Do you still buy CDs? If not, when did you stop buying them?

[RailWonderer]

My car has a CD player and no SD card slot or Apple CarPlay/Android car software installed, so for my own music I still am buying the odd CD.

I drive a 2008 car, so I was also wondering what make and model cars people have with an SD card slot (outside of premium marques). I assume there is no other use for buying CDs these days, but I'd be happy to hear if not.

 

[yorksrob]

I do occasionally. I prefer to have a hard copy of songs to load up to my mp3 player.

 

[DelW]

My home CD racks are full with no space to expand, so I only buy new ones if I evict a current one. Generally I'd rather have a hard copy, and I've never had a streaming account.
My car (2020 Mini Countryman) doesn't have a CD drive so I use a USB stick with most of my CD (and some LP) albums on it. Its predecessor (2012 Ford Focus) only had a single CD slot so I made the USB stick to use in that.

 

[birchesgreen]

I used to buy 100s a year but stopped about 4 years ago, i buy MP3s off Bandcamp now. Not sure i even have a CD player anymore.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I now only buy CDs from bands whose albums I collect. The CD player at home broke some years ago but I still have my old portable one plus the one in the car. I now normally use YouTube for other music where I continue to find great discoveries.

 

[AlterEgo]

Haven't bought a CD for about ten years.

 

[Ash Bridge]

My other longstanding main interests are Home Theatre & Home Audio, the equipment is high quality to high end(ish) and for me there’s no alternative to disc based formats be it LD/DVD/BD for the cinema side or CD for 2 channel listening. Streaming unfortunately just doesn’t come close in quality to my eyes or ears.

 

[nlogax]

Nothing bought since 2013 and even then that was a purchase for a very rare release by my favourite group. By the time they release anything new that last purchase will have succumbed to disc rot.

 

[pdq]

My other longstanding main interests are Home Theatre & Home Audio, the equipment is high quality to high end(ish) and for me there’s no alternative to disc based formats be it LD/DVD/BD for the cinema side or CD for 2 channel listening. Streaming unfortunately just doesn’t come close in quality to my eyes or ears.

I don't know about theatre audio but for music, many places allow purchase of 24 bit 96kHz WAV or FLAC (uncompressed) files which are higher quality than CD (16 bit, 44.1kHz). Whether most people can honestly tell the difference is a moot point. My Amazon Music account will also stream at 24/96 if the source is there.

 

[adc82140]

I was rather late to stop buying CDs- it was about three years ago. My last two cars haven't had CD players. My music is on my phone, plumbed in to the car via Android Auto.

All of my music is at least 256kbps MP3, backed up on an external SSD drive, and double backed up on an external HDD kept elsewhere.

I sold all of my CDs on Music Magpie or similar last year. Bought the backup drives with the proceeds.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Haven't bought a CD for about ten years.

Similarly probably about 10 years ago when I started using paid Spotify.

 

[Ediswan]

I don't know about theatre audio but for music, many places allow purchase of 24 bit 96kHz WAV or FLAC (uncompressed) files which are higher quality than CD (16 bit, 44.1kHz).

FLAC is compressed. The benefit of FLAC (over MP3 etc.) is that it is lossless compression.

 

[BrandanM]

I still buy quite a few to play in my older car which doesn't have DAB radio.

I only purchase from the local car boot sale nowadays. Prices tend to range from 20p up to about £3 each depending on whether it's a casual seller or a regular dealer, and also on scarcity. Some classic albums rarely turn up, whilst with the more 'throwaway' stuff there's hundreds about.

Sounds obvious, but it's always worth checking the compact disc itself is actually present in the case and also if it's a double album, that the concealed one isn't a completely different album erroneously put back in. That's happened to me a couple of times!.

 

[87electric]

I’ve never seen any disc rot on my 3,000 plus collection in 37 years.

 

[SJL2020]

I still religiously buy everything on CD that Neil Young puts out (as well as the stull that he issues on vinyl).

But nothing else.

e.g., Neil Young Archives Volume 3 is scheduled to come out this year, so that means either a 10 or 12 disc box set, depending on which rumour is correct.

 

[pdq]

FLAC is compressed. The benefit of FLAC (over MP3 etc.) is that it is lossless compression.

Indeed - that's what I meant. I'm interested to know, is a de-compressed FLAC digitally the same as the original WAV?

 

[gg1]

I’ve never seen any disc rot on my 3,000 plus collection in 37 years.

Nor have I, my collection's around half the size of yours and built up over the course of 31 years though I've probably sold close to 1,000 over the years too, no rot on any of those either.

In answer to the original question, I still do though nowhere near as many as I used to. I bought a grand total of 9 last year, in the past it wasn't at all unusual for me to buy more than that in a day.

 

[Ediswan]

I’ve never seen any disc rot on my 3,000 plus collection in 37 years.

I have. Some tracks on a Motörhead compilation have became unplayable. There are grey patches and holes in the reflective layer. Only that one disc though, out of around 200.

Indeed - that's what I meant. I'm interested to know, is a de-compressed FLAC digitally the same as the original WAV?

A WAV->FLAC conversion followed by FLAC->WAV should result in a WAV file with the same audio information as the original. (Provided you keep the original sample rate and bit depth.)

