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No matter how hard I've tried, all the shelves I
If you're an audiophile, that probably means you have tons of music that needs proper storage. So how do you do it? Do you have racks, shelves, boxes, drawers, or do you put it all on a hard disk and stick the original discs in the garage?
This is a fantastic topic. My spare bedroom is packed with CDRs, CDs, and storage cases. Need better organization plus, I can never find what I'm looking for fast. An suggestion? Email me nunh@yahoo.com with yours! Plus I'll read the ones mentioned here next week. Thanks!
Shelves and boxes in several locations. Really need to get better organized in that regard. However, I do maintain an Excel file of all my stuff, to include title, artist, format, label and comments (e.g., remaster, import, etc.). Might not know where a particular CD or album is when I want to play it, but at least I know that I own it.
But I really, really do know where it all is except for the first Jefferson Airplane album, which is either with my first wife, my second wife, in my brother's basement, at the ski house, or misfiled in plain sight. That's why God invented Sundazed.
I store the bulk of CDs in custom drawers with the spine of the jewel box facing for quick identification in alphabetical order. However, the drawers only hold 600 CDs. So other discs are stored on a shelf for the time being. Looking for a shelving system that can take me into the next decade. I also store music on my computer hard drive for listening while working.
I built my own wood shelves, it's a simple, strong sturdy design. CDs are heavy, and often, ready made shelves are rather flimsy. There are five stacks and the CDs sit in plastic trays that hold approximately 100 CDs each. I might even build a matching shelf when my collection increases in future...:)
If you are a real audiophile, you have no idea where half of your collection is at any given time. I've got stuff all over the place. I try to keep it centrally located in my office, but ripping cds to my iPod and me occasional driving/work selections tend to spread things out a bit. You need media anywhere you have a player and in my house that covers multiple rooms over four floors (including the basement). My current ordering methodology is in-rotation on top (of the shelf or pile, etc.) and lesser played albums deeper in the racks, AKA "the no-order ordering system".
Copying music from vinyl or those silver discs to hard disk is asking for trouble. If, like some, you get rid of the original, just wait for a hard disk failure. Hard drives are not reliable enough for archiving music. I have six large racks which hold most of my vinyl and two more large racks for CDs.
All of my CDs are shelved, but I also try to keep copies of every track on a hard drive. So far I have ripped all of my songs twice though, once to FLAC, and once to Apple lossless. But the storage facility I had those tracks on crashed so now I need to rip the collection again. This time I plan to keep a better backup.
I try to be organized, but my music ends up everywhereshelves, cabinets, office, car, computer, etc. Having too many systems only exacerbates the problem. I am jealous of my brother-in-law who has a small room with custom floor-to-ceiling shelving (each shelve being just the right height to hold a CD jewel box) to store his many thousands and thousands of CDs, organized by genre and in alphabetical order.
I tend to purchase the "hi-rez" CD's and then rip into my computer's hard drive. For casual listening, the convenience of having everything immediately available through iTunes is great. Then for serious listening, I plunk the disc into the player.