Have you ever purged your music collection of older formats?

When CDs took off, many music collectors started selling or giving away all of their vinyl. The same appears to be happening now with CD. Have you ever purged your music collection of older formats?
Have you ever purged your music collection of older formats?
Yes, and glad I did
24% (59 votes)
Yes, but regret it
19% (47 votes)
No and glad I didn't
57% (143 votes)
No and wish I had
1% (2 votes)
Total votes: 251

COMMENTS
Allan's picture

I purged my MP3s I had downloaded peer-to-peer because of poor quality and bad metadata. I've went back to buying CDs. I would love to have lossless downloads become the new business model, in FLAC.

Jared's picture

Before moving overseas, I gave away the last remaining members of my vinyl collection. I rather regret it now.

Jamie Haynes's picture

Who are these people giving their CDs away and how do I contact them?

ThinkBrown's picture

We never threw our vinyl out, we never threw our CDs out, and we never will.

chris's picture

Of course, not vinyl—that will survive an EMP. Not even CDs, although some have reached their half-life and are decaying. But my DAT cassettes were all transferred to HD, with optical backups. Now working on ¼" studio tapes, which are also decaying at an alarming rate. Digitizing is the only rescue. On the whole, though, the formats most deserving to be tossed out are MP3, WMA, and lossy AAC. Older analog formats may become irretrievable. Lossy digital is simply irredeemable.

Louis P.'s picture

I am too young to have owned 8-tracks and my cassettes are in a box somewhere. Readers under 30 may have no idea of what I am talking about.

Len's picture

Yup. My CD collection just grew too big. When I decided to buy a primo digital preamp and a great DAC I sold my reel-to-reel tapes and my vinyl. Now I'm thinking of adding hi-rez digital downloads, but the CDs will stay.

westcoastman's picture

Cleared out and stopped buying cassettes in the mid-'70s, then in the early '90s I let all my vinyl go and replaced most with CD. Now I have a mix of CD and digital.

Jonathan Allen's picture

Yes. Got rid of my LPs when I moved house 15 years ago. Don't regret it, except for the odd title that has never reached CD or SACD. I was glad to never to hear a click, plop, wow or end-of-side compression or distortion, but then I listen to wide-ranging classical music.

Brankin's picture

I'm glad I had good enough equipment and self confidence to realize I need not make a sideways or even backwards move soundwise to a format with hyped sound capabilities: CD. So I still have my 2000+ LPs. I also will not replace the CDs & SACDs I've acquired over the years. Not many people have the money to do that and end up with the same varied and deep collection. Besides, as I get older, those formats just sound better and better!

Johnny B.  Good's picture

My whole collection of cassette tapes (I still have my Uher cassette recorder, strange...).

Matt's picture

In the process of a move, I gave away all of my vinyl. Now, I wish I had it all back—for the art work alone.

Mike Agee's picture

Cassettes and reel-to-reel. I never liked cassettes and used them mainly for the car; with reel-to-reel, the idea was to preserve vinyl by recording and then archiving new discs—lots of fun, but never really practical. Master tapes? Interesting, but beyond my budget. Never ever ever considered unloading the vinyl. Actually, that's not really true, I did look crossways at a few embarrassing Aerosmith and Al Stewart LPs (et al) and eventually consigned them to distant shelf.

audio-sleuth@comcast.net's picture

You mean throwing out my wire recording of Benny Goodman in Berlin? Or my reel-to-reel recording of Solti's Rite of Spring? For what CD, SACD, DVD-A, downloads? Look at what we're doing. We just don't get it and every new format is worse sounding, but more convenient. How about a new format that's not for the lazy, but the music lover? Oh, we do: records.

steve s's picture

Gave all my cassettes away to the Goodwill and don't regret it a bit

Vade Forrester's picture

Not much love lost for cassettes.

Randall's picture

During an unpleasant division of property prompted by divorce, my wife purged one half of my vinyl, which she had no interest in other than to punish me. She took The Rolling Stones and I got Judy Collins.

HiRezNut's picture

Good riddance to my old cassette tapes.

Dave's picture

I may do it one day, but time is a big problem, particularly with the LPs that require "real time" transfer speeds.

Tore's picture

Sold all my 12,000 LPs back in 1994. Bought most of them back on CD. And now my collection lives losslessly on a 1TB hard drive. Life is good!

peter's picture

i bought all my music on SACD when possible—way better than CD.

Nathan's picture

I've still got my old tapes, vinyl, and CDs. I'll probably even cling onto my downloads after Spotify or somesuch makes them obsolete.

John's picture

Glad I didn't, because I bought a good used turntable and gave a serious listening to some of my favorite LPs. A revelation in some of the vinyl, especially the direct-to-disc ones!

Bruceov's picture

I don't have any more cassettes. Also, it doesn't appear that anyone will manufacture an audiophile 8-track .

KRB's picture

Got rid of my LPs a long time ago and haven't looked back. Digital may have taken a its sweet time to mature, but I tired of cleaning and maintenance of LPs long before I bought my first CD player.

Justin's picture

My CDs are precious.

Glenn Bennett's picture

I have so many LPs and CDs from years ago that I never listen to. I still hang on to them, in case I get really bored enough to give them a listen. So much of it is worth so little if you try to sell it.

Dsimord's picture

Winding up my old man's 78 record player was a pain.

Antonio G.'s picture

I sometimes wish that I had kept my home-made '80s mix cassettes. It would have made for a nice walk down memory lane every now and then. Especially with the prices of used high-quality cassette decks now a days (eg, Nakamichi).

Bubba in SF's picture

Still have 300 cassettes I never play, all my 800 LPs that I do, all my 750 CDs (and I still buy some), and all of my downloads that I travel with and listen to at home. There is a lot of music that doesn't make the jump to the next format that I still like to listen to. With a lot of the current music being hip-hop or worse, there is no reason not to listen to the songs that have lyrics with some thought to them or actual instrumental virtuosity. "Busta a cap in your a@#" doesn't do it for me.

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