Nothing's stopping you from burning a CD right now. But ultimately, these kinds of nostalgic memories are less about the tech itself and more about remembering the happy times of youth. Bringing back the burned CD won't bring those back I'm afraid.
External USB ones are free in boxes of Frosted Flakes these days.
I have a genuine honest to goodness 5.25" bay mounted Blu Ray burner in my tower right now. Hey, you never friggin' know. It comes in handy every once in a while. There's a machine in my basement with an LS-120, a Zip drive, and a 5.25" floppy drive in it that all still work. Occasionally I still find myself needing to get some monumentally important ancient file off of some kind of floppy disk or other for somebody.
I got married seven years ago. We could bring our own music to the ceremony, but it had to be on audio CD.
None of our modern computers have any optical drive, but we have an USB DVD burner. We just couldn't get any modern system to complete a burn, it just kept failing halfway through.
After many hours I installed OS X on my MorphOS PowerBook G4 from 2005 to use the built-in drive and burn through iTunes.
Or just burned too quickly on poor quality media. It seems like as dvd drives got better the media got worse. But 15 years ago they stopped getting better, and the media kept getting worse.
I agree with your point. However that's not what the article is about. It's about the social and aesthetically engaging aspects that come with physical media compared to the utilitarian services where music is presented like "tap water", and the sense of indifference that's created through abundance, hurting the artists financially.
I've recently gotten into vinyl, and what I've learned is that convenience is often antithetical to experience. When just about every song ever made is immediately available to me at a moment's notice, I stop caring; I'll listen to a song I like for a little while then move onto the next one without thinking about it, and I won't form any lasting memories along the way. When music is something that takes time and effort to enjoy, I have a chance to form a memory about my enjoyment, and when I have to physically find a song in order to listen to it, it gives that song much more meaning than if I spent less than 5 seconds typing the name in on Spotify.
Yeah, I miss the days of making my own mixes, sharing music with friends, etc.
I recently ripped a bunch of CDs and one of the batches was my folio in my car. I do not fucking miss having to handle CDs. The slightest scratch on the foil and it's done, scratches on the plastic and it's done. You had a hour and some minutes max that you could pack into one is you didn't have an mp3 capable player.
I love getting music on CDs, I love listening to an album straight through and the hidden song at the end coming after a bunch of silence, and making a mix that flows like a God. But it's so much nicer having all of my music ripped on my server.
It's weird though. Pencils were never a good way to transport tape. It was also investigated that only certain Japanese pencils fit as these are bigger. In my memory we always used a BIC ballpoint pen which fits perfectly.
It’s the opposite for me. I live in a place that gets fairly humid during different times of the year so cassettes don’t often make it If they were left in a car or a garage or something similar. Whereas most of the CDs that survived my teenage years still work.
imho in a weird way cassettes were better/more fun. Like wanting to record a song you like so you'd sit in front of the tape deck for hours on end listening to the radio waiting for that ONE song to come on so you could record it. It would take you hours, maybe even days, to make that mixtape of songs you didn't own.
Also when I was a kid I had one of those fisher price tape decks that had the microphone attached to it. I wanted to make a mix tape of all my favourite songs from my NES games or games that I would rent (like the Battletoads theme song, or the music from the Batman videogame) so I would pop the game in then hold the microphone up to the TV speaker and record the songs.
Cassettes are making a comeback much like vinyl but to a lesser extent. I’ve got 600 or so cassettes and probably 3/4 of them were made in the past 8 years.
Incorrect. I have three NAD 6300s and a Nakamichi Dragon, and with metal tapes it’s transparent to digital. Shit even good type II nearly transparent. Tapes do not sound “dogshit”. Unlike vinyl, you can easily experiment with the many varieties of tape out there and master your own cassette recordings. It’s like rolling tubes in an analog amplifier. Yes, it’s not perfectly transparent to digital on a cheap type I tape, but the warmth of a high end type I rounds off some of the harshness of modern tracks. YMMV, it’s not for everyone, but I think it’s pretty fucking cool.
I love showing it to people who havent heard great audio.
But yeah, its so expensive. The best part tho is unlike records, tapes are very robust if you keep them in normal temperatures and away from magnets. No surface noise, and most tapes the hiss is hardly noticeable especially on anything 15 IPS.
The good part about the limited catalog is you're going to always get super high quality from it because its so limited and expensive to do
OK, well, you have a lot more tolerance for tape hiss and compression artifacts and muted highs than I do, the only quiet tapes I’ve heard were big fat studio tapes when I had access to a research studio.
I spent so many years trying to get a decent field recording out of the best portable recording (cassette) decks that I may be a little traumatized. DAT recording was a revelation, even with horribly unreliable decks.
There once was a man named Ea-Nasir
His business practices were very unclear
He got so many complaints
Some real, some ain't
But one lasted for thousands of years
Kids will think you're joking, but the vibration on those things was a proper... well, vibrator.
Nothing like getting a text from your crush with your phone in your crotch for her/him having indirectly caused you sexual pleasure.
