Metal (or any genre) cds vs. downloading

I have to say that as much as I love getting the cd - I have wavered about going digital. After awhile, storing all these cds becomes an issue...

I prefer CDs as well. I will download an album if I have no other way to get it without paying through the nose for it. Of course, I only have one album that way...

I like to have the album in my hand and the artwork (I use to by albums just because I dug the artwork). I love liner notes. I like to read the lyrics. I hate it when I buy an album, pull the cover out and open up the liner notes and there are NO lyrics.

What really saddens me is how people treat physical copies of an album. Nobody takes care of their CDs. Everyone else in my family (except my dad) thinks CDs are too easy to damage. Of course, none of them keep them in their Jewel cases. I can see their CDs upside down on the floor or the dresser with dirt and clothes on them or they have them in their CD wallets and they can't figure out how they got scratched...and it drives me nuts! I want to smack them and tell them that if they actually took care of their CDs, that those albums would outlast the next few generations on this earth! But they don't care... Go figure.

CDs definitely!

I would download a couple of songs if i cannot find the cd, but after a few listens, they're deleted for good.

I enjoy so much my collection.

I'm reaching around 700 albums now. Nothing compared to what most of the guys on the board have, but given the situation of hevay metal music around here, i'm very proud.

Gilbert (Thu Dec 16, 2010 12:49 am) wrote:

CDs definitely!

I would download a couple of songs if i cannot find the cd, but after a few listens, they're deleted for good.

I enjoy so much my collection.

I'm reaching around 700 albums now. Nothing compared to what most of the guys on the board have, but given the situation of hevay metal music around here, i'm very proud.

quality is better than quantity in my book...

All I downloaded where undergrounds bands or bands I had no clue about, before risking to buy it. And I would have some albums to put on my ipod, but after my computer crashed many times and lost the info because of viruses, I ended up having little albums on my computer. So now I have a few albums on my ipod, and If I want to listen to a band, I wait to go home and crack the stereo out.


What happens if when an audio gets compressed into mp3, it looses its quality. Rather that a cd will give you the best sound. And if you have a stereo system it will bring your music to another direction. I have a component stereo that was given to me used, the speakers are broken, but work %75 of the time. I would never go back to mp3 in its entirely

troublemagnet wrote:

I buy about 3-4 cds a month and download about the same. For some reason, I also burn everything i download and make covers and cd inlay cards for them.

I do this as well. I think that I have a good combo of buying cds, records, cassettes(yes I will still buy if they are cheap and they usually are) and downloading.

I also burn any records and tapes I convert and print covers and inlays for them. Especially if you find out that they mastered or mixed the new cd terribly.

exact33 wrote:

I have to say that as much as I love getting the cd - I have wavered about going digital. After awhile, storing all these cds becomes an issue...

I'll say, I aquired a 500 GB external hard drive a few years ago because I ran out of room on my computer (it's alright though because it's only half way full right now). In the end though it's worth it for me because I don't have enough room to display my CDs so having them on my computer provides me easy access to them. Also without being able to put them on an MP3 player, I'd have to go without music at work and work is a pain in the arse enough as it is.

I just got a 1 TB drive and am contemplating the digital thing. It is so hard to let go of the physical product though..

Downloading is practical, i admit, but it kills the pleasure of holding a CD and reading the booklet.

Besides, many albums in my collection bring some nice memories.

Yesterday night, i was playing a Nocturnal Rites album, and as soon as i held it in my hands, it brought back so many souvenirs of when i purchased it from a music store in Bergen Norway.

Looking beyond the first-order tangibles (reading the booklet, actually holding and owning something), it takes one wary lightning strike or spill of some morning coffee of your laptop/ computer to fry your 500gig lexicon of music.

With CDs, they will remain as long as you dont (freeze or melt them) or drop the thing itself on a rocky driveway.

Also, modern cyber junky will nerd over how 'flexing' their collection is on one little hard drive.

We flex our array of hardcopy CDs that take up entire rooms sometimes (in addition to vinyls, etc) We buy furniture to accommodate our passion.

SlaytanicPOWER wrote:

Looking beyond the first-order tangibles (reading the booklet, actually holding and owning something), it takes one wary lightning strike or spill of some morning coffee of your laptop/ computer to fry your 500gig lexicon of music.

With CDs, they will remain as long as you dont (freeze or melt them) or drop the thing itself on a rocky driveway.

That's why I have a back-up (1TB) external hard drive. Also if some unforseen accident destroys a CD, I have back-up to burn a copy.

Quote :

Also, modern cyber junky will nerd over how 'flexing' their collection is on one little hard drive.

We flex our array of hardcopy CDs that take up entire rooms sometimes (in addition to vinyls, etc) We buy furniture to accommodate our passion.

That's why I will alway collect CDs, a vast collection is much more awe inspiring than a hard drive. Unfortunatly, I have no room to accomidate (sic) my collection in any meaningful display. When I finally get to live on my own, I will display my collection proudly and rely on my media library less.

i rarely buy cds when i can listen to spotify for free as much as i like.

i do like to pick up vinyl every now and then. good stuff is a bit out of my price range though

CD's all the way.

I owning something physical.

I do MP3's as well though.

I'm starting to have trouble finding a place for my collection.

