Anyone Opted for CDR's Rather Than Hard drive --> DAC

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Ironclaw, Jun 29, 2020.

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  1. Ironclaw

    Ironclaw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Colorado
    Thinking of going this route. I like the idea of still having tangible disc and not having to use tablet and/or laptop. I have several hundred digital albums on Bandcamp. I thought I could burn one or two CDR's during each stereo listening session.
     
  2. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I had thousands of CD-Rs and ripped them to FLAC. I saved all of the discs for future playing possibilities. I'm now giving them away as many will not get played again by me. I'll keep my MFSL, DCC, and other interesting CD-R copies. The long OOP things I backed up on CD-R still seem relevant in a way. But it's getting time to clear the clutter out, it really is. And what better time to sort out things than during cv-19 stay-at-home suggestions?

    So my suggestion is to go file based and keep a few discs on hand for the day when you might need them.
     
    anorak2 likes this.
  3. JohnQVD

    JohnQVD bought too many records this week

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    I also am in the process of going the other way. I made sure I had FLAC copies of all my burned CDs (mostly live shows) and ripped the few that I didn’t have. I loaded them all on my desktop computer and copied them to a backup drive in the basement. Then they all got tossed (except the ones my wife is keeping for terrifying craft purposes). Many years ago, they were in cases. They got put into sleeves when I needed the shelf space for more CDs. This was the final stop. With me moving my office home to work, I needed the shelf space they were taking up. I still some mix CDs that I kept. That, and a few official downloads that I burned and put in proper cases years ago. I stopped doing that in 2012 after I moved and had to leave my printer behind.

    Next up is all my burned DVDs. That will get a couple of large boxes out of my basement.

    I’ve also ripped all of my proper CDs, but I’m keeping those. I occasionally listen to them because the system in my listening room has a CD player, but no streaming setup.
     
  4. wwaldmanfan

    wwaldmanfan Born In The 50's

    Location:
    NJ
    I have 1,700 lossless albums ripped and downloaded to a 2TB portable hard drive that fits in my shirt pocket with room to spare (with multiple backups of course). I can access any album or track within seconds, Can't imagine going back to an archaic format.
    So, I tried to sell my carefully curated CD collection to a used record store, and they offered me 25¢ each. F them. I gave them all away to friends and the rest to the public library.
     
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  5. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    I don't get the notion of backing-up CD's, if you're still going to separate the music/artists. The advantage of the backups, is having the access of the files being collated, so you can congeal them as you can rearrange information in spreadsheets.

    Sorry if this somehow comes off as a threadcrap, I'm looking for the advantages other than just an excuse to have another boat-anchor of a stack of CD's. Because if you still have the CD's as "backup"...don't you already have them as "masters" anyway...?
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2020
  6. Ironclaw

    Ironclaw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Colorado
    Nostalgia, preservation of format history, simplicity (disc and vinyl only without need for dacs/streamers/external drives/routers), etc. And, I have CD players already so no hardware acquisition required.
     
  7. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    I consider a tablet in my hand to still be a tangible way of playing music. More tangible than asking Alexa to play an album.

    I don't trust the reliability of CDRs, and burning CDRs takes too much time. Plus not all of the albums on Bandcamp are 16/44.1. Some are in 24/44.1, some in 24/48, some in 24/96. You'd have to convert all of those higher resolution files down to 16/44.1 to burn to a CDR.

    Not worth it.

    Concentrate instead on making your computer as source or streamer playback experience more friendly and organized and tangible. There are some playback options that can have a very nice browsing and cover art experience on a tablet.
     
    nosliw and Sevoflurane like this.
  8. Slack

    Slack Forum Resident

    Yes I tend to prefer playing the CD version because it sounds better .I have gone to a fair bit of cost and trouble to get decent sound from hard drives,streaming and a dedicted music server but the CD always sounds that bit more airy and natural.That might not be a problem on average recordings but with good recordings there is just too much difference.
     
  9. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Anyone Opted for CDR's Rather Than Hard drive --> DAC

    I read this as "Anyone Opeted for CBS's Dan Rather.."

    Gotta watch those useless caps!
     
    rcsrich, Monty12 and 4xoddic like this.
  10. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Did you mean "Opeth"-ed? :laugh:
     
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  11. Ironclaw

    Ironclaw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Colorado
    Gotta watch the Opeth
     
  12. dcarwin

    dcarwin Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    CDRs rot.
     
  13. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Your teeth rot too!
     
    Ironclaw likes this.
  14. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    I still occasionally spin CDs, but mostly just using my DAP or iPad as either a source or controller works fine for me. Burning a whole stack of CDRs would be time consuming, expensive, and they don’t last long term. Each to his own, but it isn’t something I would pursue.
     
  15. Retro Music Man

    Retro Music Man Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I still burn some CD-Rs when I'm making compilations for playing on my main stereo. For instance, if I buy one of those "Original Album Series" box sets with 5 discs, I can make a single disc comp with all of the best tracks.
     
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  16. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Are you using a standalone burner of a computer?

    Despite what a lot of people think around here, burning at 1x is ancient thinking and may actually give you a worse result. Also, CD-R may not last. Sure, all of us have examples of CD-R that have been around since the year 1990, even, back when they used yellow dye, and still play, but for the most part, CD-R is not reliable. They are prone to deterioration without warning. hard drives have proven to be much more reliable in the longer term.

    What you could do is archive to hard drives and still burn your CD-Rs for your enjoyment. Then, if the disc goes bad, you can burn a new one.
     
    Brudr and Retro Music Man like this.
  17. Ironclaw

    Ironclaw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Colorado
    Luckily, Bandcamp is that hard drive for now.
     
  18. Pastafarian

    Pastafarian Forum Resident

    I've gone the other way and mixtapes are unrestricted with file based, one of my 'box sets' goes to 16 hours, if a friend's not in to that particular genre they're the one sulking all night.
     
    Retro Music Man likes this.
  19. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    Bandcamp isn't 100% reliable as a backup.
    I have a couple albums from Bandcamp that got remastered. I purchased the albums with the original mastering. Then they got remastered and the old mastering got replaced with the new one. After that I can't re-download the old mastering any more. Just the new mastering. And the old mastering was better.
     
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  20. Retro Music Man

    Retro Music Man Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Wow, so the loudness wars are alive and well on Bandcamp too. Are these newish recordings that you're talking about?
     
  21. Ironclaw

    Ironclaw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Colorado
    I'm not an audiophile, tho. Just give me the music. Regardless, I see your point.
     
  22. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    In this case it wasn't so much competing in the loudness war. More about remastering with better equipment. But also with a more modern take on compression (but not overdone).

    The recordings this happened to were by dubsahara. They got remastered around early 2019. Originally mastered in the 1994 to 2000 time frame.
     
    Retro Music Man likes this.
  23. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I think it's a bad idea because CD-Rs go bad, you need a hard drive for backup which invalidates the whole concept. In the old days when hard drives were smaller it was a viable option for a digital archive, but these days it's retro. I only use a CD-R if I want to give it to someone who has no computer.
     
    Crimson Witch and Grant like this.
  24. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    My car has a nice CD player in it. So I load 6 discs I there and will play CD-R things now and again but not that often. I like having lots of options.
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2020
    darkmass likes this.
  25. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Listen to enough bad remasters and you will become one.
     
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