CD Collecting


CD Stores

For a few years now I've been into collecting physical media, really since the discovery of the friend's of the library bookstore near me. Obviously this is a good place to get cheap books (usually ~$3), but they also have a decent selection of CDs and movies.

I initially started collecting, as many people do, with vinyl records. While vinyl is great, you quickly start to spend a lot of money on anything other than cheap jazz records or compilation albums. Anything with moderate popularity will quickly reach $15-$30.

Somewhere along the way I started listening to CDs in the car on my commute to work. As the collection in my car started to grow, I realized CDs were much cheaper if I wanted to get albums I knew. At the library bookstore CDs are usually $2-$5 and it quickly became my go-to location for building my initial CD collection. I still check it out but it's harder to find new albums or CDs I don't already have.

Once I had a large enough collection, I bought a 5-disc CD changer to connect to my sound system. The extra benefit provided by CDs is being able to queue up 5 albums instead of having to switch the vinyl side every 20 minutes. I don't mind flipping the vinyl, but during work it can sometimes disrupt things.

Around this time I became frustrated with Spotify's policies regarding AI and artists I was also becoming more aware of Spotify's recommendation algorithm removing my control of music discovery. I decided it would be fun to try ripping all my CDs and playing them locally on my computer while I was working. Naturally this led to me wanting to put them on my phone.

As my collection grew even more I struggled to maintain the large collection, especially as tagging the files became more problematic. I started searching for tools online that would help me manage my music. Initially I had just been using Picard to tag my music after ripping them. I had been aware of Jellyfin for media streaming when I was in college, but had never really used it. It seemed to be a good solution for video streaming/hosting, but I just needed audio streaming. More searching led me to Navidrome, which is the service I use now.

I bought an HP EliteDesk Mini on eBay for a good price and loaded Ubuntu onto it alongside Navidrome, a DDNS service, and Wireguard. I initially used Tauon as my music player, but I've recently switched to Feishin. To stream music to my phone (over the VPN), I use Symfonium, which is well worth the one-time fee.

For tagging the music files I use Beets and for backup I use Borg. I'm still trying to figure out the best backup solution, but this works for now.

At some point here I think it would be cool to automatically get an album list and put it on this website.

For more great info on CDs go check out ilovecds.com!


CD Stores

Most record stores don't actually have a lot of CDs, but there are a few I've found that have good selections