Recommended format for starting a collection

G

gamestoned

Audiophyte
Hi there

I just setup my 2 channel stereo and looking to start my collection. I first wanted to move to vinyl directly but I don't have the room for that and too delicate for now. Pushed it for later I will go for it as well. So decided to get a OPPO UDP-205.

Now my question is should I start off a CD, SACD, Blue Ray Pure Audio collection?.

If you look at the future value moving from 2 to 2.1 and later 5.1 or 7.1 which would last longer.

Welcome your thoughts. I found topics too old on forums so thought of starting off a fresh one for 2017.

Best
Paul

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TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
CD's are still the best, in my opinion. Downloaded music can suffer from any number of compression issues, and with CD, you have a hard copy so no fear of losing files. But they can easily be converted to a digital file on a hard drive.

Multichannel audio is very enjoyable, but most music is not mastered for it. So I wouldn't be quite so concerned about surround sound unless you start watching more movies.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
CD's are still the best, in my opinion. Downloaded music can suffer from any number of compression issues, and with CD, you have a hard copy so no fear of losing files. But they can easily be converted to a digital file on a hard drive.
I agree, for serious listeners CDs are the best way to buy music, especially if you're into classical music or jazz (as opposed to the latest popular music). The low prices on CD box sets I see on Amazon are amazing bargains; $1-$2 per CD. I also like being independent of the internet and cloud computing and corporate policies (especially pricing). I also like browsing a shelf better than using a search engine.

IMO, vinyl is just a waste of time and money, unless you already own LPs and just want a means to play them, or you're looking for "the experience". If the latter is what people are looking for, the coolness of the mechanical nature of phonographs, I get it. Totally. I still drive manual transmission vehicles just for the fun of it, even though modern automatics have made manuals inferior in almost every way (except, perhaps, longevity). It amazes me the number of young people (millennials) I bump into getting into vinyl.

I've been listening to a lot of classical music streaming lately from Amazon Prime (256Kbps) on headphones in the office, and I have to say that it sounds very good. I do occasionally hear stuff that makes me wonder about the compression algorithm, like making some background sounds more apparent than on the CD versions I own, but that could be a headphone effect too. Overall, I'm softening up about 256Kbps MP3 audio quality, but if I'm going to purchase I'll always insist on CD resolution or better.
 
G

gamestoned

Audiophyte
So CDs it is. I see a lot of deals for SACD and BluRay Audio is it worth the buy? If the price match a CD for the same album/genre.

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TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
So CDs it is. I see a lot of deals for SACD and BluRay Audio is it worth the buy? If the price match a CD for the same album/genre.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk
I think a quality recording of a symphony, or a live performance would be well worth a higher price for SACD. I don't own any high res music beyond Rush R40 on BD that is encoded for DTS Master Audio. There was a noticeable increase in sound quality, even for a 3 piece rock band.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Another vote for cd as primary. If you want multi-ch audio down the line then I'd think more about SACDs with such mixes as well as dvd/blu-ray; I've been collecting a few SACDs myself lately, and find the two-ch versions aren't nearly as interesting as the multi-ch mixes some have. Vinyl I only have because I've had it a long time, certainly wouldn't start with it unless perhaps that is where you're finding most of the music you enjoy and not in other formats...
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
Ditto. I buy cd's on the cheap and rip them all to WAV files on my htpc. Keep the cd's in storage and you'll always have the best backup possible if anything happens to your player.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Let's just say yes to all. SACD is great but good luck building a "collection" on it. Same with BD Audio. There just aren't really enough of them to encompass a full collection. CD is still the core of my collection and I pick up SACD/DVD-A, BD Audio, etc... when I feel a title is interesting enough for me to.
 
-Jim-

-Jim-

Audioholic General
I too say to start, go with CDs but do it quickly before they stop making them.

I too would rip them, but into FLAC Files and can usually be played on most up to date Receivers (AVRs) via a portable Hard Drive or a USB Stick. All of my families CD have been ripped to FLAC and backed up on various Hard Drives. My CDs are going to be in the basement storage area soon...

However, I still think Concert Blu Rays can be amazing on a decent 5.1 (or better) Home Theater system. But they too are slowly going away, as Streaming poor quality stuff takes over.
 
killdozzer

killdozzer

Audioholic Samurai
When my HDD failed I was almost in tears for 300GB of music. Other way around, if I had CD's... I'd just get another HDD and ripped them again If I wished for the ease of access.

Price, number of albums, sound quality and safe back up, if you want all of these, CD's still lead the way.
 
-Jim-

-Jim-

Audioholic General
I've got well over 1 TB of FLAC Tunes, and I too would be devastated if lost to a Hard Drive Failure. There's a lot of man hours in Ripping them. Hence I have them double backed up with another at my brother's house for him to use.
 
killdozzer

killdozzer

Audioholic Samurai
I've got well over 1 TB of FLAC Tunes, and I too would be devastated if lost to a Hard Drive Failure. There's a lot of man hours in Ripping them. Hence I have them double backed up with another at my brother's house for him to use.
I was practically begging for someone to at least extract the list of folders so that I'd know what I've lost, but it was too much work and thus costly.
 
Johnny2Bad

Johnny2Bad

Audioholic Chief
Choose the format you can afford to buy with the content you want.
Unless you have very specific musical tastes that lean towards popular acts, you probably can't limit yourself to one format.

There is far more music available on CD than other optical disc formats, for example. Further to that, my guess would be that 70% of the content released on LP record is not available on CD and will never be available on CD or newer optical disc formats.

Despite the fact that there is almost zero cost to host a downloadable file, I would not expect that all the music available on CD will every be offered for download.

Start somewhere, but chances are, sooner or later, you will have multiple formats in your collection.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
I agree, for serious listeners CDs are the best way to buy music, especially if you're into classical music or jazz (as opposed to the latest popular music). The low prices on CD box sets I see on Amazon are amazing bargains; $1-$2 per CD. I also like being independent of the internet and cloud computing and corporate policies (especially pricing). I also like browsing a shelf better than using a search engine.

IMO, vinyl is just a waste of time and money, unless you already own LPs and just want a means to play them, or you're looking for "the experience". If the latter is what people are looking for, the coolness of the mechanical nature of phonographs, I get it. Totally. I still drive manual transmission vehicles just for the fun of it, even though modern automatics have made manuals inferior in almost every way (except, perhaps, longevity). It amazes me the number of young people (millennials) I bump into getting into vinyl.

I've been listening to a lot of classical music streaming lately from Amazon Prime (256Kbps) on headphones in the office, and I have to say that it sounds very good. I do occasionally hear stuff that makes me wonder about the compression algorithm, like making some background sounds more apparent than on the CD versions I own, but that could be a headphone effect too. Overall, I'm softening up about 256Kbps MP3 audio quality, but if I'm going to purchase I'll always insist on CD resolution or better.
I think it's annoying that I'm considered a "millennial" even though I was born in the early 80's but whatever. I don't identify with ANYTHING that groups apparently represents. I've been told I was born too late, but I digress.

Funny thing is that I've never "gotten into" vinyl. It's what I grew up with. My first albums were all vinyl. Then 8 track, cassette tape and finally CD's. I still have a lot of old records I need to find a way to play (I've got a very old console, but I haven't had time to restore it yet).

I tried to get my mom and aunt to give me their collections since neither listen to them, but they won't.

I would either say start a collection of CDs (I have tons, too many to count) or high quality downloads if you can. Especially since you'll want to rip the CDs anyway.
 
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