I remember when I discovered Queen. Rainbow and Rush when I was about 10yrs old, good god was it an eye opener haha. My music standards changed extremely quick after that! I grew up with a great collection, one I have thankfully managed to acquire myself on cd.

I still prefer the discs as well. I've been an Itunes fan for single songs, but am starting to lean towards Amazon as they often give immediate downloads in addition to the disc. They also give unlimited cloud storage for anything bought from them. Either way, I often burn my own discs from digital downloads.

As I can't find much in local stores to house my content, I'm looking to specialty shops for custom builds. Its pricey, but the only way to get what I want.

Buy, rip, and box. And no, it isn't harming the future of music.

Anyway, you looking for storage-type shelves or for display-type shelves?

Nothing wrong with buying it and then putting it on your hard drive. At least you own the album itself.

Big shelf that I can hold at least 400. I was hoping for a big corner unit but up here in Scotland there does not seem to be such a thing any more. :(

Right, but are you looking to cram it in a corner in the closet, or have a pretty version that sits out where people can see it? That's what I meant with that question. Furniture-quality shelving will be a little tougher to find, unless you want one of those cheap plastic carousel-types.

Have most of you iTunes detractors not realized that there's no DRM anymore on the files? It's not "behind an iTunes account" or "tied to an account" at all. There is an account email embedded in the AAC files but is that a big deal, unless what you really want to do is upload it to a pirate site? Reencode it to MP3 if you want (or to audio CD).

If you want your kids to inherit your iTunes music, dump it on a hard drive they can get at. Or put it on a file server. That's it! It's no different from keeping the hard copies around in a shoebox for them.

I get that it's still compressed music, that's not my statement. (It's all compressed music though, even vinyl. Choose the compression method you find most musical.)

I just use sheeeeelves.

Don't you know, if you keep your CDs in drawers, there is a 1 out of 20 chance, every year, a monster will come of your closet and scratch all your CDs?

i just buy vinyl. /hipstercat

Doesnt IKEA uk offer a mail order service ?

http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/customer_service/shop_online/about_delivery.html

Yup, probably better than most. Do you?

Anyway, that's not the point of the thread, nor my comment.

For those who don't:
Compression in audio can mean two things:
1) Bit rate compression.
Here you have two kinds: losless ans lossy. Losless means there is no reduction in quality, but the amount of bit rate reduction is limited. Lossy means you're actually throwing information away. This will reduce quality, although on higher bit-rates this may not be noticeable for many. Actually a better name would be bit-rate reduction, but compression is widely used.

2) Dynamic compression:
Reducing the dynamics (the difference between the loudest and the softest parts) in audio.Dynamic compression can be done with a compressor (low ratio's, relatively slow attack and release times) and/or with a peak limiter (high ratio's, and fast). Modern audio often suffers from too much compression. When everything is loud, nothing is soft, and when nothing is soft, actually, nothing is loud.

Guys like Bob Katz and John Watkinson can tell a lot about either form of compression.

Anyway, back on topic:
I just got my cabinets for my 400+ CDs second hand.

I myself just use large CD books (that can carry anywhere from 100 -- 500 discs) for all my music/movie media, CDs and DVDs. And computer games. At least back when I bought physical copies of 'em. Discarding cases and boxes saves a lot of clutter. The only downside for me is re-sale value, especially with some of the old out-of-print games.

I have a lot of .mp3s and .wma files on my computer too. But I'm loathe to chuck a CD collection I spent so many years cultivating from a teen onward.

I usually keep my CDs in a zip-up container for road trips.

I usually prefer CDs over digitally distributed files since CDs have introduced me to songs that I otherwise would never have heard since they include songs rarely played on radio or at work.