(Also we did actually have contests on who'd throw their phone the highest without failing to catch it. And the throw were easily 5-15 meters high. And lots of misses. But not a single disabled phone. Small scratches on the covers maybe, but you could also buy new covers so it was no problem.)
I took my own children to a park, there were about 8-10 kids running around between the ages of 1 and 6. The children were feral. The parents were on their phones the entire time. None of the bad behavior was noticed, let alone corrected. A three year old boy sat in a tunnel and screamed and pushed anyone who came near. Mom was oblivious. She wasn’t watching her kid, she was on her phone. Another girl (about 5) was being extremely rough around some of the toddlers (kicking towards them, jumping over a one year old at one point). Her dad didn’t correct the behavior. He didn’t see it. He was on his phone. I could go on. Besides the occasional glance, parents were completely disengaged from their children.
Yes true, but cd’s don’t deteriorate as fast. I’m using cds (cheap and not the best) from 90s and the data is still perfectly readable. I do understand it won’t work for many cases now though.
I think the majority of people at this point don't have a computer with a CD / DVD burner anymore. And at least over here the supermarket also does not sell blank CDs / DVDs anymore.
Most people would have to go out of their way to acquire the means to burn their own CDs
It's true. Using floppies is too easy for decent nostalgia usage. To prove the point: how many people do you know who use floppies for nostalgia reasons?
Sure you can burn a CD, but I think I have nothing to play them anymore. My car (2020) does not have a CD player anymore. Nor my PC nor my laptop have one. I may have in my drawer an old BD reader DVD burner/reader with a SATA plug or something, I remember I plugged it on my laptop with a USB adapter yearsssss ago to rip my LOTR BD. It has been used 1 time in like 10 years.
There was a certain intentionality to burning a CD that a Spotify link just can't replicate. Spending an hour picking the perfect songs to fit exactly 80 minutes, and then handwriting the tracklist... it was a real labor of love. It’s a shame that convenience has replaced that personal touch.
Ok clearly it's not literally about making CDs and people saying "just make your own streaming service" are both missing the point and vastly over estimating the capacity of the average person.
The important part that's largely missing from today's music environment is the personal touch and investment. Many people, as the author says, just comfortably coast through an algorithmic smoothie of familiar music. That is inferior to a friend saying "I made you this mix" and then you actually listen to it, attentively, more than once.
It doesn't have to be a CD. It can be a zip file. But the intention and focus was important.
I'm an outlier in that I never let "the algorithm" choose what plays. Sometimes I still make mixes for friends, though lately they've just been a collection of links. That process of choosing is meaningful. My friend still listens to the mix I made for them when their job laid them off, sometimes.
In audio circles stamped cd’s have been making a comeback. It’s much like the last decades vinyl revival.
It’s not the older generations getting nostalgia, it’s the younger generations looking for ‘experience’ over content. Buying a physical thing, storing on the shelf, having a visible collection of disks to show off.
Additionally it is a revenue stream for artists, where despite the costs of mastering and pressing a cd, they can get more money from a cd release than from streaming. So artists have been incentivized do make releases a big deal since they money goes straight to them. It’s a bit like a ‘buy me a coffee’ but with a physical item.
You can buy brand new cd players, not just blueray players or vintage units that need service.
I went looking for data and it seems cd sales are on the decline again. So my info is outdated. It looks like it was trending younger with Taylor swift and k-pop titles as the top sellers. It appears to be less of a revival and more of a fad.
It looks like vinyl is still growing in 2026 even while cd decrease again.
It’s a bummer since artist can get a bigger cut of physical media sales and cd are easier to make than a records.
It’s a bummer since artist can get a bigger cut of physical media sales and cd are easier to make than a records.
Btw, what about digital album sales? On Amazon, for example, you can buy a CD digitally. You just get MP3s or similar, but it costs the same as the CD, just without the physical media.
Why do some people like vinyl? Why did the iPod's scroll wheel evoke joy when used? Why is the OG PSP's UMD drive clicking open and closed enjoyable?
If you're looking to abstractly optimize consumption and sharing efficiency, it's worse. But if you're looking to optimize personal connection to the art and to other people, having some tactile interaction and giving a physical object that embodies the music arguably does that better.
I'd even bet that if you scanned brain activity of someone opening an MP3 versus someone putting in a disc and hitting a play button, the disc's physical interaction very likely creates stronger neural pathways that trigger more chemical rewards.
Unlike a burned CD from a friend, there’s no social contract that compels me to sit with something new, and take the time to better understand it. There’s very little on Spotify that will compel me to dive into the catalogue of a new-to-me artist, then seek them out when they go on tour.
Its not inherently better than sending someone a playlist by any other means but on the other hand I just think its neat to have a physical thing that you have to intentionally plug into something and listen to in a specific order and way. That and the way that tech/streaming is changing the ways we interact with music on a personal and cultural level is overwhelming to me, makes me nostalgic for the limitations of older mediums. When you had to be intentional about what and how you listened, it (at least to me) made a deeper connection between me and the music as a listener. Fortunately we can still be intentional in many ways, its just easier to not do that with streaming and algorithmically recommended stuff.
