Across The Digital Divide
Posted on | September 9, 2009 at 7:05 am | 2 Comments
I haven’t bought any CDs this year. Well, that’s not strictly true. I did buy a DVD that came with a bonus CD, but that’s it for physical music media. I don’t think I’m going to buy a regular CD ever again. With 4100+ CDs I don’t have room for many more, even though most of those are stuffed into plastic sleeves instead of jewel boxes, which saves a lot of shelf space. I think I’ve just grown beyond my desire to own the physical media. It’s so much easier and convenient to download new albums through eMusic, Amie Street, Amazon, whatever, then it is actually buy the disc. Not to mention cheaper – the digital version of an album is still usually less than the physical version these days. The sound quality of digitally distributed music is generally pretty good, especially to my aging dynamic range-challenged ears. Computer storage for the digital files is very cheap these days, though I do have to keep good backups. No hard disk lasts forever.
But what about listening? Isn’t it more convenient to have a CD you can play anywhere? Not really. I mostly listen to music in my car (from an iPod), on my computer (through iTunes), or when working out at the gym (a different iPod). On those rare occasions when I actually want to listen on my home theater stereo in the living room, I have a wireless dongle that will stream the tunes from iTunes on my computer to my stereo. And there’s even a remote control application on my iPhone that I can use to control iTunes from the living room. I could also probably transfer the files to my PlayStation 3, which is hooked up to my living room stereo, and listen from there.
I will still probably buy physical media if there’s a compelling reason, like the DVD/CD deal above, special packaging, a sonic upgrade, or wanting to support a favorite artist in multiple ways. I’ll still probably buy high resolution discs in DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-Ray, and other formats as long as they make them. But those I get as much for the surround sound mixes (not typically available in digital versions) as for the better audio. The other issue is that sometimes an album just is not available for download in a digital version, though that’s pretty rare these days.
So, for the most part, I’m going all digital and not looking back. Am I wrong to do this?
Next: What to do about the existing CD collection.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: People who never update their blogs.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “what if i forget to turn off my ihome alarm before i go on vacation?”.
Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: God of War 2 (PS2, on the PS3). I’ve been stuck on the Euryale boss fight for awhile now.
Comments
2 Responses to “Across The Digital Divide”
September 10th, 2009 @ 7:51 am
You’re not wrong, but I haven’t gotten there with you. In fact, I’ve contemplated getting physical copies of the few titles I’ve gotten from eMusic and iTunes. If it only exists on my computer, it doesn’t feel real to me, at least not yet.
Part of my problem is also that my audio world is not yet set up to be digital-only-friendly. My home stereo system isn’t connected to the computer network, and my car stereo doesn’t have an auxiliary jack nor will it play mp3 discs. So the mp3s stay on the computer, and only there. I expect this problem to resolve itself with the next wave of major purchases, but those are going to be a few years off.
I also still really like having the physical copy, even if it is sometimes difficult to get recent Of Montreal discs back into their many-folded and cut-out-adorned packaging.
Also, sorry to be part of today’s pet peeve. I have today off, so maybe I can get back into your good graces.
September 10th, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
I can see what you mean about holding the physical media in your hands. I have got a bit nostalgic about that recently while cataloging/archiving the collection and looking through the booklets. But not nostalgic enough to want to have them that badly. It’s not like the LP days when packaging was king.
To me it’s still the actual music that’s the most important thing. But strangely, what I miss most is the list of credits, so I’m trying to at least input the producer and band member names into the Music Collector entry.
I listen to my iPod in my 2005 Prius through an iPod car integration kit from Dice Electronics. They’ve got them for many, many makes of autos. I don’t know what kind of car you’re currently driving, but there’s a possibility they’ve got one for yours. Mine wasn’t too expensive and was fairly easy to install even for a clumsy non-handy oaf like myself.