Rediscovering the joys of CD collecting

After the digital music revolution of the early 2000s and the iPods that quickly took over afterward, I reasonably thought that my time with CDs was at an end. I stopped buying them and started to lose the ones I already had — including a memorable day in 2001 when my car was broken into and my stereo and two CD books were stolen. All of my remainders ended up in storage, and I didn’t really look back from going in the direction of MP3 collecting.

Yet now I have this parallel collection that’s taking place with my decision late last year to start venturing into CD collecting once again. The idea of a project and a collection coming together was irresistible, and the current price point for used CDs made it affordable. And now that I know a lot more about music than I did back in the day, I’m able to zero in on the albums and artists I want.

My first step was to dig out all of my old CD books and sort through them. I had a lot of trash that needed to go — albums I will never listen to again, junk CD compilations, doubles, and so on. I condensed all of my “must keeps” down to a single book and then got started with growing my collection again.

For this, I’ve mostly been visiting thrift stores when I’m in the neighborhood and making a visit every week or two to the CD reseller shop that’s literally around the corner from my work. In short order, I’ve added 50 albums to my collection (that I’d actually listen to) and started to fill out a bookshelf in my office with them. This hobby will also give me more of a reason to go garage saling with my wife this spring.

But then came the sticking point of not actually owning any sort of CD player. I think you’ll agree this makes it hard to appreciate albums in their fullness. I did pick up a cheap boombox for a little while there, but the sound quality was so weak and tinny that I knew it couldn’t stand. So I started to do a lot of research into a full stereo that’d be affordable.

The above is what I settled on. It’s a VW car stereo that this company repurposed into these beautiful all-in-one units. There are five speakers, a remote, USB, and bluetooth. And the sound is *chef’s kiss* perfect. Very full. I’ve been enjoying a new album or two every day as I work, and it’s like I’m dwelling in a bit of a ’90s alt rock bubble. My only complaint is that there isn’t a headphone jack (this being a car stereo), so it’s full room sound or nothing.

Anyway, collecting physical music has been a lot more fun than I’d anticipated — and a great way to reclaim something from the past I had lost along the way.