I do wish that my friends would still send each other playlists in any format.
It's usually not. I have one old car with a CD player and a less-old car with a USB stick loaded with media. The flash storage is better.
But if you have nice speakers and listening space, the quality of the DAC matters, and a real CD player would probably have a better DAC and sound better than compressed audio on a flash drive sticking out of your receiver. Unless you have a fancy audio server/DAC setup, in which case it's moot.
Phase 1: People own media on records, tapes, etc. because that's the only way to listen to what you want whenever you want. The only alternative is radio, where you listen to what the DJ thinks you should hear. If you buy something once, you can listen to it whenever you want forever. (Or at least as long as the medium holds up)
Phase 2: It was relatively easy to get the media you wanted on demand, but it wasn't always legal, because the copyright cartels were used to a certain way of doing business and didn't like disruption. During this phase people still bought read-only media in stores. But, they also sometimes bought blank media and filled it up from their computers at home.
Phase 3: Everything is now online, and you no longer own media. In this phase you can listen to / watch whatever you want, but you don't get to own anything, and you have to pay monthly if you don't want your media viewing / listening to be interrupted by ads. In this phase, media you love can just disappear if someone loses the license to stream it, or the copyright owner decides to pull it or modify it. In this version someone like George Lucas can decide that the version of Star Wars you grew up on should change, and you now have to accept his new version.
Unfortunately, long-term storage hasn't kept pace with short-term storage and bandwidth. You can make someone a "mix tape" that's a USB stick, but if someone puts it on a shelf it might not be readable in 5 years. You could save the original version of Star Wars to a NAS. But, if your friend wants to borrow it, it's not as easy as grabbing a case off the bookshelf and handing it over.
I keep hoping that one of these "crystal storage" mechanisms takes off. Then we can much more easily be data hoarders, keeping everything, and not relying on a continued subscription to a streaming service for our favourite media.
Just brought out my old dvds and put them on hard drive. They were burned 18 years ago and used organic dyes. I recovered avout 50% of them. Old me should have spent more on nonorganic discs... but old me couldn't afford them back then, so he gets a pass I guess. Plus new me can easily dl most of those discs in an hour or two now.
I was in Publix the other day when this really eccentric wizard looking lady approached me and had a story about how she needed a few bucks. She said she had music for sale that she made herself. I said well how do I purchase it? She reached into her bag and said “ I’ve got cds “ I gave her a few bucks and was on my way feeling good. Got into my fucking car and realized oh shit I’m not a teenager anymore in my old car with a cd player like I thought I was for a solid 10 minutes after buying the damn thing. Got home and had to dig out a cd player for my laptop. Music was weird as fuck which I enjoyed. She bought a jug of cough syrup with the money lmfao
A Certificate of Deposit. A kind of simple interest bank account adjacent in form factor to bonds. In simple terms, you give the bank an amount of money for a set amount of time, say a year, during which you can't withdraw the money without paying a penalty. When the term is finished the bank returns the money plus an amount of simple interest. They often bear higher interest rates than savings or money market accounts and are FDIC insured.
You can get one at a bank. It is short for certificate of deposit. It's basically a high interest savings account that is difficult to access until it matures. They are at or above 4% now at some banks, so it is a relatively safe investment that is slightly higher than inflation.
Feels like the article is slightly off base, the people today looking for something physical and memorable have been buying vinyl. In 2026 most people I know don't have a CD player let alone a CD burner. But lots them do buy and play vinyl and have record players for that purpose.
Or.. if the article is just a nostalgia deep dive then why the commitment to CDs? You could do the same passing around USB sticks if the purpose is to share music with friends.
Also wonder if the article writer's own discs actually still work, burned discs don't last that long. They mention having a whole box of old discs but I don't know if they actually tried to play them and checked them for errors. A while back I was doing some data recovery for a friend who had all her stuff burned to discs over the years, turned out about 20% of her discs were either unreadable or full of errors.
Even just buying a new drive is not exactly easy. There is no market. I got a new* BD DVD CD burner eventually, Asus BW-16D1HT, they were introduced more than 10 years ago!
*used one prior only lasted a year before it smashed the CD and DVD laser head into a CD.
The reason I got a cd burner was the frustration of dealing with Bluetooth in my car. I got a Bluetooth capable, simple, CD compatible head unit. The best part about using a CD is it begins immediately when the car starts, versus fumbling with a phone. Though swapping CDs obviously isn't as great as using digital / streaming.
When I first burned my first CDs(after long time), I was happy, and I quite liked, but but since I buy CDs, I don't do that anymore.
When I found my burned CDs after some time, I was intrigued to listen what was in it.