While we're here, does anybody fancy a £1,500 S/PDIF cable !
https://www.futureshop.co.uk/shunyata-research-alpha-v2-s-pdif-digital-audio-cable-1m

designed to combat the effects of RFI without introducing the sonic compression effects associated wiht conventional filters

 

[Ash Bridge]

I don't know about theatre audio but for music, many places allow purchase of 24 bit 96kHz WAV or FLAC (uncompressed) files which are higher quality than CD (16 bit, 44.1kHz). Whether most people can honestly tell the difference is a moot point. My Amazon Music account will also stream at 24/96 if the source is there.

Yes, certainly cant argue that these formats aren’t technically superior when measured or on paper than regular CD standard PCM but the proof seems to be when you actually sit down and listen, they just seem to lack the involvement or general musicality that a good quality recording on CD can give on the right equipment, to my ears at least.

 

[Techniquest]

I genuinely cannot remember the last time I bought a CD. I haven't anything I can play one on anyway, well apart from a Playstation 3 that sits in the wardrobe (it was going free to a good home, never know when it will come in handy) but by the time I've set all that up then I'll have enjoyed the content I wanted to enjoy many times over on YouTube or whatever.

There's no doubt that I have plenty of CDs in storage somewhere, but the odds of me ever getting them out and doing anything with them are not great.

Which leads me to an interesting question, can CDs be recycled? It seems like an incredible waste to just throw them out when the time comes to it.

 

[bspahh]

I buy CDs occasionally, typically from Music Magpie, and then rip them to MP3 files. Exact Audio Copy does this well. I had to buy a £15 USB DVD drive to do this.

I even listen to some of them as my daughter's car is from 2013 and the stereo doesn't play MP3s.

I buy DVDs and Blurays for things that are available to stream for free, to get extras and commentary tracks.

 

[GusB]

I haven't bought any for a while, but I'm not averse to buying CDs. I lost most of my CD collection in a house move, many of which were "free" CDs included with magazines such as Mixmag - the sort of thing I couldn't go into a record shop and order.

I grew up with tapes, mainly, then progressed onto CD; I've still got most of my old tapes and I keep them not just because of the music, but because each one is a memory of a particular time in my life.

At this very moment in time I'm listening to a DJ play a set on Mixlr and I have a Spotify subscription, so I'm not someone who is anti-streaming; I do, however, prefer having a hard copy of my music. That hard copy cannot be taken away from me if Spotify was to go bust, and it's still there if my internet connection throws a wobbly (as it did for a couple of hours last night).

 

[ComUtoR]

Somewhere between MiniDisc and Napster.

I can't remember the last CD I bought but I do have one from '97 so that's probably one of my last.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I think I bought my last CD around 2011 and went to buying mp3s as I was only buying the CDs to rip them so unless the CD was cheaper just bought the mp3. My car is a 2011 model but the stereo is oddly basic with no SD card support or USB storage either despite it being typical for cars at the time but it does have Bluetooth so I have a Spotify Car Thing mounted in the CD slot which does the job fine.

 

[DelayRepay]

I sold most of my CDs in the mid 2000s because I started using downloads.

I then re-bought a few second hand CDs in the early 2010s, because I bought a car which only had a CD player, and at the time was doing long motorway journeys. I got rid of them when I changed the car for a newer one which allowed me to stream from my phone.

 

[dk1]

Last one for me was The Feeling so got to be 15 years ago.

I probably only download a couple of times annually if that now.

 

[alxndr]

The last one I brought was November 2013 as a birthday present for my partner at the time.

No CD Player in my car ('17 plate). I did browse a rack of CDs in a charity shop last year when the work van I was driving had only a CD slot but nothing appealed.

 

[AM9]

I've only ever bought music on CDs (it was vinyl before the late '80s) as mp3s just don't cut it for serious listening. I have some vinyl transcripts to FLACs that for convenience I am use at home. One of these days, I'll do a mass transfer of the most played CDs to FLACs when I can find a decent juke box program on which to play them or use the media player on my Denon to access a NAS.
I'm not a frequent listener of recorded music whilst driving and certainly wouldn't regard that as a serious listening environment where MP3 fidelity is just about good enough. Before I had CDs, I occasionally listened to cassettes but they were as poor as mp3s relative to their vinyl superiors (in a different way).

 

[dgl]

If I'm buying music and the album has been released then generally I'll always buy the CD unless I want the music straightaway or it's a newly released track that has no physical release yet. Quite nice going to HMV to see what on offer that I don't yet have.
All CD's do get ripped in a lossless format for playing on the phone and laptop as it's convenient and I feel I am supporting the artist more by buying a physical release.
Never got the appeal of streaming and I think it really devalues artists, the top 40 chart is meaningless now that streaming is counted as it doesn't count sales, how many "streams" are unintentional, buying a CD isn't.

 

[StripeyNick]

I still purchase my music on CD. They're always from the bands who's albums I already have. If I've been to a gig and discovered a new band in the support acts, I might get something of theirs on CD.

My car still has a CD player so that's where I tend to listen to although on longer journeys, I plug my iPod in and leave it on shuffle.

Most of the time I tend to listen/watch new music on YouTube.....I have found that is a good way of discovering new stuff. I'm not a Spotify streamer which everyone I know seems to be these days