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Original poster

What have you done with your old CD collection? want to ditch but can't bear it!!

67 replies

mustbebetter · 07/02/2021 17:44

Ok, I am a music lover, i have a significant CD collection amassed over my youth (probably 200+) and a part of me cannot bear to get rid of it! \

But I cannot afford to go onto spotify, neither can I be bothered to spend the tens of hours it would take me to burn it onto a hard drive. bear in mind some are also scratched and when I have tried to copy them they fail and the whole process is really frustrating.

I no longer have the cases. Just the discs. part of me wants to be gone from them but I can't bear to do it! but they are one of the piles of junk messing up my house. I still love music but listen a lot less than I used to, just on youtube these days. There's no guarantee youtube will stay around forever and give free music forever and it has annoying ads.

Suggestions welcome please.... :) thank you!!

OP posts:
lovablequalities · 07/02/2021 18:39

Is there a way of listening to a hard drive of your cd through your smart speaker?

Time40 · 07/02/2021 18:40

the life of a CD is only about 20 years (though of course many will surpass that)

Really? I've got lots from the 80s and 90s that are still absolutely fine.

I'd keep them, OP. They're useful as a back-up in case the internet goes down.

LangClegsInSpace · 07/02/2021 18:41

@IWentAwayIStayedAway

How do you copy a music cd?? I have the same issue
You need a CD/DVD drive. Until recently, computers and laptops came with one built in but most don't now. You can buy an external drive for about £20-30 that connects via USB. Then you open it in whatever music player you use and somewhere in the menus there will most likely be the option to 'rip CD' or similar.

I bought a drive last year because my new computer didn't have one built in, then found in a cupboard the CD/DVD drive I had bought years ago from before computers had them! No idea if that one would still work.

murbblurb · 07/02/2021 18:42

Rip them, it really is worth the effort. Who wants to rely on the cloud or pay Spotify for music you have already paid for?

LangClegsInSpace · 07/02/2021 18:44

@lovablequalities

Is there a way of listening to a hard drive of your cd through your smart speaker?
Bluetooth via your laptop or computer.
Original poster
mustbebetter · 07/02/2021 18:46

Hi Everyone, thank you all so much for the feedback. You've convinced me. I have purchased a new CD drive / reader / ripper so I can rip them. hopefully it will be better than the rubbish one I had before and be able to read them properly. I found it so frustrating to use because it kept skipping! (to be fair many were scratched). Any that do skip will be binned. The others will be ripped then recycled, I will keep a full spreadsheet of them. Thank you, the inspiration I needed. I have been looking at them for about 8 years wondering what the hell to do with them. It's time!!!!

OP posts:
DeeCeeCherry · 07/02/2021 18:53

Give the decent condition ones to a charity shop and throw the unplayable ones away.

It's not as if they're vinyl records that have monetary as well as emotional value.

If you don't listen to the CDs now/many not in cases so you've not even bothered to keep them in good condition, then they're just junk you've become emotionally attached to.

You don't even need Spotify etc. You can listen to music on YouTube via your phone or Laptop, cast the music to your TV if you want to. Or buy £1 connection wire from Poundland and hook phone up to your stereo system.

Next best thing is a Hard Drive as pp's have suggested but, you've said you don't want to take the time to put into hard drive.

user85963842 · 07/02/2021 19:00

@Time40 yep, I work in digital preservation, obviously there's lots of other factors to consider, but the advice we give is to only expect a 20 year lifespan, though like anything it's not a blanket rule, how you store them, how often they're played etc will impact that- I have dvds and cds older than that of course too, but I would migrate anything you want to keep permanently to another platform.

Tangledtresses · 07/02/2021 19:04

I use mine as ice scrapers.... I still have a now this is music cd from 2008 💿 n my cars 6 cd changer that hasnt been used in 10 years ...

LangClegsInSpace · 07/02/2021 19:13

I like owning the music I've bought, not just having a licence to play it via spotify or youtube. These days if I hear something I like I will pay to download the file and store it on my own drive, not just listen from amazon cloud or wherever.

It doesn't make much practical difference these days unless the internet goes down and i'm sure it's quite old fashioned but I still like having a 'record collection' even if it's all just digital files.

