Anyone else still actually listen to CDs?

[anarky]

Just curious.

I don't have an iPod. My CD player in the car doesn't play MP3 CDs. I've got a pretty sizable collection already. With new stuff, I get CDs if the price is the same or close (it's often cheaper to get the physical CD the first week, or if you preorder online), or if it's a band I can't imagine having a missing CD from (like the forthcoming Queen album).

Today, I was in a used CD store. I got 18 used CDs, because they were priced at $2.99, but got progressively cheaper each the more you got. I picked up mostly stuff for Mrs A, along with some 90s albums I never got, the second Simpsons soundtrack (hooray! this gem is way out of print, and finding it was a surprise), and some greatest hits by 80s bands (like Culture Club--I'm probably signed up to some gay mailing list now, but the early songs that are actually catchy aren't particularly easy to find without biting the bullet and buying an actual album). But, hell, they ended up being about the price of one MP3 each.

I know how to use computers pretty well. I get songs from iTunes and Amazon. I just tend to prefer the physical object for some reason if it's not a burden. Some older OOP albums I get digitally because they're tough to find, or not around in the US. I think it's a combination of the high-quality artwork (as opposed to me running it off on a low-end home printer) and the security that I don't lose everything if my hard drive dies.

Am I the only person under the age of 50 who can use a computer and still likes these old-timey CDs?

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

I now mainly listen to music through my iTunes. I haven't really used my iPod since high school since I like to listen to entire albums at a time (a class period was usually perfect for this) and walking to and from class now doesn't cut it.

A lot of times, I just copy files from friends or burn my sisters' CDs onto iTunes. I don't like getting "pirated" music much, though, as occasionally the sound quality is bad and the song names are wrong and it's sometimes too difficult to check to make sure everything's right.

When I buy music myself, though, I'm more inclined to get the actual CD. I think I've only bought Syd Barret's The Madcap Laughs and Rodrigo y Gabriela through iTunes, but I had a giftcard for the latter and couldn't find the former in stores. I've replaced a few of my copied Pink Floyd CDs into real ones, and my sister and I have been buying each other Queen CDs for a while now, but those are the only real must-haves (but both our Queen CD collections will only ever be half-complete anyway). CDs just seem more "official," probably since they're tangible objects and not computer files. Also, we listen to CDs on long-ass car trips, so they're nice to have.

I think, though, that I will go with whatever's cheaper. But I will definitely be getting The Cosmos Rocks soon . . . but not from my sister, since she still can't accept Paul singing instead of Freddie.

[vynsane]

i listen to CD's once, as i'm encoding them into mp3's

our car has the ipod hookup, so for roadtrips it can't be beat. the missus and i each have a nano 2nd-gen, so that works for alternating her crap and my good music. i messed mine up, though, so now it doesn't charge from my computer, only the sound dock thing (which, luckily, we got for christmas a few years back...)

you can burn standard CD audio, though, if you don't have mp3 playback capability on your car stereo. the program will convert the mp3 files back into standard CDA format that any CD player will recognize.

[Chester A. Arthur]

Is there nothing to be said for good old fashioned victrola? Say what will you will about this new fangled technology, but I just like the sound better. It seems more real. But have at your oriental machineries and their fraudulent sounding devilations.

[jjreason]

I still buy CDs as well. The only virtual music I've paid money for was the Radiohead album and then one video from itunes to see how it looked on the mrs.' ipod touch (it looked good, in case anyone cares).

My plan is to put a bunch of CDs into itunes, but I find that program a little frustrating to manipulate to be perfectly honest. I would like to have a number of albums of mixed tracks on the newer ipod that she would like, and a few that i would like as well, but it's going to take me some poking around to figure out exactly how that's going to happen.

[anarky]

iTunes is very powerful music software, considering it's free. You can create customized albums pretty easily by making playlists. I'm not sure exactly how that translates to the iPod, though.

(I'll get an iPod when they make one with 80 gigs or more, without wasting processor resources and surface space to video. I couldn't fucking care less about watching something on a tiny screen. And touch controls? Whoopiedoo. Give me something that plays music, does it well, has space for a few hundred CDs, and doesn't screw around with all the bells and whistles.)

[jjreason]

Yeah, but with the touch I can watch Vanessa Hudgens shake her sexy whenever I want.

For me, 8GB (8000 songs, or so they say) is an endless supply of music. I have no need to put ALL our CDs on there - just what you'd want at any particular time, provided it's as easy to switch them up as I'm hoping it will be once I get it figured out.

[Jargo]

i detest iTunes. i only use it to upload music from my library to my iPod and i only have an iPod because i got it free from a competition i won.

but yes, i still buy an occasional CD and have a CD player in my dining room and one in the car. i like seeing the physical presense of a disk spinning and all that.

i don't ever buy music online though. piracy all the way. even people in the music industry download illegally rather than buy. sorry, i mean 'fileshare'.

[jjreason]

"Piracy all the way" strikes me as hilarious for some reason.... it's the elephant in the room, no doubts there.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

I'm wary of low-quality music files and viruses, so piracy is not really an elephant for me.

I used to do it, but one shitty experience after another made me quit.

[Bizarro Mabudon]

mE AM STILL HAVE CDs AND NOT UPGRADE YET TO TAPE. tOOK TOO SHORT TIME TO UPGRADE ALL OLD MP3s. aND NOW ME AM HEAR THEY HAVE RECORD! tHIS PROGRESS AM GO TOO SLOW FOR ME.

[mabudon]

Oddly I am in about the same boat as my bizarro counterpart, I have tons of records but nothing left to play them on, so I actually literally do need an upgrade of sorts to catch up with the damn past

[anarky]

I've got a few records, mostly of OOP stuff (like Whitford-St Holmes). I hope they're not damaged from being stored for years.

[mabudon]

I have more on the order of a couple hundred, mostly stuff that never came out in any other format ever again

[Ran]

I'm like Vyn. I listen to the CD when I'm ripping it to my hard drive.

Technically, I have 2 records. My old boss' wife gave me Van Halen's debut album. I've never listened to it because I don't have a turntable. The other record I have is part of a gag gift either my wife or mother-in-law gave to me. It is a 45 of Elvis for Hound Dog or Viva Las Vegas or something. Anyway, it is part of a 8x10 framed display.