What to do with a music CD collection?

How old are you? I'm only in my 50s but ripped and tossed all cd's in my late 40s. That was a waste of time because many of the CDs I ripped have since been re-released in better remasters.

I keep a digital collection of lossless files. I don't stream anything. I guess I should do that, however. I don't stream movies either. Just play my own digital files.

Keep the vinyl. Or sell it.

The CDs you could donate to a library or old folks home or something. MAYBE.

A lot of the music I listen to, classical, isn't available to download so I've been gradually converting the cds to .mp3 files and saving them to an external hard drive. Then I either save the cd or more often, through it out. I'm becoming much more minimal as I get older.

Me, also, OP. I DO need to weed it out before converting a spare bedroom into a music library, but even after I do so, my 40-odd years of collecting will still leave with literally several thousand recordings, I know, I know.

And I was about to ask about my record collection...

Everybody - if you have digital files - that's great. Please remember to take your external drive and dupe it completely, maybe every 6 months, and store the copy drive at another address. Fire, theft, and drive failure are real.

Check online before you throw out cds. Some are worth real money.

Gimme gimme gimme! I'm always looking to increase my collection, as long as it isn't 00s pop drivel or gay divas.

But in all honesty, sort through it and keep the good stuff. Rip the ones you're not as attached to if you are afraid of completely letting go. I have everything ripped to two external drives, with the actual CDs in a storage unit.

Rip everything to MP3. Then, only keep the CD’s that have impressive artwork/packaging and get rid of the rest at a garage sale or sell on eBay if you think you could get good money for certain ones.

NOT mp3s -- flac or nothing.

Throw it in the garbage or take it to the dump.

Be careful where you store your music-filled external hard drives. A friend I gave one to keep for storage lied and told me I hadn't given it to him when we broke up, and I know damned well I did.

I probably had 1200 CDs at one point. I was a classical music obsessive buyer. I'm now down to five cardboard boxes specifically made to hold CDs that hold 75 discs each. Like someone above, I mostly play my own song files now that I've put on my hard drive. I don't have a regular stereo hookup any longer. Because I have tinnitus, it makes sense for me to listen nearfield now. Moving things onto computers could not have happened at a better time.