# Why you should keep your cd's



## konsole (Sep 21, 2011)

ok I get it, cd's are going out of style because people like the "seemingly" cheaper alternative to download individual songs and nobody likes to have a large case full of cd's in their car when they are easy to scratch.  I can understand not wanting to pay $15 for a cd but there are a bunch of places that sell them much cheaper (maybe not for hot new releases).  I do what most people with cd's do.  I rip them to my computer and then use the ripped song to listen to the music.  I do purchase some songs online and for me its a cost per song debate.  I first determine how many songs on the cd I am interested in buying at which point I am willing to pay about $3.00 per very good song, and about $2.00 per just good song and maybe $1.00 for songs I kinda like.  So if a cd has 2 very good songs on it and nothing else then I'd be willing to pay $6.00 for that cd.  If I cant find a good cost per song cd then I'll purchase the songs seperately.

I know many people dont care about a high quality sounding song, as long as it sounds pretty good, they can get it pretty cheap, and they can take it with them.  Unfortunately with downloads you can have a hard drive crash and then also forget to backup your music, or even just some of the music.  This means you have lost that $1 purchase for good, and this doesnt even include all the restrictions that often come with song downloads.  With cd's you always have the highest quality backup that can only be lost if you scratch or lose the disc, but thats just a matter of not taking care of your stuff.  If somehow you lose the song after its been ripped to your computer then you can rerip it from the cd.  If in the future you decide to rip at a lower or higher bitrate or the ripping process is improved even more, well then your have the original highest quality source of the cd to go from.

Highest legal download bitrate I have seen from a large collection site is 256 kbps, which is good but a little under the 320 kbps maximum bitrate you can get on ripped mp3's.  From the cd you can rip at a lossless format which preserves all the audio and the song sounds as good as it possibly can.  Whatever audio quality you choose the cd will allow you to choose it, but the downloads wont.  I'd be willing to bet that 75% of people that buy cds or download songs don't know what bitrate their music is or even what bitrate means.

When it comes to purchasing individual songs I just don't think people consider all the negatives that cd's dont have like lower sound quality, restrictions on use, and the relatively good chance of something going wrong and losing the song for good.  I think the best option is to buy the cd if the cost per songs that you like is within your preference, then rip the songs to your computer and then safely store the cd away as backup.  If the cost per songs you like is too much for you then ya purchase individual songs, but in either case you should be making a safe backup and even two safe backups.  Backing up to another hard drive and the hard drive can have problems but backing up to something that doesnt have mechanical parts that can break like a dvd or blu-ray disc is better.


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## dave1701 (Sep 21, 2011)

I don't know if I agree with you or not.  You began your essay with "ok, I get it" and the "ok" isn't even capitalized.


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## Troncoso (Sep 21, 2011)

....Couple things:

1) Many download sites let you re-download a song if you've purchased it. I personally don't know of any that wouldn't. There might be some, but I don't know them. And why would you buy from them when other companies (that are normally bigger) let you re download as much as you want if you bought it.

2) To ask someone to take the care of preserving cd's and keeping them in good condition is no better than asking someone to simply back up the songs they downloaded.

3)CD as well have restrictions of use, just like downloaded songs. The only legal thing you can do with a cd is listen to it, rip the music as a back-up, or give the disk away or sell it.


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## mep916 (Sep 22, 2011)

dave1701 said:


> I don't know if I agree with you or not.  You began your essay with "ok, I get it" and the "ok" isn't even capitalized.



This is probably the sickest troll post I've read on this forum, and you probably don't even realize you trolled here.


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## konsole (Sep 22, 2011)

Troncoso said:


> ....Couple things:
> 
> 1) Many download sites let you re-download a song if you've purchased it. I personally don't know of any that wouldn't. There might be some, but I don't know them. And why would you buy from them when other companies (that are normally bigger) let you re download as much as you want if you bought it.
> 
> ...



1) Recently I've used Napster, Amazon mp3, itunes, and Rhapsody and I havent noticed a way to download purchased music more then once.  Maybe you can contact them and ask to redownload I don't know.  You have proof of what you said?

2) True, if people use their cd's to listen to the music instead of ripping the songs and then listening to the ripped song.  Like I said in my post its best to rip the songs from the cd and then store the cd away.

3) If you have the highest possible quality copy of a song from a cd and you can rip the songs from the cd however you like with no restrictions in the ripped song then the number of possibilities is alot great then with indvidually purchased songs.  I guess its possible to debate wether cd's have less restrictions then downloaded music but there certainly is not more you can do with downloaded music then you can with cd's.


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## linkin (Sep 23, 2011)

I don't trust music downloads, especially for lossless, because sometimes they just re-encode MP3's to FLAC and sell it as a FLAC, when it's not (well it is but it's not lossless!)

CD's are nice to have as well.


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## mx344 (Sep 24, 2011)

linkin said:


> I don't trust music downloads, especially for lossless, because sometimes they just re-encode MP3's to FLAC and sell it as a FLAC, when it's not (well it is but it's not lossless!)
> 
> CD's are nice to have as well.




Its Mp3 Lossless 

I some-what agree with you OP, but the majority of people are looking fo convience, rather than quality.

buy song off itunes->download song->sync to ipod-> listen

buy song from store->pop the Cd in-> rip to mp3/wav/flac-> possibly tansfer to itunes->sync-> listen

Another factor is the quality of equipment the person has? do they have good headphones? Do they have a quality mp3 player?Quality sound card?
Pobably not.

For most people a 30mb file isn't practical, a 5mb is. 

CD's will always have there place though


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## MMM (Sep 24, 2011)

Who cares what form of media people choose to buy..... every one to their own choice....


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## konsole (Sep 24, 2011)

I know of a few people that I'm pretty sure they don't know enough about computers to know what bitrate is or how easy it is to lose their song downloads.  They have ipods and playlists full of songs that they have spent probably $500 or more and at the flick of a switch they can get a hard drive crash and its all gone.


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## mx344 (Sep 24, 2011)

they can always back-up the songs on a CD-R...


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## konsole (Sep 25, 2011)

mx344 said:


> they can always back-up the songs on a CD-R...



I said that backing up to dvd or blu-ray is ideal because those can hold alot more then cd-r and dont have any mechanical parts to break.  However blu-ray burners arent cheap so if people don't have one then its best to just stick with dvd-r's or SSD drives.  Flash storage like SSD drives arent a bad choice for larger collections since the smaller SSD drives arent that expensive.  cd-r's can only hold an average of about 65 songs at 320 kbps and maybe another 20 more if there 256 kbps.


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## linkin (Sep 25, 2011)

A regular CD can keep maybe a single album on FLAC, which is okay for backups I guess.


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## MMM (Sep 27, 2011)

Burnt CD and DVD have known to fail..... they are not bullet proof and depends on storage conditions...
It pays to back up on multiple devices to ensure guarantee of copies are safe.....


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## ScottALot (Sep 27, 2011)

I backup my data onto LP's because they don't scratch and they preserve audio quality


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