easymode

Howdy. Like a lot of y'all, I have grown to care a lot more about owning my stuff. In my area, cassettes and CDs are actually starting to go up in price a bit. I see a decent amount of teenagers at my local record shop, and while they're most interested in vinyl, I'm also seeing them pick up CDs and tapes as well. This is cool, and it got me thinking about music formats in general. Of course there's my digital library, but I wanna talk about the physical stuff.

I have a pretty decent record collection, somewhere in the range of 150-200, and they all get a decent amount of play when I'm at home. I used to have a good CD collection as well, but I sold all of my CDs in college when I was broke and needed money. I regret that now, and have been thinking of getting into CDs again, at least to get some old favorites.

My big blindspot with physical music has always been cassettes. I used to kinda turn my nose up at them, but I've ended up grabbing a few in the last year because for now they're still really cheap and I really had no reason to be a snob about them.

In the streaming and algorithm era, I think it's good to have lots of music across multiple formats. What do you think? Do you have any physical music in your collection? What format? If not, what's keeping you from doing it? If you do have any, what's your favorite format?

Tapes are misunderstood in the same way CRTs are misunderstood. When we switched to LCDs, I remember so many people talking about how crisp everything was now... how bright things were... Gamers did complain about motion a little, so it's not as severe compared to tapes... but CRTs were doing something awesome and many people called them artifacts or talked like they were negative issues. Their natural gaussian blur (actually phosphor bloom and halation) created shading between the rough edges of the dots making the image look more natural and smooth.

Tapes really rounded out some rough recordings and they sound a lot warmer and smoother. The technical stuff here is that most tapes have high frequency roll-off... and clipping is also a lot softer because of the way things work... they even add harmonics that sound a lot better than harsh hard-clipping when things are too saturated.

We can argue about type I (roll-off is around the 12kHZ range) and type II (extended to 15kHz), but nearly all consumer tapes used for music (that you'd buy in stores) used type I. Type II were mostly only for home recording use. Oh, type I also had terrible noise floor, but the hiss was kinda a constant sound and it smoothed things out even more. So, there's a reason people use tape filters and try to simulate these effects. Tapes are not good for perfect recordings of a symphony or something... but for some epic heavy metal, they might make it sound dreamy and awesome.

I think it's going to be up to the album. I'd prefer to hear Dokken and maybe W.A.S.P. on a cassette. 80s pop... usually tape... However, newer stuff that has been produced with digital in mind might sound better on CD. Oh, dungeon synth and black metal are always best on a tape... makes them dreamy and ethereal... and fixes the clipping a little.

Records are kinda nonsense these days... The old stuff will sound different on a record because it was analog to analog. New stuff (if it is digital) will be very similar on a record when compared to a CD because it is digital to analog. HOWEVER... they are cool if you want to hang the art.

So my TLDR

• Cassette Tapes: Their errors become pleasant filters that help certain types of music
• Records: For the old analog stuff (if you care) and for the artwork
• CD: For everything else

My fiancee and I have been building our CD and vinyl collection. She had a decent vinyl collection that unfortunately got auctioned off in storage, while I've very slowly been buying CDs since I was 19 or 20. She got me a nice Audio-Technica turntable with Bluetooth for my birthday last year, and I recently picked up a hefty CD player. +1 to the no-tape gang; I just never got around to using them. My dad has a collection of them, but I never really got to experience using cassettes.

Owning physical copies of music is really awesome; especially in the case of CDs or vinyls, you get so much more context for the music. You can read the CD slip while you listen to the album, or you can check out the cool stuff you got with your vinyl before you throw the record on. I typically buy CDs of albums that are important to me, but sometime I'll just buy a CD of an artist or album that I've heard of but never got around to listening. It's such a fun way to find new music.

Now the struggle is putting together a good audio system to hook everything up to... I have some bookshelf speaks hooked up to my CD player, and thankfully the speakers have built-in volume controls that get the job done, but I'd still like to get an EQ and dedicated amplifier for it.

bumbervevo wrote: May 18th, '26, 00:18 My fiancee and I have been building our CD and vinyl collection. She had a decent vinyl collection that unfortunately got auctioned off in storage, while I've very slowly been buying CDs since I was 19 or 20. She got me a nice Audio-Technica turntable with Bluetooth for my birthday last year, and I recently picked up a hefty CD player. +1 to the no-tape gang; I just never got around to using them. My dad has a collection of them, but I never really got to experience using cassettes.

Owning physical copies of music is really awesome; especially in the case of CDs or vinyls, you get so much more context for the music. You can read the CD slip while you listen to the album, or you can check out the cool stuff you got with your vinyl before you throw the record on. I typically buy CDs of albums that are important to me, but sometime I'll just buy a CD of an artist or album that I've heard of but never got around to listening. It's such a fun way to find new music.

Now the struggle is putting together a good audio system to hook everything up to... I have some bookshelf speaks hooked up to my CD player, and thankfully the speakers have built-in volume controls that get the job done, but I'd still like to get an EQ and dedicated amplifier for it.

This is the thing that I think people miss the most (and younger generations have no idea why they missed). Ownership gives you a much deeper connection. It goes beyond the music... the booklets are full of art, you can read the lyrics, etc. And don't get me started on how much better it is to listen to a CD front to back... compared to random songs from a generated playlist... it's a totally different thing. One generates a mood much better than the other.

As for audio systems... goodwill has some awesome stuff here and there. I will say one thing. Don't get a surround sound receiver and try to use it for a stereo. Some do work OK, especially the powerful and expensive ones... but a low priced unit with two or four channels will usually sound a lot better. When I was in FL helping my dad move, we tested a bunch of gear he had so he could decide what to use in his new place. The huge Sony surround receiver/amp sounded WAY worse than the Onkyo 2-channel amp. Oddly, the Sony bookshelf speakers sounded better than his Boston Acoustics. They were slightly bigger, but still.

@ward i think you're on to something when you talk about different formats being better suited for different albums or vibes. You're making me wanna see if some of my favortie punk ro death metal albums are available on cassette...off to discogs I go I suppose!

I personally am a fan of Vinyl and CDs, as they have a longer shelf life than cassettes. Not all music benefits from vinyl, like electronic music (it was made on a PC so it'll never sound exactly as good as live instruments). Live music sound best on vinyl I think. So for my collection I do it this way: Will it benefit from vinyl more, get it there. If not, CD a go-go.

I think between my wife and I we have over 200 vinyl. It's been getting popular in the states again which is nice.