While your jacking off into your Xfinity/Comcast/NBC/Meta/Google/Micorosft/Amazon DNA test to prove you’re allowed to watch the next ad that only plays while it detects your eyeballs on the screen…
I’ll be watching Lord of The Rings Extended Edition on Blue Ray.
My friend and I got an old optiplex and upgraded it with a burner so we can make CDs. It's actually quite nice to have a physical medium for music in the car, and make mixes for different moods that you can switch between. We also know some people with older cars that only have CD and radio or the Bluetooth sucks so we'll make CDs for them too. Tons of fun and you can buy a usb CD / DVD burner for like $10 or $15 and CD-Rs are fairly cheap.
Building a dedicated machine for this is such a cool idea. It’s a great reminder that 'outdated' tech still has so much value and can bring people together. Those friends with the older cars are lucky to have you!
Only if burned from FLAC or similar. But also no. 700MB and super slow. Take an old Android phone with an SD card in it and turn it into a WiFi server. Let people connect to it and take what they want. iPhone, Android, Windows, macOS, doesn't matter, it'll connect to it.
lets see, they take forever to burn, they burn error rate is huge, they are physically large and have tiny capacity, they scratch, you have to handle them carefully, they often stop working due to scratches or just the top of the cd getting a chip or bubble.
increase the capacity of minidiscs and bring them back, a format everyone loved
125 Comments
PonyOfWar@pawb.social · 122 pts · 148d
Nothing's stopping you from burning a CD right now. But ultimately, these kinds of nostalgic memories are less about the tech itself and more about remembering the happy times of youth. Bringing back the burned CD won't bring those back I'm afraid.
homes@piefed.world · 23 pts · 148d
What’s stopping me is that I haven’t had a CD burner in like 12 or 15 years. But you’re right about the rest of it.
exu@feditown.com · 45 pts · 148d
A tiny laser and steady hands should work
homes@piefed.world · 13 pts · 148d
I don’t have those, either, lol
GTKashi@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 148d
Very small pickaxe?
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d
Maybe if you're using an m-disc
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 148d
External USB ones are free in boxes of Frosted Flakes these days.
I have a genuine honest to goodness 5.25" bay mounted Blu Ray burner in my tower right now. Hey, you never friggin' know. It comes in handy every once in a while. There's a machine in my basement with an LS-120, a Zip drive, and a 5.25" floppy drive in it that all still work. Occasionally I still find myself needing to get some monumentally important ancient file off of some kind of floppy disk or other for somebody.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 148d
I was soo excited about ls120. Zip drive capacity in a 1.44 MB disc format with backwards compatibility. How could it not become the next big thing?
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 148d
Because it made that noise.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 146d
Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but by the time they were introduced, even Zip drives were on the way out?
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 146d
Yeah. Everyone was moving to CD-R.
homes@piefed.world · 6 pts · 148d
Lol, oh I know. I just really never liked burning CDs anyway. I had a mini disc player, lol.
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 146d
Nice, I found the one other MiniDisc user on Lemmy. It's an honour to meet you.
homes@piefed.world · 2 pts · 146d
I really thought they were the future. I should have known better.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 146d
I still think they're the future. People are going to come around, you'll see!
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 146d
I think I stopped seeing blank minidiscs before CDs, cassettes, and even VHSs in my local Daiso.
krisevol@lemmus.org · 4 pts · 148d
They still sell them
PetteriPano@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 148d
Actually..
I got married seven years ago. We could bring our own music to the ceremony, but it had to be on audio CD.
None of our modern computers have any optical drive, but we have an USB DVD burner. We just couldn't get any modern system to complete a burn, it just kept failing halfway through.
After many hours I installed OS X on my MorphOS PowerBook G4 from 2005 to use the built-in drive and burn through iTunes.
It used to be a cakewalk. Now not so much.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social · 11 pts · 148d
You probably had a faulty DVD burner then. I did it within the last year, using my modern computer and a cheap external drive.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 148d
Or just burned too quickly on poor quality media. It seems like as dvd drives got better the media got worse. But 15 years ago they stopped getting better, and the media kept getting worse.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org · 4 pts · 148d
That's totally on your hardware. All those DVD burners you can buy do work.
blackbeans@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 148d
I agree with your point. However that's not what the article is about. It's about the social and aesthetically engaging aspects that come with physical media compared to the utilitarian services where music is presented like "tap water", and the sense of indifference that's created through abundance, hurting the artists financially.
Signtist@bookwyr.me · 6 pts · 148d
I've recently gotten into vinyl, and what I've learned is that convenience is often antithetical to experience. When just about every song ever made is immediately available to me at a moment's notice, I stop caring; I'll listen to a song I like for a little while then move onto the next one without thinking about it, and I won't form any lasting memories along the way. When music is something that takes time and effort to enjoy, I have a chance to form a memory about my enjoyment, and when I have to physically find a song in order to listen to it, it gives that song much more meaning than if I spent less than 5 seconds typing the name in on Spotify.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 147d
Environmentally awful though.
Ingredients are terrible and they are bulky and heavy to transport.
