I started listening to music in 1990 with the cassette format. Then in 1992 the CD appeared in my life and I never stopped. Even today, in 2025, I still buy CDs. I have a collection of more than 1,100 records. For me, the physical format is the best way to listen to music. It is still a ritual to go to the record store. Look for titles, both known and unknown, and then get home, open the record, smell it, analyze the cover art, examine the booklet from beginning to end. And finally play the CD, it is something magical even today for me. I do not deny technology at all, I am a very regular Spotify user, it gives me the advantage of taking the music wherever I want. But the pleasure of being in my room or in the living room listening to music with a CD in my hand is incomparable. Everything you have written is very good. Greetings.
An interesting question that is probably worth its own post. I do go to shows and will buy digital stuff when offered. But streaming has been a deal with the devil for most artists.
I'm still a CD buyer and try to buy direct from the band or label when I can. Failing that it's online indy shops.
Interesting note on merch. Saw Fish at the Palladium last night. He organised a merch pop up beforehand at a nearby pub. T-shirts there were 30. At the venue they were 45. Turns out venue takes 25% of merch sales hence the uplift! I'm going to buy t-shirts from band websites after the event, going forward.
To me the ideal system is a CD player or i-phone connected to an old-fashioned quad system with real speakers. but I rarely have a moment when I can crank that up without disturbing anyone, so mostly I listen using my computer with headphones, or in my car.
I definitely listen to music mostly on headphones and in the car these days. My Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are my current favorite headphones. I do miss the old days of blasting music out of large speakers, but those days are long gone for me.
Going to audio stores and spending hours in the sound-proof room comparing various systems was a great pleasure that I miss. No one does that any more.
I recently built a new component system. I’ve had it with streaming, even at its highest rate. Every day another remaster comes out that is super compressed. Modern music is made for streaming, so it has no dynamics at all.
My favorite format is SACD, but my system makes CDs and LPs sound just as good. I had 1200 CDs in storage and they’ve come back out so I can hear the original masters as they were intended when released. Many records from the 70s and 80s were just dumped onto CD poorly and sound awful. Heart’s sled titles album and Ozzy’s Ultimate Sin are examples of this. In these cases, a clean pressing on LP sounds best.
The caveat to all this being that I spent a lot of money on my system piece by piece. That being said, a typical 500 setup with a CD player will still often give better results than streaming.
I totally agree, you can get better sound quality if you go with well-mastered source material and high-quality equipment. But that is also incredibly inconvenient and much more expensive for my listening purposes.
Everyone has their priorities and for me it is easy access to everything and convenient on-the-go listening.
I've not used SACD before. Are those normal CDs or do they need special equipment to play? Are they still made?
I started listening to music in 1990 with the cassette format. Then in 1992 the CD appeared in my life and I never stopped. Even today, in 2025, I still buy CDs. I have a collection of more than 1,100 records. For me, the physical format is the best way to listen to music. It is still a ritual to go to the record store. Look for titles, both known and unknown, and then get home, open the record, smell it, analyze the cover art, examine the booklet from beginning to end. And finally play the CD, it is something magical even today for me. I do not deny technology at all, I am a very regular Spotify user, it gives me the advantage of taking the music wherever I want. But the pleasure of being in my room or in the living room listening to music with a CD in my hand is incomparable. Everything you have written is very good. Greetings.
That is a lot of CDs!!
I have a friend who has a collection of nearly 5000 CDs.
I probably have 300 or 400 stored in my basement. I'll probably pull them out at some point to do a more detailed article about CDs.
How do you get your money into the pockets of musicians? Live shows, merch?
An interesting question that is probably worth its own post. I do go to shows and will buy digital stuff when offered. But streaming has been a deal with the devil for most artists.
I'm still a CD buyer and try to buy direct from the band or label when I can. Failing that it's online indy shops.
Interesting note on merch. Saw Fish at the Palladium last night. He organised a merch pop up beforehand at a nearby pub. T-shirts there were 30. At the venue they were 45. Turns out venue takes 25% of merch sales hence the uplift! I'm going to buy t-shirts from band websites after the event, going forward.
To me the ideal system is a CD player or i-phone connected to an old-fashioned quad system with real speakers. but I rarely have a moment when I can crank that up without disturbing anyone, so mostly I listen using my computer with headphones, or in my car.
I definitely listen to music mostly on headphones and in the car these days. My Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are my current favorite headphones. I do miss the old days of blasting music out of large speakers, but those days are long gone for me.
Going to audio stores and spending hours in the sound-proof room comparing various systems was a great pleasure that I miss. No one does that any more.
I recently built a new component system. I’ve had it with streaming, even at its highest rate. Every day another remaster comes out that is super compressed. Modern music is made for streaming, so it has no dynamics at all.
My favorite format is SACD, but my system makes CDs and LPs sound just as good. I had 1200 CDs in storage and they’ve come back out so I can hear the original masters as they were intended when released. Many records from the 70s and 80s were just dumped onto CD poorly and sound awful. Heart’s sled titles album and Ozzy’s Ultimate Sin are examples of this. In these cases, a clean pressing on LP sounds best.
The caveat to all this being that I spent a lot of money on my system piece by piece. That being said, a typical 500 setup with a CD player will still often give better results than streaming.
Your setup sounds impressive!
I totally agree, you can get better sound quality if you go with well-mastered source material and high-quality equipment. But that is also incredibly inconvenient and much more expensive for my listening purposes.
Everyone has their priorities and for me it is easy access to everything and convenient on-the-go listening.
I've not used SACD before. Are those normal CDs or do they need special equipment to play? Are they still made?