Cd is purely a transport medium for me.
I find that is determined by the master used. Quite often I find that a ripped CD can sound better than the 24 bit, 96kHz version streamed from Qobuz. Then again, occasionally I’ll find the opposite.
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I use to have the full 500 system
I don’t miss the 552 preamp and 500 amp
But I really miss the CD 555 - it’s a stunner
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All 1,975 CDs are ripped and stored in 2 flight cases. All plastic jewel cases were disposed of. I’ve retained cardboard cases and all civets/booklets and fried them alphabetically in 3 small filing boxes readily available under the sofa. I find I rarely look at them but I’m listening to 10x the music I was 2 or 3 years ago on my CDX2/XPS2.
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I grew up with physical media. LP’s, tapes and later CD’s. It’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve really got into streaming. I have all my CD’s ripped to a Melco N100. We also have a Moon CD player for my better half as she refuses to use the Melco - she likes using CD’s.
I never use the CD player. To me the Melco sounds better and I love the convenience of it. Being able to just sit in my chair and select tracks on an iPad rather than having to continually keep getting up and down to get discs out and then put them away. I usually look through any CD booklets I’m interested in when I’m ripping them. I would rarely bother looking more than once in any case so it’s no problem having them packed away.
Before I started streaming I was worried that I would miss physical media. But I don’t. In fact I would say streaming has brought me closer to the music. No distractions of CD cases, packaging, etc. Just the music easily accessible whenever I want.
Sometimes I do think back to the days of LP’s with fond nostalgia. The ritual of taking out the LP from its sleeve, cleaning it, cueing up the arm. etc. Great days. But I know it’s just nostalgia for a time gone by. I would’t want to go back.
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Fair enough Pete
Each to their own, makes the world go round
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No need for that. If you didn’t like them just put them in the bin!
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Indeed yes. I’ve tried several times to convince my better half to use the Melco and dispose of the CD player but she won’t budge!
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I made the switch a few years back. Just could not make streaming / file as source better than CD replay. My most high end FAS player is the Aurender W20 while my cd player is a Vivaldi. Also tried Roon with Vivaldi as end point.
However, I am not giving up. Just acquired a locally made FAS player that is windows based. Let’s see how.
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Interesting observations folks. I’m still unsure really…
I agree that the convenience of having all media to hand on a phone / tablet is very liberating in some ways, but from my perspective I’ve found that swiping through some 2.5K CD rips & high res media becomes an endless indecisive scrolling ritual, where I often choose something higher alphabetically on the list, neglecting a good two thirds of the music library; where choosing a record is much quicker and easier, just flicking through the shelves and spin. I use a phone for selecting music choice, so the associated screen size clearly doesn’t help, so I’ll start using an iPad more as this will give greater visual real estate to view the album covers.
I was talking to a close friend recently and he’s all in with streaming, to such a degree that he’s recently sold all his media, just keeping his top ten fav CDs and vinyl for nostalgia’s sake, and the odd rare album that he can’t get online.
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The convenience is great. While I was using FAS / Streaming, I had several playlists made up of my favorites depending on mood. Other times, I would be exploring new music on Tidal or similar or explore my collection etc etc. Best of all, no need to get up from the couch ever 
One thing I would say is that you do need to have a certain degree of technical understanding and competence to successfully adopt streaming. This is what sets it apart from LP and CD, where one needs no understanding at all. Just pop on a disc.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no IT expert. I’m 61 and obviously computers were before my time when growing up. I’ve no doubt that the average 15 year old is far more computer savvy than I’ll ever be! But if you’re the kind of person that hates getting involved in the technical side of things then streaming will probably have you pulling your hair out in frustration at some points.
I have a working knowledge that is sufficient. But I don’t particularly enjoy tinkering. For instance, my Melco sometimes combines double CD’s into one and sometimes not. I know I could fix this by editing the metadata but I really can’t be bothered. It’s little niggly things like this that can be an issue. It all depends on how much it bothers you and how much effort you want to put in to keeping everything just so.
I want to put in the minimum effort to ‘housekeeping’ if you like and just concentrate on enjoying the music. So any issues like this I just live with.
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I think you will find that this will be a vast improvement. The whole streaming thing is about convenience and the way you interact with it is partly defined by the device you are using to control things. A small screen does not give a good user experience.
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I believe this is a basic argument, certainly for me.
Streaming is not for me, admittedly nice to have when needed but no really need honestly.
I couldn’t dream of ripping any CD’s at all.
For me would be a waste of time even I could stock them in loft, I would not use a computer to choose replay, never.
I can’t imagine I’d ever give up physical medie and my CD players and turntables.
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Yes, I think you are right. Ideally something like an iPad Pro size would be best, but at a cost!
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This post I put in another thread would seem to have relevance here:
Depends whether you class your tablet/phone as a computer. Obviously in the strictest sense it is. But if you are referring to a NAS and a box with monitor and keyboard, well I stream and neither of those are in the living room. In the new house they will be in a clean room portion out in the garage. I’d never use a computer further down the audio chain either but it’s not required.
Never - I always hated CD as a medium. Nasty jewel cases, booklets too small to read without glasses and I used to pay out £50+ a month for an infinitesimal fraction of what I get for £12.99 from Quobuz. I used to have a CDS2/XPS but don’t miss it it in the slightest. I’ve also ripped the CDs I have so I can listen when the internet is down (1 hour in the past 3 years) but they are in the loft and staying there! If I feel the urge to fiddle with stuff I play my vinyl, which is better than CD in every way and always has been.
Of course in the strictest sense a CD player is really just a computer for reading optical discs!
I use an iPad as a controller. I bought the Melco D100 optical drive so ripping CD’s is dead easy. Just insert, press button, confirm title and it’s all automatic. In comparison I find ripping CD’s to a laptop to be a real nuisance. Hence why I bought the Melco drive. Expensive at £1K but worth it for me for the sheer convenience.
I decided on the Melco with direct USB connection to my amp/DAC as I specifically wanted to avoid the potential issues of streaming over my LAN and to me it seems a much simpler solution to implement. No long network cables to install between rooms etc. However I know lots of people much prefer the network solution and certainly if you want music in many rooms then that’s the way to go.
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How did they taste?
I’ve got no desire to move to streaming in preference to CD. My reasons, in no particular order:
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I suffer enough from indecision over what to listen to with shelves of CDs in plain sight and I know I’d be worse with a server full of tracks. The ‘indecisive scrolling’ mentioned above resonated with me!
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I’m of an age where, just as I was growing up and becoming interested in music and hifi, CDs were the cool shiny new thing and vinyl was very much a ‘grandad’ format. That ingrained sense is hard to shake.
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Ownership of a physical object and the ritual (such as it is) of playing an actual object is enjoyable.
4a) The cost of moving to streaming at a level of quality comparable to my CDX2 would be considerable.
4b) The time it would take to rip my CDs and metadata them to my satisfaction would also not be trivial.
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I’m still surprised how many of CDs don’t seem to be available on Spotify (the streaming platform I use for trying out new music and for podcasts). My music tastes aren’t that unusual!
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It’s more of a problem with Netflix, but I don’t like my listening/viewing possibilities being at the mercy of a large corporation and what contracts are currently running this week.
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Most importantly, I still really like the sound of CD, especially through my CDX2.
Seven reasons is enough for me.
Mark
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