Makes more sense to have your own server and make a sleeve or carboard qr code that "plays" your selection to give you the best of both worlds.
cenzorrll@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 148d
Yeah, I miss the days of making my own mixes, sharing music with friends, etc.
I recently ripped a bunch of CDs and one of the batches was my folio in my car. I do not fucking miss having to handle CDs. The slightest scratch on the foil and it's done, scratches on the plastic and it's done. You had a hour and some minutes max that you could pack into one is you didn't have an mp3 capable player.
I love getting music on CDs, I love listening to an album straight through and the hidden song at the end coming after a bunch of silence, and making a mix that flows like a God. But it's so much nicer having all of my music ripped on my server.
etchinghillside@reddthat.com · 27 pts · 148d
Cassettes would like to have a word.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 148d
That word
felbane@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 148d
The word is "shutterst*ck"?
deleted@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d
Bird is the word.
EndOfLine@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 148d
By: Lorie Ransom, The Daily Drawing
dalekcaan@feddit.nl · 4 pts · 148d
Huh, I think this is the first time I've seen this comic without the caption "OnLy FiVe PeOpLe WiLl GeT tHiS 🤪"
blackbeans@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 146d
It's weird though. Pencils were never a good way to transport tape. It was also investigated that only certain Japanese pencils fit as these are bigger. In my memory we always used a BIC ballpoint pen which fits perfectly.
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 148d
I call this "road tinsel", there used to be a lot of it strewn along highways.
sefra1@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 148d
I find that most my old cassettes still play, can't say the same for the CDs.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 148d
It’s the opposite for me. I live in a place that gets fairly humid during different times of the year so cassettes don’t often make it If they were left in a car or a garage or something similar. Whereas most of the CDs that survived my teenage years still work.
rozodru@piefed.world · 14 pts · 148d
imho in a weird way cassettes were better/more fun. Like wanting to record a song you like so you'd sit in front of the tape deck for hours on end listening to the radio waiting for that ONE song to come on so you could record it. It would take you hours, maybe even days, to make that mixtape of songs you didn't own.
Also when I was a kid I had one of those fisher price tape decks that had the microphone attached to it. I wanted to make a mix tape of all my favourite songs from my NES games or games that I would rent (like the Battletoads theme song, or the music from the Batman videogame) so I would pop the game in then hold the microphone up to the TV speaker and record the songs.
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 148d
Um no. Having to rewind the tape was annoying. If you had a janky player it would eat it.
etchinghillside@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 148d
Jumping across the bed to hit record when a song came on is a core memory.
db2@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 148d
deranger@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 148d
Cassettes are making a comeback much like vinyl but to a lesser extent. I’ve got 600 or so cassettes and probably 3/4 of them were made in the past 8 years.
MichaelScotch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 148d
Vinyl made sense because of its high fidelity. Cassettes do not make sense unless you enjoy dogshit audio quality
deranger@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 148d
Incorrect. I have three NAD 6300s and a Nakamichi Dragon, and with metal tapes it’s transparent to digital. Shit even good type II nearly transparent. Tapes do not sound “dogshit”. Unlike vinyl, you can easily experiment with the many varieties of tape out there and master your own cassette recordings. It’s like rolling tubes in an analog amplifier. Yes, it’s not perfectly transparent to digital on a cheap type I tape, but the warmth of a high end type I rounds off some of the harshness of modern tracks. YMMV, it’s not for everyone, but I think it’s pretty fucking cool.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 148d
I mean reel tape kills vinyl and cassette. It surpasses or equals digital in high $$ situations.
*its mostly about the mastering
Yes, its clunky huge and expensive and has a limited catalog. But once you've heard one you'll want more.
deranger@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 148d
Oh, no doubt. Reel to reel is the ultimate analog media.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 148d
I love showing it to people who havent heard great audio.
But yeah, its so expensive. The best part tho is unlike records, tapes are very robust if you keep them in normal temperatures and away from magnets. No surface noise, and most tapes the hiss is hardly noticeable especially on anything 15 IPS.
The good part about the limited catalog is you're going to always get super high quality from it because its so limited and expensive to do
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 148d
This is a rare setup. Kind of vintage audio unicorn.
You still have a noticeable noise floor and medium limitations as equalizer, though ("warmer").
99.999% of decks and surviving tapes do sound like dogshit.
deranger@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 145d
Nah, this is wrong. Cassettes don’t sound like dogshit and most vintage decks sound great when properly calibrated.
Modern $20 Chinese portables sound like ass, I’ll give you that.
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 145d
OK, well, you have a lot more tolerance for tape hiss and compression artifacts and muted highs than I do, the only quiet tapes I’ve heard were big fat studio tapes when I had access to a research studio.
I spent so many years trying to get a decent field recording out of the best portable recording (cassette) decks that I may be a little traumatized. DAT recording was a revelation, even with horribly unreliable decks.
harmbugler@piefed.social · -1 pts · 148d
Can’t walk the streets listening to vinyl.
