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Future of CD; A worthless pile of plastic, or ... ?

formbypc said:
Currently engaged on a large ripping exercise, boxing up the CDs as I go.

Some of the CDs still have price stickers, and where this is the case, I've been going to eBay UK to see what they're fetching, and the results are disappointing, to say the least.

Paul Rodgers ; Muddy Water Blues 2CD - purch £14.99, selling today £7.99 max.
Paul Rodgers; Now and Live 2CD Limited - purch £12.99, selling £4.50 max

Chick Corea; Forever and Beyond, 5CD box set - probably purchased for around £40 - 50, now £8 or so (plus £20 postage from USA). This seems to be typical of the box sets which were around this level at purchase time - barely fetching £20 or so these days.


Will CD owners be left with a worthless pile of plastic sometime soon, or not?
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I guess people have different priorities in what they intend to do with CDs irrespective of whether they are still worthy or worthless. I still buy CDs, won a bid on Ebay UK two days ago at £7.90 which is reasonable (Coldplay Live + DVD).

Personally I still value the CD format as it is. I don't see myself selling my stack of CDs. In the event I don't need them anymore, they will likely go to the garbage bin.
 
How do people feel about those £16.99 HMV stickers found on 50p/£1 charity shop CDs? People really paid those prices...
 
I won't say CDs are 'worthless'. They generally won't fetch their original price, they are used goods so they will be worth little. No different from old books or dvds.

The OP may think that they should be like old vinyl records. They are not, unless they are 'collectable' (some are and do command premium prices). Perhaps in time more will become collectable artifacts.
 
abbydog said:
How do people feel about those £16.99 HMV stickers found on 50p/£1 charity shop CDs? People really paid those prices...
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For "specialist" music (as HMV likes to call it), I still have to. Jazz, classical, World, etc. I don't buy much rock, or any pop, so economy of scale doesn't seem to apply.
At the moment I am getting loads of free FLAC or WAV downloads from Bandcamp; it's opened my ears to a lot of new music. But sometimes CDs are worth buying for the "added value", like this one. https://seckoukeita.bandcamp.com/album/22-strings And we enjoyed it so much we went to see him!
 
Disbeliever said:
I totally agree, current CD situation is similar to the Vinyl one. I shall NEVER be getting rid of my CD collection or downloading/streaming music
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But if you won't download, you will probably end up stuck in the musical past. There is a lot of new music that is only available as a download, especially from regions were CD manufacture is next to impossible. Like the Sahara, for example.
 
abbydog said:
How do people feel about those £16.99 HMV stickers found on 50p/£1 charity shop CDs? People really paid those prices...
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...and for whatever awful valueless title it was you were looking at! One thing I'd point out when folk say CDs are worth 50p and can be found anywhere for that is to ask when was the last time they saw something good for that in any quantity, e.g. a big mint stack of Blue Notes, Impulse, Riverside, Verve label or similar jazz, a Can, Kraftwerk or Neu! CD, some non-remastered Yes or Genesis etc. Sure a Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis, Bryn Terfel or Spice Girls CD or a horribly scratched copy of REM's Monster is overpriced at 50p, and that IME tends to be what is out there along with a load of magazine cover-mounts and other junk that should be in a plastic recycling bin. I can often walk around every charity shop in a town these days and buy-in nothing at all. Not all CDs are worth the same!
 
It's the same with books. If you buy the latest blockbuster in hardback at full retail price, it will be 'worth' 50p at best once you leave the shop. A signed first edition of a short print run by a renowned author, on the other hand, might fetch a better price once you come to sell it.
 
Cd's are priceless if you prefer the SQ of a cd player to streaming, after numrous attempts at streaming, trying plenty of options in the process, i still went back to a cd player as it still sounds better for my personal tastes, my humble Rotel cd player still had better dynamics, detail definition & drive than any option i tried.

I doubt i will ever leave cd now, SQ is my priority & i still find it much simpler placing a cd in the draw than searching through endless tracks on my laptop, skipping from one album to another, just because you can & seem prone to do when you have this option for some reason, i still prefer placing in a cd, sitting back & enjoying the whole album.
 
Vinniemac said:
You're equating Bryn Terfel with Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and the Spice Girls? Seriously?
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Not artistically, but frequency of finding/market saturation. I'm always on the lookout for nice early West German issues of good classical titles, so tend to spot DGG spines from across the shop. About 95% are Bryn Terfel CDs! In fact I can't remember the last time I went into a charity shop that didn't have at least one Bryn Terfel CD! In the same way 95% of early '80s CBS/Columbia CDs with the short black band at the top of the spine with the CBSCD cat no in charity shops are Celine Dion! I've never actually tried buying either in as I just assumed the market saturation is so great no one would pay me £3 for something that can be found pretty much anywhere for 50p.

PS As a record dealer it is spectacularly daft to apply any personal value judgement to music, it just needs to be assessed into that which you think has a market and that which you think hasn't. I'd love to be able to shift Susan Boyle CDs for a tenner a throw as that would be at least £9.50 profit, but I can't see that happening!
 
I've got 4 Susan Boyle CDs here in exc. condition; a quid the lot if you want ! Charity shop cheapos, played one track and fell asleep.

Tony's point thus seconded !:D
 
Fair enough Tony. I don't buy CDs these days so I wasn't aware that Bryn Terfel's stuff was remaindered so much.
 
abbydog said:
How do people feel about those £16.99 HMV stickers found on 50p/£1 charity shop CDs? People really paid those prices...
Click to expand...

In 1992 or thereabouts, yes ...

Paul Rodgers ; Muddy Water Blues 2CD - purch £14.99, selling today £7.99 max.
Paul Rodgers; Now and Live 2CD Limited - purch £12.99, selling £4.50 max
 
I'm seeing the opposite with SACDs if they're out of print. As an example, the Janos Starker Bach Cello Suites SACD bought for, say, $25 when available is selling for many times that amount now.

Joe
 
Joe P said:
I'm seeing the opposite with SACDs if they're out of print. As an example, the Janos Starker Bach Cello Suites SACD bought for, say, $25 when available is selling for many times that amount now.
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Is this because there's no easily-available ripping method for them, they're not on the streaming services in this form, and so the only source is the physical disc?

Discuss.
 
I wouldn't think there is that much difference in the value of s/h CDs and LPs.

Surely most of it is down to its rarity/desirability and condition.

Early [pre re mastered/re mixed] CDs are often more sought after and the prices on these are already rising.

The most I have paid is £80 for a single s/h cd and was surprised to get it at that price , expected to pay much more than that .
 
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