Agreed.
Printable View
When the CD format came out in the early 80s, it was indeed more convenient. Compared to the vinyl record, the new disc was indeed "compact." And CDs could be played in a car since there was no tone arm to go flying when one hit a bump. By today's standards however, the CD is bulky, clunky and inconvenient. Why would I carry a stack of CDs with me on the bus and train when I can fit my entire CD collection, in lossless Flac format, on a pair of 128MB Micro SD Cards? Why would I want to change a CD every 40 to 80 minutes, depending on the discs' playing time? Not to mention my Fiio X1 player fits in my pocket whereas, even a portable CD player does not.
Okay, I get the convenience of not carrying discs around with you.
But there are kinda TWO separate issues here, aren't there? Permanent storage for home use, and portable storage for on-the-go? If portable storage is enough for you, then you don't worry about the artwork or long-term storage. And once again, cloud-based storage is a lot more secure than portable SSD drives.
But if long-term permanent storage and the artwork are important, then the original discs themselves handily beat any other format.
The artwork is freely available from the internet. For permanent storage, I have portable hard drives on which I keep rotating offsite backups of several terabytes of music. These drive can fit easily in my filing cabinet at work, or a bank safety deposit box if all else fails. Try doing that with hundreds of CD jewel cases. My portable hard drives are never connected to the internet, and rarely even connected to any computer, so security isn't really an issue.
Here's something else to consider: If I'm about to settle in for the evening and listen to music, my 54 year old eyes have a hard time going through hundreds of jewel case spines, with their myriad of color schemes and fonts. I find it much quicker and easier going through a folder tree list from my NAS, with its consistent font and color.
Personally, I'd find it kind of a hassle to have to go to the bank to play an album.:roll
But if your house burns down, you'll wish you had copies of your albums in a bank safe.
If my house burnt down, I'd have nothing to play them on. :lol