P1nkman@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Speakers-Rechargeable-Turntable-Phonograph/dp/B0DJQXZNZY
Well... But you'd have to really steady on the hands. Maybe some jig would work?
JoMiran@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 148d
Cassettes are a great way to play ambient and lo-fi hip-hop music.
EDIT:
Example
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 19 pts · 148d
Bring Back the Clay Tablet— They’re a love language. And a reminder of the hope we once had.
Bahnd@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 148d
Sing me a song about shitty copper.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 148d
Fuck ... Erm...Shite
There once was a man named Ea-Nasir His business practices were very unclear He got so many complaints Some real, some ain't But one lasted for thousands of years
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 148d
Bring back that whole timeframe. We weren’t all so stuck up our phone’s ass.
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 147d
Yeah, growing up as a teen it was the opposite. I was burning CDs and had this phone stuck up my ass
Dasus@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 147d
Kids will think you're joking, but the vibration on those things was a proper... well, vibrator.
Nothing like getting a text from your crush with your phone in your crotch for her/him having indirectly caused you sexual pleasure.
(Also we did actually have contests on who'd throw their phone the highest without failing to catch it. And the throw were easily 5-15 meters high. And lots of misses. But not a single disabled phone. Small scratches on the covers maybe, but you could also buy new covers so it was no problem.)
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 146d
Posted in r/teachers yesterday:
etherphon@piefed.world · 18 pts · 148d
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 148d
That is a downside.
ksh@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 148d
Still better use than take aways, product wrappers, glitter and plastic lined paper.
etherphon@piefed.world · 1 pts · 148d
ksh@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 147d
Yes true, but cd’s don’t deteriorate as fast. I’m using cds (cheap and not the best) from 90s and the data is still perfectly readable. I do understand it won’t work for many cases now though.
SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 147d
What no love for the mixtape? We have to go straight to CD?
Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 148d
What a dumbass article. It's way too easy right now to burn a CD, we need another 25 years before were nostalgic about this one.
Humanius@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 148d
I think the majority of people at this point don't have a computer with a CD / DVD burner anymore. And at least over here the supermarket also does not sell blank CDs / DVDs anymore.
Most people would have to go out of their way to acquire the means to burn their own CDs
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 148d
I disagree. Find a prebuilt PC that ships with a drive. Extremely rare unless you custom order it.
On my desk sits a usb CD/DVD writer. Majority of my non tech friends might have an old bluray or DVD player laying aroung or a PS3/4.
With your statement, you can say floppies are too easy to burn since you can buy a usb writer and a stack on amazon.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 148d
It's true. Using floppies is too easy for decent nostalgia usage. To prove the point: how many people do you know who use floppies for nostalgia reasons?
Magister@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 148d
Sure you can burn a CD, but I think I have nothing to play them anymore. My car (2020) does not have a CD player anymore. Nor my PC nor my laptop have one. I may have in my drawer an old BD reader DVD burner/reader with a SATA plug or something, I remember I plugged it on my laptop with a USB adapter yearsssss ago to rip my LOTR BD. It has been used 1 time in like 10 years.
filk_nl_Max@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 148d
There was a certain intentionality to burning a CD that a Spotify link just can't replicate. Spending an hour picking the perfect songs to fit exactly 80 minutes, and then handwriting the tracklist... it was a real labor of love. It’s a shame that convenience has replaced that personal touch.
jtrek@startrek.website · 11 pts · 147d
Ok clearly it's not literally about making CDs and people saying "just make your own streaming service" are both missing the point and vastly over estimating the capacity of the average person.
The important part that's largely missing from today's music environment is the personal touch and investment. Many people, as the author says, just comfortably coast through an algorithmic smoothie of familiar music. That is inferior to a friend saying "I made you this mix" and then you actually listen to it, attentively, more than once.
It doesn't have to be a CD. It can be a zip file. But the intention and focus was important.
I'm an outlier in that I never let "the algorithm" choose what plays. Sometimes I still make mixes for friends, though lately they've just been a collection of links. That process of choosing is meaningful. My friend still listens to the mix I made for them when their job laid them off, sometimes.
Dasus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 147d
Or just a playlist you made on one of those streaming services. Ain't no difference.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 146d
I generally agree, but it was special to have a physical tape or CD that you got to keep around. Felt more like an actual gift.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 146d
Memory sucks. Having a physical token as a reminder is very helpful.
worhui@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 148d
In audio circles stamped cd’s have been making a comeback. It’s much like the last decades vinyl revival.
It’s not the older generations getting nostalgia, it’s the younger generations looking for ‘experience’ over content. Buying a physical thing, storing on the shelf, having a visible collection of disks to show off.
Additionally it is a revenue stream for artists, where despite the costs of mastering and pressing a cd, they can get more money from a cd release than from streaming. So artists have been incentivized do make releases a big deal since they money goes straight to them. It’s a bit like a ‘buy me a coffee’ but with a physical item.
