Well, I finally went through that large and dusty CD collection in the basement. I selected only a few that can't really be found anywhere and the rest is getting donated. Couldn't help but be a little nostalgic as some of those albums have been with me for quite awhile.
I fear I need to emulate your example on this...
You should just leave your CDs under your bed indefinitely like I do.
I watched the new Yacht Rock documentary over the weekend. I loved it. Great stories on how of that stuff came together.
Interesting that you nearly got to 2025 with your CD collection and now you're getting rid of it. I'm probably in an echo chamber, but it seems every week I read a post by someone regretting that decision.
I'm not sure why I'd want physical copies around anymore*. I can Bluetooth my music to the car, sound system, anything with a speaker. As I get older, convenience wins over nostalgia
*I have framed some albums, though
I think I'm more pointing out that most of the "clean out my collection" things happened 10 years ago. For those that held on, it's interesting when they decide not to hold on any longer.
I have my collection digitized as well (with some redundancy to hopefully avoid losing it–unless there's a fire). Kind of silly for me to keep the discs around as well (will also die in a fire). Though I still buy some physical media from time-to-time (and will listen to the physical CD at least once). Honestly, I think I might drop streaming service entirely if there wasn't the family factor.
All of that being said, it'd probably be a net win for me to "let it go" as well. 😅
consider places like Books-a-Million that will buy/exchange for books, as an option
I like having the backup. I don't trust anyone.
I will say that I am not very impressed with Bluetooth/Carplay reliability, so I'm not always sold on that as the convenient option. Or at least the option with least frustration.
The CD player in my car has always worked, no problems ever. Every kind of bluetooth adapter I've used has had some issues at some times, like the aux cable starts to get worn down and the left or right channel cuts out here or there, or I have to re-pair with the bluetooth device, etc. I still use the bluetooth sometimes, but I have CDs converted to MP3s, burned to CDs, so in my 6-disc changer I have 80-90 albums worth of music available without needing to use anything wireless.
For my car at least, what would be even better than the CDs, probably, is if you could insert a USB drive like a cassette tape (so it wasn't sticking out from the face of the console) and just play from that. A 512GB USB stick is like $30 and you could hold over 500 hours of music on that easily. But I'm not one to be going in and replacing the head unit on a car.
I think both of our cars here will read mp3s off a USB, and there are "thumbnail" USBs that don't actually stick out...which is sometimes annoying when removing them.
I've never had problems using Bluetooth (other than the mismatched volume annoyance), but I particularly like hot-spotting the phone and streaming the local college's station, Twins game, Pandora, or anything else while anywhere in the country
We use a Bluetooth FM Transmitter that plugs into the cigarette power adapter in the car. You set the device to a station, and now that station plays from whatever device is connected to the BT device. Works great, especially if you drive local and don't have any local radio using that station. When we go on trips, occasionally we'll get some static, but it's been a game changer in our family. Haven't listened to actual radio in years now. Only costs like $25 or so, not that expensive.
Mine is from 2011 so the Bluetooth part is nigh useless, it didn't even work for a few months, and only the aux input has continued to be useful. It's a lot cheaper to get a nice head unit than replace a functioning car. I did it for my spouse's car a few years ago and I've been strongly considering doing it for mine next.
There is a part of me that misses swapping out head units. Its nigh impossible in anything made like post-2015, though fortunately the factory units are pretty good these days.
💯
Carplay has actually worked well for me, unlike Bluetooth, but I was still sad when recently I got a new-to-me vehicle and it's the first time my daily driver doesn't have a CD player in it. (Well my first time since I moved on from tape decks.)
There was a slightly happy resolution to this. I was mentioning to a friend that's very into physical media (he still searches for VHSs even) about my plan to donate and he said, bro, just give them to me. Other than some possibly embarrassing albums he might come across, I'm much happier to give them to someone who might do something with them. He also took some cabinet speakers I was also going to donate. Thanks, bro.
My bro in AZ has gotten back into LPs, and I was more than happy to give a new home to some of my more worthwhile albums.
I still have one rack of LPs that I won't get rid of. I could thin it out a bit, sure, but so long as I don't expend past that rack, they stay!
I whittled my CD collection down to 40 or 50 or so and got rid of all the cases and moved the discs into albums. Takes up no more space than a dictionary or two.
There goes ubelmann again, flaunting his multiple dictionaries...