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The CD revival thread

Tony L

Tony L

Administrator

Didn’t take long, CDs are cool again! Woohoo! This isn’t an audiophile channel at all, it’s one of the many computer geek channels I follow. I’ve still got my late-90s blue Sony D-EJ751 in near mint condition and fully working. It was my only music system for about a year when I first moved to That London, my proper system and record collection being in storage up north.

PS Note to self: bump all CD prices in pfm record shop soon…
 
Woodface said:
CD has never really gone away, I’ve always been able to buy what I like unlike when vinyl disappeared from the high street. It’s such a great format, portable, rippable etc.
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Of late it kind of has gone away. I’ve noticed a few new titles I’m interested in only getting a vinyl and download release, e.g. I think Gondwana Records have abandoned CD. Certainly the last Hania Rani and Matthew Halsall were vinyl/download only. Fine for me as I buy the vinyl. Hopefully it will come back again. I’m fully at peace with CD, I really like them as a format and I collect them in just as geeky a manner as I do records.
 
Tony L said:
Of late it kind of has gone away. I’ve noticed a few new titles I’m interested in only getting a vinyl and download release, e.g. I think Gondwana Records have abandoned CD. Certainly the last Hania Rani and Matthew Halsall were vinyl/download only. Fine for me as I buy the vinyl. Hopefully it will come back again. I’m fully at peace with CD, I really like them as a format and I collect them in just as geeky a manner as I do records.
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Your tastes are probably a bit more niche than mine in some ways but the main benefit is the sheer range of ways you can listen to music. Golden age etc.
 
Thus far any deleted CD's I wanted I have managed to pick up s/h without too much trouble. The last one was Scritti Polittì's 'Cupid & Psyche 85'. I have been trying to get a newish copy of the Jethro Tull Christmas album to replace my damaged copy. However the sellers out there seem to know it's rare - the used prices are expensive!
 
Roy trigwell said:
Do cd’s deteriorate over time.
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Only a few specific types seem to, e.g. late-80s to early-90s PDO manufactured discs are prone to bronzing (corrosion of the aluminium layer), similar period Nimbus can suffer decaying sticky labels, but on the whole they seem very stable indeed. I have a lot of very old Japanese and West German pressings from the start of the CD era and they are absolutely fine. It is too early to tell if they are as long-term reliable as perfectly kept vinyl or even a lot of tape (though again certain brands have real issues there too), but we have 40 years or so of CDs now and the well cared for ones seem to be absolutely fine aside from the specifics I mention.

CDRs do deteriorate and can’t be considered a safe archival medium. I’d certainly backup and CDR promos or whatever to a hard disk (which in itself isn’t an archival medium, but you should have a backup strategy in place).
 
Roy trigwell said:
Do cd’s deteriorate over time…
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I have plenty of CDs from the 80s that still play flawlessly. There were rumours at the time that certain CDs manufactured in France and (I think?) Germany wouldn’t last 20 years…but all of mine from that period are ‘as new’.
 
I started buying CDS in 1988, all of them still play.
I had one that skipped, 1986 copy of Metallica Ride the Lightning. so I used t-cut on it gently and that worked.
 
Wine Man said:
the used prices are expensive!
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They are. I was quite surprised the other day to see a couple of things I have are now veering toward the eye-watering in terms of pricing.

I think the most I've paid for a used disc is about £30, but that would be an exceptional case.
 
Tony L said:
I’ve noticed a few new titles I’m interested in only getting a vinyl and download release, e.g. I think Gondwana Records have abandoned CD.
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Yup, I was thinking Gondwana are dialling back on CDs, but there’s a couple of 2022 albums here: Gondwana Discogs
Seems to have been recent EPs / live / one-off releases that are vinyl only.

Other labels are definitely getting a little random though. On the similarly-sized Smalltown Supersound, unlike before, this year’s Carmen Villain is vinyl only, as was Lost Girls. The new Kelly Lee Owens will also be available on CD.

I seem to be buying more CDs, even pricier ones on tiny labels like Sonic Pieces; and, surprisingly, more vinyl, when there’s no CD, and / or maybe if it’s danceable.
 
I stopped buying them years ago. I didn’t want to get to a stage where I had so many that I was unable to play the . I’ve got my collection upstairs but I tend to put them into folders for easy access and use.
 
I am a fan of CDs and have most of mine although I've been doing a bit of culling of late. The vast majority are fine although I have had a few that have deteriorated and can't be played any more. But these really are very few in number.

As discussed before on PFM, I am more worried about the longevity of CD lasers and drives. I've just had my Naim CDS3 laser transport freshly replaced and did the same for my CDS2 as a back up player. I do not fancy buying new player.
 
CD is a pretty reliable carrier for digital files, and any CDs which start to deteriorate can (in my experience, anyway) be successfully ripped.

But life is too short to rip a large CD collection, so I shall be keeping my player as a transport for recordings that aren't available to stream. I expect it to outlive me...
 
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