Poll: Buying CD's or Downloading.

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Me55enger

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Dec 16, 2008
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CD.

Every.

Single.

Time.

But I had to DL the protomen album because it doesnt look like they released a solid version.

Its my birthday.
 

PatrickXD

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Aug 13, 2009
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A lot of the music I get isn't available on CD form. So I just burn my own CD's for it. Everything else that is available on CD I'll get on CD, assuming it has nice artwork. Though I've been prioritising my CD purchases lately to conserve space.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
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I usually prefer CDs, but I can't say why. I will only use the CD once and that is to put it on my computer. Except for my computer and Xbox I have no device capable of playing a CD, but I still prefer those. I guess I want my physical product. The strange thing though is that I want to buy all my games by digital means since I don't want game boxes taking up space. I wont call myself a hypocrite over this, but it's a strange paradox.
 

ubersyanyde

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Dec 9, 2011
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Owyn_Merrilin said:
ubersyanyde said:
and has better quality than CDs.
What media files are you listening to? I know there's some lossless files out there that are taken from a better-than-CD master, but for the most part even "high quality" files are a lossy format, usually 320 KbPS MP3, which may or may not be indistinguishable from a CD (speaking perceptually; fidelity is definitely lost, the question is whether a human being is capable of noticing), but will most definitely not be better than said CD.
It might just be my older CDs or crappy disc drive I have but the tracks I've ripped off them seem to be a lower bitrate (128kbps) than the MP3s that I download (320kbps). However it is near to impossible to hear whatever differences there may be through my speakers/headphones so I'm probably just talking out of my ass.
 

Cobbs

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Aug 16, 2008
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Buy the CD, rip to itunes, lend CD's to technologically impaired father.
Win/Win
 

Scarim Coral

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Oct 29, 2010
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CardinalPiggles said:
Scarim Coral said:
I prefer CD as I just like having the phyiscal form should anything bad happen to my PC or my storage device.
And if something bad were to happen to the CD?
I keep my CD is a safe space in my room so the chances of something bad happening to those is most likely to be a fire in the house which losing my CD is the least of my worries.
 

Mr Fixit

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Oct 22, 2008
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CDs all the way for me, I've got plenty of downloads too, but I still prefer CDs. A friend of mine that had downloaded alot of music(about a solid months worth of playtime) just lost a good portion of his music library because the hard drive on his laptop was defective & died just a few months after he got it..
 

TheFunPolice

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Mar 29, 2011
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While it makes more sense to buy something off itunes and download it, it doesn't give off that same warm feeling as it does when you walk out of a shop with a CD in your hand, it just feels really good. Even though all I'l actually do with the CD is rip it to Itunes and put it on my Ipod, but it's still worth it
 

malestrithe

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Aug 18, 2008
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CDs.

Because I grew up in a time when technology is a million times weaker than today, I prefer my music on CDs.

Just Kidding. I prefer digital downloads in most cases because I only want one song.

However, if it some compilation like Now, That's What I Call Music or Glee, or I like the artist, I'll buy the CD.
 

kasperbbs

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Dec 27, 2009
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I have stopped buying CD's a long time ago, since most of the time there were only a few good songs on them, i would rather make my own CD's.
 

Olaf the Oaf

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Jun 4, 2012
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CD's. As I prefer having a physical copy of something.
Also I'm one or two CD's short of completing my Beatles back catalogue collection.
 

Skratt

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Dec 20, 2008
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Digital copies of music is by far superior to CDs. First, I can make several copies to protect my purchases - no scratched discs. Second, I only buy the music I like. If I only like 1 song on the album, I pay $0.99. $1.29 if the publisher sucks and wants to overcharge.
 

TakeshiLive

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Mar 8, 2012
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Either as long as its legal I guess but I much rather prefer CDs. I just like having a carbon copy I can hold that includes all the notes and what not. Besides, you can rip the CD onto your PC for a digital copy anyways.
 

Owyn_Merrilin

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May 22, 2010
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ubersyanyde said:
Owyn_Merrilin said:
ubersyanyde said:
and has better quality than CDs.
What media files are you listening to? I know there's some lossless files out there that are taken from a better-than-CD master, but for the most part even "high quality" files are a lossy format, usually 320 KbPS MP3, which may or may not be indistinguishable from a CD (speaking perceptually; fidelity is definitely lost, the question is whether a human being is capable of noticing), but will most definitely not be better than said CD.
It might just be my older CDs or crappy disc drive I have but the tracks I've ripped off them seem to be a lower bitrate (128kbps) than the MP3s that I download (320kbps). However it is near to impossible to hear whatever differences there may be through my speakers/headphones so I'm probably just talking out of my ass.
Okay, I see what you're getting at. What's going on is the default setting in whatever program you're using to rip the CDs is set to 128 K; I know Windows Media Player is like that. There should be an option somewhere to kick it up to 320, maybe even something to put it in a lossless format depending on what program you use.

When you rip a CD, you're not making an exact copy, you're compressing it down to a smaller, usually lower quality format. I'm not sure what the exact bitrate of a 1X[footnote]The speed at which an audio CD plays[/footnote] CD is, but I know it's in the megabits, not the kilobits. It also uses a completely different format to store the music, called Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) which is essentially a gigantic digitized version of the sound wave. Basically Mp3 is to PCM as a zip file is to a word document, except that unlike a Zip file, an MP3 can't reconstruct all of the data, only the stuff that the computer thinks humans can hear.

To give an idea, a basic (90 minute) CD holds about 750 megabytes of data. A 60 minute mp3 is usually (although it depends on the bitrate) about 30 megabytes. I wish I could give an exact comparison with a 90 minute mp3, but I've never actually come across one that big.
 

Gekford

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Jan 7, 2012
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cd beacuse of liner notes. i have seen a few artist i like even make fun of people who download because they miss out on liner notes