Question - If I decide to go digital, and purchase and download an album from the Zune Marketplace, does that qualify as something I can post as a new aquisition on the "Today I Acquired..." sticky? Or is that reserved for CDs only? Kmorg?

TheGooch wrote:

i rarely buy cds when i can listen to spotify for free as much as i like.

i do like to pick up vinyl every now and then. good stuff is a bit out of my price range though

Spotify is great, but only if you live in the UK or other selected countries.

snooloui wrote:

TheGooch wrote:

i rarely buy cds when i can listen to spotify for free as much as i like.

i do like to pick up vinyl every now and then. good stuff is a bit out of my price range though

Spotify is great, but only if you live in the UK or other selected countries.

handily for me i live in the UK. i think its a shame that they are having such a hard time over licensing with the US labels to bring it to the states.

its an amazing service with a killer catalogue. sure no ac/dc, tallica, floyd or beatles but thats understandable. loads of rare metal.

honestly i havent bought a cd or downloaded anything (legal or illegal) since i joined up. connect my macbook to the stereo and im all set.

if any of you live in an area where its available and you dont have it i suggest you do it its very easy

Sinistar wrote:

Hi, just registered after lurking awhile. Since you guys seem to be a nice bunch, I decided to join.

Perhaps you've discussed this in older threads....

But what are your thoughts on downloading music vs. buying cds?

I feel like a dinosaur....but I still want the cd and artwork. To me, it's a big part of collecting music. (I still have a number lps and 45s too)

I perfer them both myself, If I can have it on CD Awesome but if i cannot find what im looking for anywhere then I dont mind getting the download.

TheGooch wrote:

snooloui wrote:

TheGooch wrote:

i rarely buy cds when i can listen to spotify for free as much as i like.

i do like to pick up vinyl every now and then. good stuff is a bit out of my price range though

Spotify is great, but only if you live in the UK or other selected countries.

handily for me i live in the UK. i think its a shame that they are having such a hard time over licensing with the US labels to bring it to the states.

its an amazing service with a killer catalogue. sure no ac/dc, tallica, floyd or beatles but thats understandable. loads of rare metal.

honestly i havent bought a cd or downloaded anything (legal or illegal) since i joined up. connect my macbook to the stereo and im all set.

if any of you live in an area where its available and you dont have it i suggest you do it its very easy

I agree, it's just a shame they can't strike deals with all the labels so that they get more bands and complete catalogues (very annoying sometimes).

I have about 220 Gigs worth of music, mostly ranging in the metal/rock scene or some other stuff. Much of it is the fact that I have 138 gigs of music on my Ipod Classic.

After having collected CD's for about 22 years now, back when they first became the better thing to own, I have finally moved into the Digital world. I blame having an Ipod. My PC has the Itunes on it with all my albums. The stuff I dont get into as much nor listen to anymore goes on my external and is in a folder all its own basically the "packed away stuff."

Recently I have actually began to trade those albums in, and a few others that I cant see needing now that I am more digital. Mind you this is the stuff that is "packed away" folder music. I still buy all the CDs of bands I love and transfer them to my Ipod, but keep the physical stuff on my shelf. I just have this thing about needing the physical copy of something I love. It almost is like my own personal trophy shelf, my bragging rights thing.

As far as Digital, you need to back it all up on externals. I have 1 external that backs up from my PC, and I also have another that I occasionally Ghost my machine to so if it ever crashes, I can reimage it and wont lose all that work. Kind of a lot of work just for music huh? CD's really sound a lot easier to me at the moment LOL.

CDs, vinyl, and cassettes for me.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't like to hear the sound of bacon frying when I'm listening to music.

As a collector, I obviously would prefer to have physical copies of the recordings. I also like the fact that having the actual product in hand means having a backup in the event something happens to the digital copies.

There is something special to me with owning the original pressings of LP's, Cassette Tapes and Compact Discs...I treasure them much more than simple downloaded tracks.

As a radio personality, I receive a lot of digital tracks from bands for play on my show. However, I almost always still purchase the physical CD's for my own collection (and to support the bands).

im a collector, and i collect physical cds as well as digitalized music that exists solely on my hard drives (usually in mp3, because i dont have the storage facilities for lossless, and dont experience a practical loss in quality from lossless to 320kbps mp3). i had a growing cd collection and then i had to start selling everything off to pay the rent and whatnot, and that was pretty much the end of it. i recently came into some steady money, albeit a small amount, and ive started building up a few discographies again for the first time in years.

i can see the appeal of physical copies over songs that merely reside on a computer or ipod, but theres more substance to non-cd digital music than most people would immediately think. i believe in a society where bands should be supported for making music, not selling cds, and where theres no such thing as actual "profit", just mutual exchange. we need to take care of our artists, regardless of how we end up doing it in the current system. i believe in the freedom of information, though (ergo the free distribution of digital media)---capitalism will die long before music.

I download all of my music at the moment, mostly because I can't afford to buy CDs. When I'm older and have the money, then I'll replace my downloaded music with actual physical copies.

GrimBeornTheOld wrote:

CDs, vinyl, and cassettes for me.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't like to hear the sound of bacon frying when I'm listening to music.

I'll never understand why some people say this. It's just as easy to find top quality audio downloads as it is finding shitty ones. Ever heard of FLAC files? They're an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. They sound superb.