What to do with old CDs?

[jebmke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seraphim Those little things? I got boxes of CDs that are MUCH bigger than those, made out of something called vinyl. Any of you old goats out there got any ceramic CDs?

I have boxes and boxes of vinyl in good condition. No idea how to get rid of them. Some might be valuable but how to tell?

[GrayHare]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jebmke I have boxes and boxes of vinyl in good condition. No idea how to get rid of them. Some might be valuable but how to tell?

I've used http://www.musicstack.com/ to price records and CDs.

[movaly1]

swapacd.com You can earn credits that are interchangeable between swapacd.com,swapadvd.com, and paperbackswap.com

[W2R]

Thanks, Al. You have motivated me to start going through my CDs to see which ones I want, and which ones I should get rid of. This is something I have put off doing for years and it really needs to be done.

[seraphim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R Thanks, Al. You have motivated me to start going through my CDs to see which ones I want, and which ones I should get rid of. This is something I have put off doing for years and it really needs to be done.

If nothing else, they make dandy targets.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seraphim If nothing else, they make dandy targets.

So true!

I finished going through them, and decided I only need 5% of them. The rest are history! About half of the keepers were my (few) music CD's, which I probably don't really need either but will keep for now.

The treasures I found but do not want include backups from 2002, the free software that came with a computer back in 2000, and games and utilities from the 1990's that won't work on modern operating systems at all. Nobody else would want these either. If Frank doesn't want them for target practice, they are going in the trash tonight. They are enough to overfill a big box so this is a good, easy step in the task of eliminating excess stuff in general.

[TromboneAl]

This is an interesting example of how technology changes. Those CDs seemed so modern and so much better than cassette tapes or records with a little needle being jostled as it rode in a groove on a plastic record.

But now it seems so inefficient to have a whole drawer used to hold the same information that is now on my Nexus.

[HFWR]

I plan to keep my CD collection and my vinyl collection, even though they've mostly been replaced by mp3. Still want the source material, for when in case hard drives and computers crash...

[braumeister]

Some people go to even greater extremes:

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Quote:

Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike.

[sengsational]

I only had a handful of factory recorded CDs. I started an exercise like in the OP, but the first disk turned out to have market value, but mine was bootleg (looked factory, but had the wrong set of songs). Then the next few CDs I checked seemed not to have any market value. Since I had ripped them all a long time ago, they all went in the trash.

If I want to listen to a song, even one I have in my collection, I can usually just find it on you tube faster than finding it in my online archives. So I'm not even sure its worth having the stash of mp3s! But those bits are pretty small, so I might as well not throw them out.

[TromboneAl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational If I want to listen to a song, even one I have in my collection, I can usually just find it on you tube faster than finding it in my online archives.

Yes. It was that realization that made me decide to get rid of them.

[TromboneAl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HFWR I plan to keep my CD collection and my vinyl collection, even though they've mostly been replaced by mp3. Still want the source material, for when in case hard drives and computers crash...

And get a wind-up Victrola in case the grid goes down.

But seriously, I would feel the same way but I know intellectually that my many backups and offsite backups are much more secure than the discs. Just copy the itunes folder to a thumb drive and mail it to DD, and I'm safe.

[Keim]

But, but, but... What about an electromagnetic pulse, T-Al? That'll take out all your back-ups. Gotta keep those shiny discs!

Seriously, though...

I plan to keep my 700 or so CDs, and the records too. I'm an audiophile, and the only satisfactory digital storage would be uncompressed files. Might as well just keep the disc.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keim ... Seriously, though... I plan to keep my 700 or so CDs, and the records too. I'm an audiophile, and the only satisfactory digital storage would be uncompressed files. Might as well just keep the disc.

I converted my CDs to uncompressed (lossless compression actually) digital format (and slowly some of my LPs). Plenty of advantages. I make backups, and I can pull up any song/album in seconds, and create playlists.

So far I've kept the discs, but someday they'll go somewhere. Technically, I don't think they should be sold or even given away if I've kept the copies. But trashing them would seem like such a waste.

-ERD50

[W2R]

My CD's went out last night, and trash pickup was this morning. They are gone, gone, gone.

I saved the jewel cases for Frank because he says he might want them. How it this downsizing, transferring stuff between the two of us? He says it still counts but honestly I don't quite get it.