and something we're eager for him to outgrow.

 

You can sell CDs? Huh, never occurred to me. Ok, I have sold a few now and again that I just didn't care fro, but anything I might want to listen to? No way.

 

I still have 6-700 cd's stored in boxes from my last move 4 years ago. Unless I needed the money or the space, I like to think I'll use them again one day.

 

You might want to read Barry Diament's musings on the subject. Incidentally, it also touches on what I mentioned earlier - different CDs with the exact same data on them also sounding different:

https://soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com/2014/02/

 

I really enjoy the physical aspects of the CD. However, as my eyes enter Middle Age, I really cannot read most of the microscopic print in many of the booklets. But, I will never part with them, and I am addicted to buying them since they are so cheap! I tell my wife that CDs are my "shoe purchases"

The OP's 750 CDs require little space. Just pack them into a few boxes and store them somewhere. I never sold my LPs and it was fun digging them out recently.