Club Benefits
As much as physical media floats my boat, I still generally stream the majority of my music. It's convenient, with higher quality than most CDs (or even vinyl — come at me, all ye purists) at a monthly price that's less than a couple of coffees on the way to work.
As a result, my CD collection, built up over years and years, has come to gather dust. After all, it doesn't have the same fully analogue veneer of records, nor the irritating sound quirks of cassettes. It's all a bit too... polished.
"So," I thought to myself, "why not just sell all those CDs that you've got? Free up some shelf space for more plastic robots and other assorted collectible nonsense." So I hatched a plan — stop using my streaming services for a month, and use nothing but CDs to decide whether I should keep my collection. How's it gone? Let's find out.
The experiment
Generally, I use a mixture of Qobuz and Tidal run through Roon, my whole home music streaming service. Not so for the last month. Instead, I've whipped out my trusty Fiio D13 portable CD player and hooked up a Cambridge Audio AX25 to my HiFi system.
I am restricted to the CDs that I own and the CDs that I afford to buy, leaving me with a fairly decent 5 year gap of more current music that I'd like to listen to. I'll get to that later, though.
I banned myself from listening to any streaming, which meant if I wanted to listen to music on the go, I had to bring some CDs and my CD player with me. A difficult month? Yes, but I also found that I had loads of fun.
Reconnecting with old favorites
My CD collection has been built up over about 19 years. That means there's music in there that I've not listened to for some time — and you can even use it like a tree ring to see how old I was when I bought the CD. Brutal Death Metal? Probably, like, when I was 25. A Slipknot CD? I would have been about 13. It goes on.
Part of the fun of the last month has been rediscovering music I'd not have listened to. "Oh yeah." I thought to myself, spinning up Parkway Drive's Deep Blue, "This is still really, really good."
Music streaming is great for presenting you with new music, but going through a CD collection and glancing at all the artwork is much better for rediscovering older music.
It sounds really good
CDs top out at 16-bit, 44.1kHz. That's good, but not as good as some of the best music streaming services — Qobuz, for example, pumps out 24-bit, 192kHz. Bigger is better, and those numbers sure are bigger. And better.
But CD has one thing its favor. I don't have to worry about the internet, or changeable file formats and pernickety support for different hi-res options. Instead, I stick my CD in the drive, press play, and enjoy the tunes.
That also applies to consistency of quality. With my favorite streaming services, there comes a point where the internet connection might not quite be up to scratch for hi-res streaming. At that point, it might not even sound as good as my CD, or just drop out entirely. The CD is a physical thing — there's no connection quality to worry about.
Only scratches.
Longevity is a problem
Did you know that CDs can get, like, moldy? I didn't. I mean, it's not really mold, but it looks like it and has the same effect on your CDs as a growth might on your loaf of bread. It's called "disc rot," and it's just as sad as you might expect.
As a frequenter of second-hand stores for years, many of my CDs are pre-owned. Some are very old — my copy of Immolation's Dawn of Possession comes from 1991, and most of my Metallica albums are older still. So imagine my sadness when I went to spin Obituary's Back From The Dead, only to discover that it's gone all dark and sad.
And no longer works.
All physical media is capable of going bad, no matter how well you look after it. Vinyl records warp and become dirty. Cassettes are... well, cassettes. CDs and disc rot are just another example of what happens when something sticks around for too long. But it's still a shame.
Restricted choice
One of the many benefits of streaming is the sheer amount of choice. I can listen to just about anything whenever I want, without any issue. You have to buy CDs, making them not only more expensive overall, but also more restricted choice wise.
Sure, I can buy the record of every album I'd ever want to listen to, but that would quickly cost about as much as buying a new Rolls-Royce (or thereabouts). I am... not rich. Instead, I have to buy the CDs that I can, so that I can keep costs down.
Over my month of listening, I missed plenty of music. Remember when I said there was a five-year gap in music? I've not bought many new CDs over the last few years, which means that some of my favorite albums are only available on my hard drive, nabbed from hi-res sources — no CD on my shelf to be seen.
It's a restriction of the format that, when combined with streaming, is a whole lot easier to stomach. But I didn't have the option to dip into my streaming services, so I couldn't listen to In Mourning's excellent The Immortal from last year. And that made me sad.
Tactile glory
Ok, so it's not as hands on or as interactive as vinyl, but there's still something lovely and "hands-on" about CDs. Press the button, and the disc tray or lid opens. Click the CD into place, and press play. You're still involved with your music, something that's not quite as true with streaming.
It makes you more aware, I think, of what you're listening to. You're more likely to listen to an album all the way through, even though you can skip tracks. It's not the most tactile of physical media, but I've come to appreciate its extra steps over the last month.
Will I be selling my CDs?
No. My month of listening has told me that there's still a place in my life for CDs, thanks to the extra physicality of the format. That, and there's something about a shelf full of CDs that just looks cool.
But it's not going to become my only source of listening. Qobuz and Tidal still sound better than any CD could hope for, and my own collection of hi-res files means I don't have to worry about missing out on any albums not available otherwise. Instead, they're going to work alongside each other, in much the same way as my vinyl collection.
Listening to CDs will become a deliberate part of my musical journey — and a leg that I'm excited to continue.
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