Why are CDs so cheap!!!

It's not true for all CDs. There is still a collector's market.

 

I agree. I think CD's are where vinyl was ten or more years ago. People are not checking to see what they have when they sell at garage sales and estate sales. They just want to get rid of all that "old stuff". It's how I added a solid 800 records to my collection about ten years ago. Bulk boxes for pennies on the dollar, and then dropping half of them off at goodwill.

 

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I love the fact that you can buy the entire discography of an artist you really don't know for a few bucks, or buy an album even if you like just one song

 

There is no logic to it. Nobody would have predicted the revival of vinyl in the 1990s, and it's a unique event no other obsolete audio/video format has ever experienced.

 

So true. I literally pulled my turntable out of storage around the turn of the century and kicked myself for selling all my old Genesis LP's at used record stores. It took me a while to build it all back up, but thank God for estate sales.

 

Thanks, but I meant a face to face, not a face to screen visit.

 

So, here is what I have gleaned from this thread. If you set out to find bargain CDs of CDs you like, and do not have, you can find thousands of cheap CDs. But if you are trying to find a PARTICULAR title OOP, hard to find CD that is universally coveted, it is going to cost you an arm and a leg. Sound just like LP collecting has always been. And for that matter, just about any other object people collect.

If you are trying to find just ANY version of a CD you want, it is usually easy and cheap. But if you are trying to find a rare first pressing "Target" CD for example, you are going to pay.

The reason so many modern LPs sound better than their CD counterparts is because the CDs are brickwalled but the LP has healthy dynamics. Even though they are each mastered from a digital file.

I have 5000 CDs and most of what I want is OOP or never even put on a CD. But if I were just starting out buying CDs it would be VERY easy and cheap to build up a nice collection, which would get increasingly harder and harder as I reach the end of my quest.

 

I cannot imagine the drudgery of ripping my 5000 CD collection just so I can play it on my phone. I NEVER play music on my phone. I have never downloaded music. But I do stream and when I do, it is on my main home system via my Cambridge CVN II. I have 10 or 12 CD changers in each of my cars. I even have a Tascam CD-200SB in which I can directly copy my CD to a USB device without the need for a computer, and I have not bothered to do this yet. I could see my doing it someday if I get the itch to start making "mix tapes" again. But I don't even have the desire to do this anymore. There comes a time in one's life when the joy of doing these kinds of thing are outweighed by the bother of doing it at all.

 

IF you want to buy used.

 

Because nobody wants them.

 

If the labels appreciated good mastering, we would have more than enough formats. CD would be fine, but alas, here we are.

 

It can be had right now on Discogs for under $6 plus shipping. And it has never sold for more than $21 yet on discogs. But there is one for sale on Amazon for $435

 

Well cassettes were very popular at least in my neck of the woods around 1977-83 then faded away for the Tidal wave of CDs. Then 10 years later cassettes was the next big thing, I never understood it but it was something to see. I stayed with CDs and some vinyl.
I really feel in about 5-10 years CDs will make an heroic comeback but not be the software force it was in the 1990-2001 years. I think vinyl will fade away to almost nothing in 10 years but ive been wrong before. Eventually everything audio will be all streaming, uuhhgg. John.

 

Basically the remaining thrift stores are picking out any CD worth over $10 before they hit the floor. Those goes up on eBay and the like.

 

That's how I now have Tubthumping!

 

Do they bar code scan everything?

 

Almost certainly. You see the bigger Goodwills sell all their CDs on eBay by UPC.

 

VHS wears out from playing and today's TVs really reveal the limitation of the format. I don't think, properly stored, they deteriorate as badly as some other tape formats.

 

I think some of the outlandish pricing on amazon is due to algorithms (by amazon, or the third party dealer?). They will never fetch that price in real life.

 

But they want vinyl? Is that what you're saying? Or are they all streaming?

 

It depends on the CD. Yes! many can be picked up at bargain prices. However, some that are out of print and still in demand can fetch a fair amount of money. I have been finding this out while rounding out my collection. Thrift stores are routinely pillaged so the probability that you are going to find numerous treasures is a crap shoot for sure, but not impossible.

 

It was niche between the mid-1990s until the late 2000s, I'd say. Yes you could alway get vinyl of some sort, but during those years you'd be hard pressed to find a current charts album on vinyl. What was there was mostly independent releases, and of course DJing music like techno/house/hiphop.

 

By that logic any obsolete format ought to experience a revival at some point. But vinyl is the first, and possibly only time it actually happened. I can't see VHS coming back, for example. Its production completely ceased for good, like no other format has. I'd love to see a 78s and phonograph cylinders revival though .

 

Exactly. The vinyl resurgence probably happened because it's so different than CD's, you can't make a record at your house, you can't put the music on your phone without some work involved, the art is bigger, you can make all sorts of collectible variants. Plus there's like 70 years of stuff you can find on vinyl, and lots still not available digitally. If CD's become popular again, even in a niche market kind of way, it will be because of some sort of added value.