Hello, all!

Long time listener, first time caller. I've got a simple question for anyone willing to answer.

First allow me to introduce myself. My name is Susan and I reside in NYC. I've been a lurker here and on your old CMJ board for awhile I'm the parent of 2 kids and, frankly, in a bit of a bind financially.

I've got literally thousands of CD's and am considering "burning" the lot of them and selling the originals. Is that the right term? It's all a bit new to me but, so far, I've found it fairly easy to do. I've listened to the copies and to my ears I can't discern any difference in sound quality.

I do soooo love my music collection but this seems to be a viable way of making some much needed money.

My question is, as someone who is new to this technology of burning CD's, is their ANY downside? The inserts and stuff are not important to me. The music is. Is the technology stable? So far all the CDR's play in my stereo. I can't discern any lessening of sound quality. Will the CDR's last? Will they go "wonky" after awhile? Basically, I don't want to sell my collection and then find my copies going crapola after a time.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to answer my naive questions.

Susan

Hi, Susan! There are others better capable to answer your questions than me. But, I at least wanted to welcome you onboard. I hear ya about being financially strapped, having been there, done that -- hope things work out for you.

All CDs have the potential to degrade, and it seems that CD-Rs have a shorter life span, yes.

Here's a British article on the subject!

http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/ ... fespan.htm

Yeah, apparently you shouldn't expect a CD-R to last forever. They do tend to stop working or something. I've never actually used any single CD-R for long enough to it die, though.

If you rip the music from their original CDs in a lossless format (like WAV), then there will be no loss of quality at all.

Personally I dont think this is a good idea- or at least, I'd never do this. Perhaps think of thinning your collection, but I wouldnt rely on a CD-R copy of anything that will get a lot of use. My experience is that CD-Rs scratch faster than CDs (but this may be because Im less careful with CD-Rs, who knows). Ok but now to answer your questions...

It seems that most people agree that CD-Rs will decompose faster than CDs- due to differences in the processes that create them (but Ive read articles that seem not to agree). We dont know when this will happen, obviously because its a new medium but there have been various simulations of aging (apply heat, cold etc), which give ranges of 25 to 100 years.. so who knows (I guess we will know in 25 or 100 years).

You can read pages and pages of dialogue over which are the best CD-Rs to buy- most weigh in that Tiayo Yuden make the best CD-Rs. The thing is, you can find generic CDRs made by TY for quite cheap. **So the point is *dont confuse BRAND NAME with MANUFACTURER** There are hundreds of brandnames but only a handful of manufacturers....

The professional standard CDRs are Mitsui Gold, which run about $1.40 each- at bswusa.com (which is a good price). Technically, I think the company is now Mame-E. (http://www.mam-e.com). But not everyone believes that 'gold' discs are any better than 'green'.

I recommend this article: http://www.mscience.com/faq53.html

and this:

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwg/StabilityStudy.pdf


If you are going to do this, dont skimp on the CDRs you use. Research the different chemical processes used to make CDRs and choose which CDRs to buy- dont let them chose you because they are onsale at Circuit City - 50 for $5.00.

In 10 years, Ive only had one CDR that has 'flaked up' on me- where the layer of dye becomes pieces of flakes, making the disc useless.

You would be smart to back up all your burnt with high quality (less lossy) MP3's.

Discs are over.

Yup. Never know when a CDR's gonna get scratched or crap out, and then again you never know when your hard drive will die, either. But that assumes you have a nice, big, empty hard drive and a ton of free time, which may not be the case.

Sell your blood.

I wouldn't do the CD-R thing either. I would instead look into buying an external hard drive so you can store all your music there. But then you'd have to buy an MP3 player.

Or use something like flac, which compresses the music into smaller file sizes without losing quality, and then copy them to dvds which you can keep in a safe place.. That may be a little beyond your technical ability at this time, Susan, but if you're serious about getting rid of your original cds then you'll probably want to take extra precautions like this.

I agree with what has been said, especially about using quality media. cdfreaks.com has a wealth of information on what seems to work best. And on top of that you should be careful how you store your burned discs. Not only can they scatch easily, but heat and moisture can make them fall apart. Keep them in jewel cases (don't use those cd wallets) and out of the sun or any other heat source.

I wish you luck. I've had to sell off parts of my collection in the past for finanical reasons. I only wish there were cd/dvd burners back then.

The problem with the advice everyone is giving is that if you add either external storage drives or all expensive, high quality cdrs, you really drive up the price of her project. Presumably she's really only considering doing this because she really needs the money. I wouldn't do what she's considering given my circumstances but its hard to know how desperate she is for the cash. I don't know what type of stuff she's trying to sell either but unless its all new, great condition and still popular stuff but stuff that stores don't already have 10 used copies of, she's probably not going to average more than $2-3 per disc on sales to stores. I guess it could be a lot more if she went the half/ebay/amazon used route but if she needs the cash now that's probably not a good option either.

If you really need the cash, you should buy some highquality cd-rs for your favorites or back those up to your computer, and buy some value cd-rs for the rest. Otherwise, you really aren't going to get enough cash from your project after expenses to make it worth your while, especially if you place any value at all on your time (ripping and burning your whole collection).

heres an excellent thread on another board i found a while ago about digital audio formats. youre probably better of not burning them and ripping them to your hard drive, although hard drives crap out sometimes too.

I agree with Billy.. I dont really think it will be worth the price and effort unless you are selling them independently on ebay or half.. and even then the heartache involved..no thanks.

I disagree about the advice of burning to harddrives... if you burn to harddrive and it shits the bed, you lose *all* your music...

My advice (similar to billy g's, I guess):
- Copy the CDs you're most willing to part with to value CD-Rs.
- Sell the originals.
- Use the sales revenue to buy a portable music player that meets your needs.
- Rip your favorite CDs to said music player.
- Copy remainder of collection to value CDRs..
- Sell remainder of collection.

Keep CDRs in storage. Use digital music player as often as possible (you can get home/car stereo hookup accessorites pretty easily). If you need one of the lesser-used CDRs, you can play it as a one-off or rip it to your digital music player. While you still need to buy a digital player (and possibility accessories), you can still sell your whole collection while minimizing the wear-and-tear on the copies. Time may wear down the CDRs over a number of years/decades, but at least you reduce risks of scratching and other degradation caused by use. Yes, your player may also crap out, but that's much more replacable than an entire music collection.

If you have anything old and out of print or an original pressing, its probably worth checking ebay and/or half.com for valuing it before selling it to a store.

You wouldn't want to get $4-5 for this for example. That's probably about what I got for it when I traded it in sometime in the last ten years

np: Cymande S/T