Columbia House filed for bankruptcy today

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LOL, man they had good deals

I like the scene in Social Network when Sean Parker's character says "Wanna buy a tower records Edjuardo?"
 

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Yeah they had a good business plan. You get like 5 CDs free then gotta buy 3 more.

Then the internet cameout with a better, more competitive business plan

It was called "free"
 

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I still go to the pawn shops and buy CDs for $1. Rip them into lossless format then sell them back to the pawn shop for .50.

So it only cost me .50 to get a superior MP3 cut of an entire album.

I tunes and most of the other downloading services don't offer nearly the same quality that I can get ripping it myself.

I also have 8 160GB IPod classics fully loaded and another custom made 320G iPod classic.

Got well over 2 terabytes of music combined all in lossless format.

Thats not as much music as it sounds because that format takes up a ton of space
 

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I've also gone to the library and borrowed some CD.

Ive bought bulk lots on EBay of 500 to 1000 cd collections rip them then sell them back on EBay usually for more then I paid.

All kinds of ways to get almost free music
 

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Is there a market for that? What do you charge per CD?

Pawn Shops about a dollar each depending on the pawn shop.

Ebay the the most expensive part is the shipping.

You always have people on eBay selling their entire cd collection for pennies each.

I won't mess with it unless it's at least 500 CDs.
Ive bought as many as 2700 at once.

But the eBay thing is not very viable at this point because I'm to the point now to where if I buy a 1000 cd lot I will probably already have 700 of them on a drive so it don't make much sense for me to do it that way anymore.

I never keep any CD.

I sell them as soon as I'm done ripping them.

So basically I pay .50 to get a superior CD quality lossless cut vs paying iTunes 10 or more for a lower quality cut.
 

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And the sad thing is I've spent all that time burning the perfect collection of music in its highest quality possible but at the end of the day more then 50% of my music listening is from stream due to convince.


Cant really use my phone because that quality of copy would burn right through a 128gb hard drive with just a few dozen albums .

So yea I admit it was a big waste of time
 

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Unless your listening via an amp and pricey headphones, it all sounds the same.

+1 for a good way to compile a cheap ultimate collection of music though.
 

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Yea I got all that. Seinhieser HD800s
DAC
And BlueHawaii Amp

Thats basically the only time I utilize the collection I have is when I run it through that system.
 

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I loved Columbia House when I was a kid.

Yeah me too. I remember intensely difficult decisions having to decide which 5 to get free then the total exhilaration of when the package would arrive.

Back around the same time if I wanted to take a picture of something I had to put a roll of film in a camera, wind a tiny little wheel so the film got set within the camera properly then when I finally took as many pictures as the roll was for (18, 35....) I had to literally leave the house, venture out into the world, GO to a place where I'd leave the film roll and it'd take them a week to make pictures from the film roll and they'd charge me, like, $3.77 or some such thing.

Nothing compared to what Wilbur recalls, I know, having to carve on stone with a sharp rock if he wanted to make a picture of a thing but nonetheless weird to think back on how completely different Life was.
 

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I've also gone to the library and borrowed some CD.

Ive bought bulk lots on EBay of 500 to 1000 cd collections rip them then sell them back on EBay usually for more then I paid.

All kinds of ways to get almost free music


I do that too. Also with DVDs (redbox)
 

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No I don't sell them. I just have a good 400 + movies on a hard drive
 

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It sounds like buying them on Ebay, ripping them and then pawning them, could be a good plan.
 

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Ive bought bulk lots on EBay of 500 to 1000 cd collections rip them then sell them back on EBay usually for more then I paid.

I used to do the same thing on eBay but with Software & Printer Cartridges (HP in particular). FULL TIME I mean, like, many hours not just casual stuff. With the HP Cartridges it was very common that a seller would list without Model (or "Part") # I could tell what it was from the boxes so I'd bid and win the auctions at absurdly low prices then put my own ad up Buy It Now for what I knew they sold for on a regular basis and after having told the seller of that initial auction "Wait to ship while I determine which of my offices needs these the most" lol, faking like I was some MultiNational Conglomerate, I'd have that initial auction seller ship straight to my buyer and never even touch the things.

Most normally I'd take shipment though then ship out again...only when I could be totally sure they was Brand New In Sealed and undamaged Boxes, hadn't been exposed to intense heat....would I do the No Touch Flip.

Sage Software Accounting, 5 User Box within a year I'd flip about 12 of those for profit of around $185 each time, just on relisting and selling that software alone plus there was a $300 Rebate on the software through Sage so it was criminal how much I'd make on ads put up by sellers who did not specify they had 5 User Box as opposed to Single User....only thing that differentiated was a small red sticker on front of box.

The HP Printer Carts were more amazing though, easy money, like an easy reliable Harvest...my Buy It Now ads wouldn't last 24 hours usually. The Sage 5 User Flip, $140 to as much as $250 profit on the initial resale + the $300 Rebate (when it could be gotten, one had to battle the Rebate House for it....at times) was more like Lightning Striking.....averaged only about 1 per month of those.

My Biggest CD Purchase on eBay was 20 or so Bootleg Live Recordings....Hendrix, Dylan, UFO at Long Beach....Pink Floyd show at Montreal when Roger halted Comfortably Numb to cuss out the asshole lighting Firecrackers...

I enjoyed reading of what was a very very clever and impressive path taken CHOP by a music connoisseur to creating an AudioPhiles Dream collection of Lossless music.....may have not been a waste of time....strange stuff happens on this planet.

To me it wasn't a waste of time regardless cuz you love music as do many others and you managed to create an amazing archive of very high quality that.
 

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Great thing about Columbia House back in the Seventies was getting the free albums and stiffing them. I ordered under different names at same address. As a previous post mentioned after you paid for your obligatory first monthly pick you got additional free albums. This was a great deal, I essentially got about 22 albums for the price of two. They would sent out threatening bills for a couple of years but nothing happened. They never reported it to a credit agency. Even if they did it's such a ridiculous debt that no one would look at if you applied for a car loan. Columbia House charged full MSRP for the monthly albums you were obligated to buy. Sam Goody was $7-$10 less. Albums were expensive in general. No matter how many times you stiffed Columbia House they would continue to send new subscriber mailers to your house. You would think they would remove your address from their mailing lists.
 

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