Embroideredstars · 07/02/2021 19:47

Not getting rid of mine! I love them but then I dont do online/digital stuff so a bit of a dinosaur.

DH is just about to put shelves in our utility room so they're accessible but out of view
I doubt we'd be able to replace all of ours digitally even if we wanted too.

Ghostlyglow · 07/02/2021 19:53

We still have all ours (thousands) in boxes around the house , even though they have all been ripped to hard drive and that's how we listen to them. We aquire all our music digitally now.

LunaHeather · 07/02/2021 20:05

@Embroideredstars

Not getting rid of mine! I love them but then I dont do online/digital stuff so a bit of a dinosaur.

DH is just about to put shelves in our utility room so they're accessible but out of view
I doubt we'd be able to replace all of ours digitally even if we wanted too.

I have the opposite problem in that I'm coming a ross things that are only available digitally, so potentially the faff of downloading to disk.
LangClegsInSpace · 07/02/2021 20:13

It's really not a faff, you just download the file and choose where you want to store it, just as you would with a PDF or excel file or whatever.

LunaHeather · 07/02/2021 20:18

@LangClegsInSpace

It's really not a faff, you just download the file and choose where you want to store it, just as you would with a PDF or excel file or whatever.
That's my definition of faff 😂

But actually I'd want it on a CD too for when the computer goes kaput.

user85963842 · 07/02/2021 20:21

But actually I'd want it on a CD too for when the computer goes kaput.

That's why you should put it in the cloud, a CD will go kaput as easily as a computer, it's still digital, binary, no more tangible than a file stored on a computer or cloud.

Time40 · 07/02/2021 20:25

Time40 yep, I work in digital preservation, obviously there's lots of other factors to consider, but the advice we give is to only expect a 20 year lifespan, though like anything it's not a blanket rule

They said they would last forever! I still thought they would last forever! It was all a big con!! I'm furious now!!! Now I'm going to be worried about all my CDs decaying ... I suppose I'd better get ripping.

Some things don't improve - they go backwards. I've got a big collection of 78s - absolutely fine and totally stable, at pushing towards 100 years old.

CathyorClaire · 07/02/2021 20:29

Given I spent hours listing vinyl LP's on eBay leading to zero interest and a mass shedding to chazzers only to find the fucking things are now all the rage I say keep 'em.

I sold a bundle of CD's to Music Magpie a while back and got peanuts for them. I lost the will to live doing it and expect they're worth even less now. I quite like sticking them on when the mood takes me and listening ad and internet dip free.

LunaHeather · 07/02/2021 20:29

@user85963842

But actually I'd want it on a CD too for when the computer goes kaput.

That's why you should put it in the cloud, a CD will go kaput as easily as a computer, it's still digital, binary, no more tangible than a file stored on a computer or cloud.

Who owns the cloud?
user85963842 · 07/02/2021 20:30

@Time40 indeed they did lol, the digital dark age is a very real and scary thing! Even the VP of Google says make sure you print out your favourite photographs. I'm a huge fan of tech, but yes the digital world is very unstable. Vinyl is different as it's a physical "thing" (that's a technical term Grin) whereas digital files require the appropriate software and hardware to read it and as we know it changes so rapidly that it's not long before you will struggle to find what you need to read a floppy disc etc, and it can degrade.

I'm not worried about music though, record labels will be paying stupid amounts of money keeping files backed up and migrated to the most up to date formats.

user85963842 · 07/02/2021 20:32

@LunaHeather I can't tel if you're joking or not lol but if posing a philosophical question then yes absolutely anything you would be devastated to lose you should have in multiple places which is why I store photographs locally, in the cloud and print them out. Music I'm not precious about as said in my previous post, record labels will protect that!

Volcanoexplorer · 07/02/2021 20:35

They’re all in boxes in the loft.

ZackaryQuack · 07/02/2021 20:36

The majority of ours are sat in the attic gathering dust

AlwaysLatte · 07/02/2021 20:37

We've still got our CDs. They don't take up that much space with designated storage.

itbemay1 · 07/02/2021 20:37

It's in a box in the loft, simply because I ditched our vinyl yonks ago in favour of cds and regretted it...