MP3 vs. CDs

Count me as one who still buys CDs.

Pros
1.) Yes, they sound better
2.) They're a permanent backup.
3.) You get the packaging, album art, liner notes
4.) You're spending money on something real you can hold as opposed to something virtual.
5.) You can resell them.
6.) You don't have any digital rights management stuff to deal with.
7.) Most importantly, if you're creative (and patient) you can get them for just as much or cheaper than you can if you buy mp3s online...this is especially true for older used CDs.

Cons
1.) You have to take time to rip them to your computer.
2.) They take up space in your home.
3.) MP3s are free if you download them illegally.
4.) For brand new albums they're often cheaper to download online.

 

There is a sound quality. High Density MP3s are close to CD quality though.

If you own an audiophile home sound system, you will want the CDs. If you listen in the car or your iPhone (lots of ambient noise in both cases), you probably be OK with MP3s.

 

Good points, Rex.

 

And just to prove some of the cost argument I kept track of my CD purchases from last year.

I bought 211 CDs total, and the average spent per CD came out to $6.05. This includes a few box sets.

71 of the CDs were released in 2010, and the average spent per those came out to $9.01.

If you take single album CDs released before 2010, I bought 133 for $4.12 per CD.

 

jesus dude - i buy like 1 or 2 cds a month and thought i was going overboard!

cds are definitely cheaper now though - especially older releases. waterloo records in austin has a giant section of their store that are older releases for under $10 - i guess what used to be called the "super saver series" or something. i can always find stuff i want when i go in there.

ive been going to this hastings books by my house and they always have cd's for anywhere from $3.99 to $5.99. ive gotten a few dylans, billy joel, waylon jennings, van halens for super cheap.

as to the original question - there is a difference in sound quality, but unless you are more than a casual music listener you probably wont notice. music is in 'bits', which are basically like pixels on a digital camera. the more bits the better the clarity. cds are 16 bit - mp3 would probably be like 12 (just throwing that # out there). it is compressed from the cd - the signal is essentially squashed and you do lose some of the fidelity and crispness. i do alot of home recording and i record in 24 bit - when i render it down to 16 bit for cds i can hear the loss of clarity - especially in reverbs or delays.

 

I buy CDs and then burn them lossless onto my media server hooked up to an audiophile grade system.

MP3's from iTunes are low quality. Amazon is a little better.

Hdtracks sells lossless downloads but why pay $11 or $12 for a download when I can wait a few days longer and get CD's much cheaper through Amazon? And then I have the physical backup in storage just in case.

 

CD's do sound better than MP3's

Lately though I just download the FLAC's off blogs. After 40 years of collecting music, individual albums aren't worth very much. I usually listen to them once on the computer, once on a road trip and once at then gym and then move on to whatever is new this week.

New this week:

Greg Allman - Low Country Blues (close to an new ABB cd)

White Fence - I growing Faith
(Just some guy that made a new CD that sounds like a 1966 Mersey Beat album)

 

The slight loss in sound quality to me is well worth not having to store the physical CDs. I actually tossed out all my old CDs the last time I moved because I didn't want to store them anymore.

 

not entirely true. A lot of artists give their albums away for free and there are a bunch of legal mp3 websites.

http://bandcamp.com/

 

MP3 seems like less of a hassle to me, but I have encountered a problem recently. Some of my files have been corrupted. At a random point during some songs, another totally different song will play for like 15 seconds. I've never seen anything like it. This is where I'd like that back up for all my music. Another hard drive with the original files would work too, but CDs are great in this case.

 

I'll buy 1 or 2 CDs a year. Most of the music I listen to is in MP3 format. If I really want to support an artist and there is a specific album I want, I'll usually buy it on vinyl.

 

I buy the CD if I like the album enough.

Also I'm pretty sure iTunes downloads are at 128KB/S which is not good quality at all. And they charge you extra if you want to buy 256KB/S, and thats still not that great or close to CD quality. I wouldn't download music from iTunes unless its free, its a rip-off.

 

I thought 320kb/s was the standard for official song downloads.

 

Actually from what I read I think iTunes changed everything to 256 kb/s, but I dont know for sure.

Unless they changed to 320kb/s recently, because I know for sure that they didn't used to do that.

I dont know about other sites.

 

I switched to mp3s mainly...cause it's usually cheaper (Amazon always has great deals) and easier. Thinking down the road when I get my next truck, it'll probably have an mp3 player and may or may not have a cd player. Plus mp3s don't scratch.

 

I was just over at my friend the DJ's house. He has 30 terabytes of files set up on a server, basically every album by every band you ever heard of and almost all of their videos. He says he could run his gigs remotely with just an Ipad and an amp, but doesn't trust his internet connection quite enough yet.

He says with a password, I could have access to it. :grin:

But they are all MP3 and 4. He says in the club environment no one can tell the difference between MP3 and Lossless. In fact, compressed music punches through the background noise better.

 

How do you store them all? Serious question.

 

Not very well right now. I have a 1200 CD shelf, which does a good job of maximizing space, but I've outgrown it (I'm now over 1600). Need to buy another one when I move into a bigger place. In the meantime I store a lot of CDs in my work office. Here's a similar CD shelf to the one I have.

 

MP3s because it's free.