You can buy brand new cd players, not just blueray players or vintage units that need service.
It’s a thing.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 148d
In terms of nostalgia-buying, we millenials are now the older generation. I doubt it's all the 15-20yo who are buying CDs.
worhui@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 148d
I went looking for data and it seems cd sales are on the decline again. So my info is outdated. It looks like it was trending younger with Taylor swift and k-pop titles as the top sellers. It appears to be less of a revival and more of a fad.
It looks like vinyl is still growing in 2026 even while cd decrease again.
It’s a bummer since artist can get a bigger cut of physical media sales and cd are easier to make than a records.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 130d
Btw, what about digital album sales? On Amazon, for example, you can buy a CD digitally. You just get MP3s or similar, but it costs the same as the CD, just without the physical media.
ftbd@feddit.org · 9 pts · 148d
And why is burning an audio file onto a CD better than having the same file on flash storage?
krisevol@lemmus.org · 7 pts · 148d
Being old does that to people
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 148d
Why do some people like vinyl? Why did the iPod's scroll wheel evoke joy when used? Why is the OG PSP's UMD drive clicking open and closed enjoyable?
If you're looking to abstractly optimize consumption and sharing efficiency, it's worse. But if you're looking to optimize personal connection to the art and to other people, having some tactile interaction and giving a physical object that embodies the music arguably does that better.
I'd even bet that if you scanned brain activity of someone opening an MP3 versus someone putting in a disc and hitting a play button, the disc's physical interaction very likely creates stronger neural pathways that trigger more chemical rewards.
blackbeans@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 148d
That authors' view is explained in the article.
YewEyeOwe31@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 148d
Its not inherently better than sending someone a playlist by any other means but on the other hand I just think its neat to have a physical thing that you have to intentionally plug into something and listen to in a specific order and way. That and the way that tech/streaming is changing the ways we interact with music on a personal and cultural level is overwhelming to me, makes me nostalgic for the limitations of older mediums. When you had to be intentional about what and how you listened, it (at least to me) made a deeper connection between me and the music as a listener. Fortunately we can still be intentional in many ways, its just easier to not do that with streaming and algorithmically recommended stuff.
I do wish that my friends would still send each other playlists in any format.
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 148d
It's usually not. I have one old car with a CD player and a less-old car with a USB stick loaded with media. The flash storage is better.
But if you have nice speakers and listening space, the quality of the DAC matters, and a real CD player would probably have a better DAC and sound better than compressed audio on a flash drive sticking out of your receiver. Unless you have a fancy audio server/DAC setup, in which case it's moot.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 148d
Elitism
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 147d
No, we need transferable digital licenses. I want to both own my software and download it on the go
merc@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 148d
It seems to me like the world has had 3 phases:
Unfortunately, long-term storage hasn't kept pace with short-term storage and bandwidth. You can make someone a "mix tape" that's a USB stick, but if someone puts it on a shelf it might not be readable in 5 years. You could save the original version of Star Wars to a NAS. But, if your friend wants to borrow it, it's not as easy as grabbing a case off the bookshelf and handing it over.
I keep hoping that one of these "crystal storage" mechanisms takes off. Then we can much more easily be data hoarders, keeping everything, and not relying on a continued subscription to a streaming service for our favourite media.
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 148d
I never stopped. How else am I going to burn PS1, Dreamcast, and 360 games?
P13@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 148d
360 wasn’t DVD?
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 148d
It was.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 148d
PS2 for DVD-R
vividspecter@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 147d
I think all of these have sdcard mods now (and the 360 had long had HDD mods from memory).
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 147d
Oh yeah, they do. I'm just weird lol
9point6@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 148d
I'm not sure if they've degraded, but I've got one of those CD-R spindles with a few disks left on it somewhere
I could burn a mix CD this afternoon if I felt like it?
Thing is if I gave half of the people I know a mix CD I'm pretty sure they wouldn't actually have a means of listening to it
unphazed@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 148d
Just brought out my old dvds and put them on hard drive. They were burned 18 years ago and used organic dyes. I recovered avout 50% of them. Old me should have spent more on nonorganic discs... but old me couldn't afford them back then, so he gets a pass I guess. Plus new me can easily dl most of those discs in an hour or two now.
sturmblast@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 148d
Mix tapes were better
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 148d
They each have their place. Tapes fit in your pocket though, which was great for casual carry. I always had a mix tape in my pocket.
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 148d
I have lots of playlist cds, same thing. Better skipping function.
sturmblast@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 147d
Not the same thing
sploder@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 146d
I was in Publix the other day when this really eccentric wizard looking lady approached me and had a story about how she needed a few bucks. She said she had music for sale that she made herself. I said well how do I purchase it? She reached into her bag and said “ I’ve got cds “ I gave her a few bucks and was on my way feeling good. Got into my fucking car and realized oh shit I’m not a teenager anymore in my old car with a cd player like I thought I was for a solid 10 minutes after buying the damn thing. Got home and had to dig out a cd player for my laptop. Music was weird as fuck which I enjoyed. She bought a jug of cough syrup with the money lmfao
Lars_Tanner@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 148d
I think people undervalue cd/dvd/bluray. Up to this day it's best format for giving away data like family photos.
