So long compact discs - off to Murfie.com
My first compact disk was Joshua Tree and I played it on a portable Sony D-50 (the first Discman) that my father purchased for me on a trip to Japan. Man that thing was sweet.
I don't know what my last compact disc purchase was, but it was a few years ago. I used to rip all my CDs, first as lossless and then as a compressed VBR AAC or MP3 file. I have long since given up on that choosing to purchase music through Amazon MP3 or just listening to music via subscription services like Spotify and Pandora. I don't really want to own more music any more, since I can listen to virtually anything I want wherever I want for less than I used to spend on CDs a year.
But, I still have 396 CDs that have been sitting in a box in our basement. They have moved from house to house and from state so state. For no good reason really.
On Monday I packed them all up in a free box with paid shipping and sent them off to Murfie.com. Murfie is an interesting service. They have a giant warehouse in which they store all your physical CDs forever.
They do this so that you can essentially "sell" or "trade" CDs with other Murfie members. When my wife and I combined CD collections we had about 30 duplicate CDs. We sold all of those on Murfie a while ago when I was testing the service out.
Because Murfie has the physical CDs, they will rip them for you and let you download them in a variety of bitrates (FLAC, AAC, MP3). They will also send them back to you if you really want.
Murfie also sells brand new CDs to you for the same price as Apple or Amazon. The best part is that: 1) you never get the CD, 2) you get to download a lossless or lossy version, 3) later on you can trade or or sell it (note if you download a digital copy, some labels prevent you from selling or trading it).
Recenly Murfie added to notable features:
You can stream all your music via a Sonos
You can stream all your music to your Phone (currently iPhone and Android).
I have a Sonos and think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
So there you have it. No more CD, but all my music in the cloud. Lossless listening and download and I never have to deal with CDs again.
You should check Murfie out. It's pretty neat.