Never really go near my CDs once they've been ripped, they just stay on the shelf. Even in the car I will be using an SD card based MP3 head unit. However what I have done is dramatically cut down my purchase of new CDs by purchasing digitally via Emusic so the CD collection isn't growing at the rapid rate it once was an I have enough shelving to keep me going for now. I only buy CDs for what can't be obtained via Emusic.

If you're just boxing them up, then no harm. You have access to your music in digital form, & any info that you need from the inlay cards is freely available on the Interweb.

any info that you need from the inlay cards is freely available on the Interweb.

I think iTunes includes that in your downloads. There was a time when I scanned those inlay cards for bits of info, but not so much any more.

"what purpose to CD's serve in the digital age?"

they give you better quality than shoddily compressed MP3's... that is all i need...

I hate MP3s.. especially the fact that yr normally charged a quid for them - there's no physical distribution OR product involed & yet we're expected to buy inferior quality versions of songs for more or less the same price as their CD counterparts. I've never bought an MP3 & don't ever plan to. Boycott i-tunes, I say!

Yeah, but if the MP3s are encoded properly there isn't an issue. Put it this way, CDs offer a maximum bit rate of 192kbps, but MP3s are available as 320kbps. The idea that MP3s are inherently inferior to CD does not stack up at all. Both are digital formats, both use compression and encoding, except that CDs use really old and ineffective algorithms. If you want uncompressed analogue sounding audio, you need vinyl. However I believe many DJs are making the jump straight from vinyl to high quality MP3s and skipping (no pun intended) CDs altogether.

There several specialist DJ MP3 stores on the net like beatport.com

Personally I find Emusics quality is just fine for home listening, though the odd album isn't encoded as well as it should be. You don't pay a quid per song either. Apple does not sell MP3s by the way (except EMI releases), all stuff on iTunes is generally in DRM'd AAC format. iTunes is crap and the backlash is starting already.

well in fairness you sound like you have an idea what you're talking about... i was being rather flippant but the point stands... most mp3s on the market are of a worse audio quality than your average cd (although cd's are getting worse in general)... i also know nothing about ipods or mp3 players but in addition, how can you have better amp / speaker qualities through those than a lovely home stereo system / seperates... obviously vinyl's the way but i didn't really want to get in to that argument again...

...aside from all this, it's about the art... and having something to cherish in your hands...

I just plug my player into my stereo & bob's your pre-op auntie.

As regards having something to cherish ... I used to think like that, but haved moved away from it. I see bands/labels putting less & less effort into them, meaning I'm make less & less effort to buy cds. Its all about the music, maaaan.

Yeah, CDs are getting worse because bands insist on using loads of compression to make them sound "louder".

A lot of digital music on the market (and I can't emphasise this enough) is not in MP3 format, it's either WMA or AAC with DRM to control your ability to copy it. Supposedly an anti-piracy measure, all it does is annoy consumers and offer less funcionality that a CD (like being able to listen in the car, without a crappy iPod sitting there, no one should need an iPod to listen in the car, head units read MP3s these days).

I also don't listen to MP3s on a crappy iPod and headphones, at home I have a PC with an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound car with proper left and right stereo phono digital and analogue outputs. I connect the analogue outputs to to an amplifier exactly like connecting HiFi seperates and it sounds pretty good. In the car I will transfer MP3s to an SD card which I insert into my new head unit. (still gotta install it, believe it or not I've changed cars three times in the last 12 months and not had a working stereo in any of them). Criticizing MP3s because of iPods is like criticisng CDs because of the Discman.

There is a difference between low quality mp3's and actual CD's, only way to get proper CD quality is go with lossless or Wav files, which are massive.. try burning a CD album from 128kbps or 320kpbs mp3's and playing it against the original CD in a decent system.. you will definitely hear the difference!

Mp3's take out the bits they think you can't hear.. but you can feel them man!! ;-)

so do CDs, the range of frequencies on a CD only corresponds to the human audible hearing range as they simply could not fit any more on to the format at the time. The lower frequencies that you can't hear are simply not on CDs, only vinyl, which is one reason why DJs persisted with vinyl. MP3s ripped from CDs may suffer some quality loss in conversion, especially if you don't rip at high quality or just use a crap encoder. However if we take CDs out of the picture altogether and look at a pure digital future, where music is distributed via the internet and properly encoded to MP3 or other digital audio format from the original recording, I see no reason why MP3s can't be superior to CD.

Yes 320kbps MP3s are big, but who burns MP3s to CD anymore? that's so three years ago. With home networks and high capacity storage in MP3 players and USB sticks so common place now, it really isn't an issue if a three minute song takes 15mb.

you're all too technical for me man... i'm going home to throw on my records...

...and mully, as for the 'less effort is going into the artwork', i find this bollox i'm afraid... at least 50% of the music i buy seems to be lovingly hand crafted in beautiful cardboard cases... the days of the jewel cases are gone... and then look at the records... a foot square of beauty...

...you can have your faceless digital... it's just another nail in the coffin for art and culture and another move to the immediate "must have everything right away" society we live in...

*expect me to follow within the year*

Back to vinyl. And back to Mono while we're at it.

I've noticed CD packaging is getting better, maybe in an attempt to boost sales. I noticed that the new Bat For Lashes CD comes in a Jewel case with rounded edges, which makes all the difference because rouded edges mean stress isn't concentrated in corners and the CD case is less likely to crack

Muzak - Mono was grand for Brian Wilson, he was deaf in one ear, Pet Sounds was mixed in Mono originally.

I'm really coming across as a total nerd, ain't I?

Whatever you may sound like (!), I definitely have learned something new today! Nice one!

Just one question... how do tapes rate against all these? I still have loads of them at home, plus I still record our demos on a 4track tape deck... I know I'm completely out of tune with the 21st century - this fact was driven home very strongly yesterday when I was flipping thru an Argos catalogue in a mate's gaff - the f**ker was in stitches when I had to ask such questions as...

"MP4? When did THAT happen (And what are they)?"
"What's a HD TV?"
"What's a Bluetoothed enabled phone?"
"How come Playstations are more expensive than they were 10 years ago?"
"In-car DVD players & screens for €200? Dangerous, but class!"
"What's a USB stereo? Where do you put the CDs? And even more importantly - where's the shagging tape deck?"

Imagine my dismay when I was told that tapes are no longer being produced anywhere in the world. Thank f**k you can record over them!

(I'm not takin' the piss btw - I really did ask these things.. by the time I put down the catalogue, I felt like I'd just come out of a cryogenic freezer)

I'm thinking of getting an in-car DVD player & screens, fit them to the back headrests and stick some hardcore porn on repeat, in the hope that it'll catch on - imagine how it would break those long drives & relieve driver stress? I'd make it part of the NCT aswell.. "Sorry sir, your car passed on emissions, but failed on porn... that squirting scene was totally faked."

Well, to get really nerdy on it, most early stereo records were effectively mono, but with complete tracks panned either left, right, or middle. The reason? The desks had a switch with 3 settings - L,R,M.

Try listening to Revolver and playing with the panning on your stereo.

Try listening to any Beatles album with one broken earphone... happened me once - all I could hear was the bass & a backing vocal!! I love mixing L/R though... I like to record 2 almost identical vocal tracks & the same for the guitars, then mix one of them to the extreme right, the other to the left. It gives a nice kinda chorus effect.