With any usb device there's much larger security risk. Also people want to get storage back.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 148d
what's a CD?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 148d
A Certificate of Deposit. A kind of simple interest bank account adjacent in form factor to bonds. In simple terms, you give the bank an amount of money for a set amount of time, say a year, during which you can't withdraw the money without paying a penalty. When the term is finished the bank returns the money plus an amount of simple interest. They often bear higher interest rates than savings or money market accounts and are FDIC insured.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 148d
CDs nuts!
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 147d
Goteem
yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 147d
CD is just an acronym for the Compact Disc media format.
normalentrance@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 147d
You can get one at a bank. It is short for certificate of deposit. It's basically a high interest savings account that is difficult to access until it matures. They are at or above 4% now at some banks, so it is a relatively safe investment that is slightly higher than inflation.
HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 148d
How 'bout we tweak that just a tiny bit and use flash drives instead?
brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 148d
Feels like the article is slightly off base, the people today looking for something physical and memorable have been buying vinyl. In 2026 most people I know don't have a CD player let alone a CD burner. But lots them do buy and play vinyl and have record players for that purpose.
Or.. if the article is just a nostalgia deep dive then why the commitment to CDs? You could do the same passing around USB sticks if the purpose is to share music with friends.
Also wonder if the article writer's own discs actually still work, burned discs don't last that long. They mention having a whole box of old discs but I don't know if they actually tried to play them and checked them for errors. A while back I was doing some data recovery for a friend who had all her stuff burned to discs over the years, turned out about 20% of her discs were either unreadable or full of errors.
Eheran@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 148d
Even just buying a new drive is not exactly easy. There is no market. I got a new* BD DVD CD burner eventually, Asus BW-16D1HT, they were introduced more than 10 years ago!
*used one prior only lasted a year before it smashed the CD and DVD laser head into a CD.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 147d
At least as silly as loving CD burners over thumbdrives.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 147d
this is a good reminder to finish that mix CD I'm halfway through putting together
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 147d
This is stupid. Just make your own streaming service.
SqueakySpider@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 148d
The reason I got a cd burner was the frustration of dealing with Bluetooth in my car. I got a Bluetooth capable, simple, CD compatible head unit. The best part about using a CD is it begins immediately when the car starts, versus fumbling with a phone. Though swapping CDs obviously isn't as great as using digital / streaming.
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 148d
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 146d
And, their temporary nature fits the fleeting nature of infatuation.
roserose56@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 148d
When I first burned my first CDs(after long time), I was happy, and I quite liked, but but since I buy CDs, I don't do that anymore. When I found my burned CDs after some time, I was intrigued to listen what was in it.
Prior_Industry@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 146d
Once you break up, fantastic tree ornaments also.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 146d
You can make a million other hand-made things. But sure bring back obsolete tech.
entropiclyclaude@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 146d
While your jacking off into your Xfinity/Comcast/NBC/Meta/Google/Micorosft/Amazon DNA test to prove you’re allowed to watch the next ad that only plays while it detects your eyeballs on the screen…
I’ll be watching Lord of The Rings Extended Edition on Blue Ray.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 148d
Can't tell if a AI slop article, or just really bad writing
Deceptichum@quokk.au · 1 pts · 148d
HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 148d
My friend and I got an old optiplex and upgraded it with a burner so we can make CDs. It's actually quite nice to have a physical medium for music in the car, and make mixes for different moods that you can switch between. We also know some people with older cars that only have CD and radio or the Bluetooth sucks so we'll make CDs for them too. Tons of fun and you can buy a usb CD / DVD burner for like $10 or $15 and CD-Rs are fairly cheap.
filk_nl_Max@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d
Building a dedicated machine for this is such a cool idea. It’s a great reminder that 'outdated' tech still has so much value and can bring people together. Those friends with the older cars are lucky to have you!
HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 148d
Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d
I still have my Blu-ray burner and a bunch of blank blue rays. When does the digital orgy start?
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 147d
Only if burned from FLAC or similar. But also no. 700MB and super slow. Take an old Android phone with an SD card in it and turn it into a WiFi server. Let people connect to it and take what they want. iPhone, Android, Windows, macOS, doesn't matter, it'll connect to it.
texture@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 147d
lets not bring back the worse tech in history, k thanks.
i have to ask, has any downvoter ever used a cd?
TimeNaan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 146d
Why do you consider it the worst? I've burned a fair share of coasters in my time but once the data is on there, CDs/DVDs are pretty reliable
texture@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 146d
lets see, they take forever to burn, they burn error rate is huge, they are physically large and have tiny capacity, they scratch, you have to handle them carefully, they often stop working due to scratches or just the top of the cd getting a chip or bubble.
increase the capacity of minidiscs and bring them back, a format everyone loved