Anyone gone exclusively digital?

In 2006, I quit my job to back to school. I (foolishly) decided to sell my entire CD collection suplement my income. I also thought I was ready to be 100% digital.

So I burned copies of my of my CDs, filled up my iPod, and threw them on eBay.

I was not ready to be 100% digital. A few months after selling them, I regretted it.

So now, I buy CDs, but have a tiny collection. With a house, wife and baby, I just don't have the money to devote to buying CDs that I did in my 20s (not too mention the fact that at that time I was okay with running up obscene credit card debt to obtain CDs--not okay with that now. Ha).

I will also buy albums digitally now, though. Since 99% of my music collection are burned CDs and digital files, it makes it a little easier to just say screw it, and buy an album on Amazon MP3 or iTunes or whatever.

Still, when I look at my CD collection now...man, it's so pathetic. A 34-year-old lifelong music fan should not have a less-than-one-hundred CD collection.

Also, another thing that annoys me...so, a couple months ago I bought Metallica's Black Album for the first time ever. Well, I *used* to have the first four on CD, but now they are just MP3s on my laptop. So if someone were to look at my CD collection, not only would it look pitiful in size, but it'd also look like I was one of those millions of people who felt that the album with "Nothing Else Matters" was the only Metallica album worth buying.

I'm fighting it Dokken-style ie Tooth and Nail. To para-phrase Charleton Heston, I'll give up my beloved cds when they pry them from my cold, dead hands.

(Crosses arms, stands firm)

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna do it. I don't even own one 'a them, whadyacall'em, Pod-Eyes.

I've considered it. But I can hear my wife now..."we sunk so much money into all those CDs and now you're just selling them? I told you to go digital years ago!" She is digital now...just gets songs she wants and/or burns stuff of my CDs if she likes it.

I was a no-digital man for a long time, although part of that was because a lot of the digital music sites aren't available if you live in South Africa. That's something I don't quite understand - why won't Amazon let me download MP3s from South Africa yet happily ship the physical CD to me?

But recently I have gone the digital route for a few albums which just weren't available any other way. However, I don't think I'm ever going to go completely digital. There's something about having the physical CD that seems to enhance the listening experience that I don't always get when I'm listening to something I obtained digitally (even if I'm listening to it on my iPod, which seems a bit odd to me ).

No I am not doing it, call me a dinosaur but I like owning a physical product, the thought that goes into creating the package, art work, the time they took in sequencing the songs, plus my living room looks bad ass with wall to wall music.

That's something I'm going to resist doing as long as possible (until they quit making cds). It just doesn't seem like owning anything if it would be done digitally. I don't mind an ipod because they are a convenient way of carrying music,but everything own my ipod is originally on a physical copy.

i'll keep buying cds as long as they keep making them. i'm not anti digital though. both formats have their place.

mc666 wrote:

i'll keep buying cds as long as they keep making them. i'm not anti digital though. both formats have their place.

DIGITAL BIGOT!!

If I don't own the CD or vinyl, I feel like I don't own anything. That vinyl or CD is a piece of the band's history that I own. With digital downloads, I own nothing. For me, I feel I am a real fan not just because I listen to the band's music but because I buy the band's physical product as well.

Nope. It's like Alice Cooper says it's like buying air when you pay for a download.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...CDs ARE digital!!!!

That cracks me up almost as much as people saying they buy "vinyls".

S.D. wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again...CDs ARE digital!!!!

That cracks me up almost as much as people saying they buy "vinyls".

I trust my cds not to lose their data. Not so with a computer. Working with computers for 15+ years now, I know how easy it is to lose everything in the blink of an eye. I don't trust 'em enough to go fully digital. Even backing things up, I'd never trust them completely.

I prefer the physical format be it CD or vinyl. Until I can get lossless formats from all digital outlets, I am not interested.

I still have my CDs, but everything but most vinyl and cassettes is ripped. So I've gone like 98% digital but still have all my CDs.

My CDs are all in totes, though, so for all intents and purposes I've gone digital.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again...CDs ARE digital!!!!

That cracks me up almost as much as people saying they buy "vinyls".

I trust my cds not to lose their data. Not so with a computer. Working with computers for 15+ years now, I know how easy it is to lose everything in the blink of an eye. I don't trust 'em enough to go fully digital. Even backing things up, I'd never trust them completely.

But you rarely lose files on computers. Most people just don't know how easy it is to recover them.

I buy Cd's on occasion but usually stick with downloads, which I back up. In my opinion it's not a matter of right and wrong or being a true fan or not, it's personal preference.

Has anyone tried iTunes Match or Google Play for backing up in the cloud?

Eyesore wrote:

I still have my CDs, but everything but most vinyl and cassettes is ripped. So I've gone like 98% digital but still have all my CDs.

My CDs are all in totes, though, so for all intents and purposes I've gone digital.

99% of the time, I listen to my music on my iPod. Including in my car....and besides getting really nice "bud" earphones, I really miss having that big sound from a car stereo. I drive an old civic with a stock am/fm radio. I wonder if it would be worth dropping the 50 bucks on one of those converter boxes I can attach deep in the bowels of the dash behind the stereo....or put in a nice Kenwood CD deck I've had sitting in the garage for years. Practicality tells me I should just use the ipod?

Be interested to hear how allot of you guys listen in the car....

Eyesore wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again...CDs ARE digital!!!!

That cracks me up almost as much as people saying they buy "vinyls".

I trust my cds not to lose their data. Not so with a computer. Working with computers for 15+ years now, I know how easy it is to lose everything in the blink of an eye. I don't trust 'em enough to go fully digital. Even backing things up, I'd never trust them completely.

But you rarely lose files on computers. Most people just don't know how easy it is to recover them.

Sometimes. But we've lost plenty of data over the years here at work. I remember one computer literally was burning up. Smoke coming out the back and everything. I don't know that I could ever let go of that concern, no matter how many times I've backed things up.

I just throw the CD in, my mp3 player has good sound on it's own, but it's not the kind of thing you can feed through an power amp like what's in my deck and expect it to sound amazing, so..

T-Roy wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

I still have my CDs, but everything but most vinyl and cassettes is ripped. So I've gone like 98% digital but still have all my CDs.

My CDs are all in totes, though, so for all intents and purposes I've gone digital.

99% of the time, I listen to my music on my iPod. Including in my car....and besides getting really nice "bud" earphones, I really miss having that big sound from a car stereo. I drive an old civic with a stock am/fm radio. I wonder if it would be worth dropping the 50 bucks on one of those converter boxes I can attach deep in the bowels of the dash behind the stereo....or put in a nice Kenwood CD deck I've had sitting in the garage for years. Practicality tells me I should just use the ipod?

Be interested to hear how allot of you guys listen in the car....

You gotta get an iPod-ready deck (I've got an alpine). It's got a little "jack" in the back, where you run a cord into your glove compartment, and plug your iPod in through dock connector. It is as close to CD sound as you can get out of an iPod when in the car.

If that's what you meant.

Witchfinder wrote:

Until I can get lossless formats from all digital outlets, I am not interested.

Yeah, that's still the main stumbling block for me going completely digital, I'm not paying money for lossy .mp3s anymore.

The new Rush LP also contained a download card for the .flac files, that's a business model I can accept right there.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

T-Roy wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

I still have my CDs, but everything but most vinyl and cassettes is ripped. So I've gone like 98% digital but still have all my CDs.

My CDs are all in totes, though, so for all intents and purposes I've gone digital.

99% of the time, I listen to my music on my iPod. Including in my car....and besides getting really nice "bud" earphones, I really miss having that big sound from a car stereo. I drive an old civic with a stock am/fm radio. I wonder if it would be worth dropping the 50 bucks on one of those converter boxes I can attach deep in the bowels of the dash behind the stereo....or put in a nice Kenwood CD deck I've had sitting in the garage for years. Practicality tells me I should just use the ipod?

Be interested to hear how allot of you guys listen in the car....

You gotta get an iPod-ready deck (I've got an alpine). It's got a little "jack" in the back, where you run a cord into your glove compartment, and plug your iPod in through dock connector. It is as close to CD sound as you can get out of an iPod when in the car.

If that's what you meant.

Yes...that's what I'm talking about I think. So you like the sound? When you're listening to it, you're not wishing you had the CD for better sound?