Culling Your Music Collection

[Mirror Image]

I'm not sure if this topic has been brought up before or given it's own thread, but I was talking with a friend earlier about possibly reducing my collection of CDs (incl. box sets). To those who have done this, what would you say is the best approach to take? For someone like myself, who enjoys a large collection I know it's not going to be an easy task, but I also know it has to be done in order to make room for incoming recordings and to get my collection down to a manageable size. I've really let it get out of hand and I shouldn't have let it get this far. For those who have a large collection, do you find this to be a difficult thing to have to do or should I reconsider? All suggestions/advice are welcomed and it'll be nice to hear from those who aren't hoarders.

[mc ukrneal]

I'm not sure if this topic has been brought up before or given it's own thread, but I was talking with a friend earlier about possibly reducing my collection of CDs (incl. box sets). To those who have done this, what would you say is the best approach to take? For someone like myself, who enjoys a large collection I know it's not going to be an easy task, but I also know it has to be done in order to make room for incoming recordings and to get my collection down to a manageable size. I've really let it get out of hand and I shouldn't have let it get this far. For those who have a large collection, do you find this to be a difficult thing to have to do or should I reconsider? All suggestions/advice are welcomed and it'll be nice to hear from those who aren't hoarders.

Is it that you don't want them or you need space? Because if it's a question of space, there are case slips and such that will take up much less space and take care of that problem. So that may be a consideration.

What to get rid of really depends on you and how you listen. For example, I know you sometimes like to compare versions, so if you get rid of some versions, will you be unhappy down the line that you can't compare it anymore? If you are only this way on a few pieces, then it's just a matter of getting rid of those you listen to less often or don't like (maybe the same).

You can do an experiment. Take some discs, put them in a box (shoe boxes are great) and stick them in a closet. If you don't take them out, you'll have your answer. it's a trial run of sorts. When I did this (mostly to make space on shelves), I discovered that there were some discs that I thought I just had to keep, but that I didn't even  listen to (and didn't miss at all).  Of course, your taste changes more quickly, and this is something to consider as well.

[Harry]

Or rent or buy a larger house as I did. Culling is nonsense, you bought them you liked them. Accept that it takes a lot of space. I did

[Jay F]

If you're not sure you don't want something, keep it. While Slatkin's Mahler, Norrington's Beethoven, and a conductor-no-longer-remembered's set of Tchaikovsky symphonies turned out to be music I neither listened to nor missed, I should not have gotten rid of Herreweghe's first St. Matthew Passion, Ostman's Mozart operas, or Lenny B's DG Mahler (I ended up re-buying them all). My big cull happened when I moved to a new city in the 1990s. Long story short, I got rid of too much stuff. I put too much of the obsessive energy I usually devoted to acquiring into divesting myself of stuff.

I like mc ukrneal's idea of testing your wants and needs by boxing your discs up for a while.

[aligreto]

I have only done this to a very small extent. My CD collection is relatively modest, between 2500 and 3000, and storage space is not quite at critical levels yet. Whenever I do decide to have another go I usually end up finding myself very reluctant to part with the cull choices that I have made and they usually end up back on the shelf. Where I have had some limited success is in the area of duplicates. By this I mean that say if I have the same work and performances duplicated on a second CD but coupled with other works, I then examine these other works in order to see if these other works, and thereby a second CD, are worth keeping.

I have culled my book collection in the past and I have regretted it. Perhaps this is why I am so reluctant to do it with my music.

[Wakefield]

Or rent or buy a larger house as I did. Culling is nonsense, you bought them you liked them. Accept that it takes a lot of space. I did

Well summarized, Harry. You're in or out. No room here for timid melomaniacs. 

[Harry]

Well summarized, Harry. You're in or out. No room here for timid melomaniacs. 

I have about 22.000 cd's I want to keep, culling would take me 10 years or more, and no one wants them anyways.
I parted with duplicates and opera, and all kind of other crap that I inherited that was not for me, that must have been around 12.000 cd's. All gone to libraries, friends all over the world, etc...
These days I would not do that anymore, postage tripled in the Netherlands.

[Turner]

With time, I think I´ve learned to discern between interesting performances and not-so-interesting ones. At least concerning my own taste, that is.
The main reason for culling anything in my collection is that better versions of the music are easily found in it.

In a few cases also, because the music itself just isn´t worth keeping - normally it´s by obscure composers without much to say (like Zbinden´s modest piano works, for example).

[Mirror Image]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I'll definitely consider what all of you guys have written.

[Mirror Image]

...by boxing your discs up for a while.

This is easier said than done for me. I have thousands of CDs. Not an easy task to do something like this.

[Jay F]

This is easier said than done for me. I have thousands of CDs. Not an easy task to do something like this.

Do you at least have everything on shelves in alphabetical (or whatever categorical pattern suits you) order?

[Jo498]

There are several aspects to it. As someone already said, there are options for reduction of space without getting rid of discs. If one wants to cull discs one has to consider that to make any impact in a large collection one would have to get rid of quite a few. If you have 5000 discs and get rid of 100 this is only 2% and will not considerable reduce space. And the used market is usually a buyer's market so do not expect to get any recompensation beyond a buck or two for a disc (with a few exceptions but many others will be worth amost nothing).

I have sold or given away several 100 discs in the last ca. 15 years. But the majority were real dublettes when I had bought a box or newer issue of recordings I already owned. (As I wrote elsewhere I owned probably 20-30 discs from the big Rubinstein box, some of them I had already owned in another earlier issue in the 1990s, then got the newer one for different couplings or hoping for improved sound around 2000, then got the big box...)
Others were cases when I decided that I did not need so many recordings of the same music or was otherwise not so happy with them (e.g. I got rid of an earlier issue of C. Kleiber's Das Lied von der Erde, before the somewhat official disc appeared because I could not stand the sound). If it is a case of getting rid of alternative versions I usually think that I should listen to all of the candidates for culling which takes a lot of time and might end with me keeping them anyway.

But the rate at which I do this is very slow, we are talking about maybe 20 discs a year, except in special circumstances. (When I last moved 3 years ago I sold about 200 before the move). And they will often sit for years in their box before I find an opportunity to trade/sell/gift them away.

There is very little I got rid of and bought again. Right now I can think of one disc with organ music I sold at a time I did not really care for the sound of the organ and re-bought last winter when I got more interested in Bach's organ music.

[Jay F]

I have sold or given away several 100 discs in the last ca. 15 years. But the majority were real dublettes when I had bought a box or newer issue of recordings I already owned.

I have found overall, i.e., in all types of music, that remasters don't always sound better than the original CD. Perahia's Mozart PCs come to mind. I only bought one of the remasters, but I realized immediately that for me, it was not an improvement. And I've discovered that lots of Amazon reviewers agree with me.

[Parsifal]

In my case, culling has mostly led to regret.

My current project is to copy CDs to computer (FLAC files with cue sheets) then store the CDs themselves in a more compact form. I throw away the jewel cases and only keep the CD and booklet. I just put the CD or CDs between pages of the booklet and stack them in small plastic boxes. They're only there as an ultimate backup. The CD tracks themselves (and scans of the booklets) are stored on hard disks, on internal two external so there are three independent copies.

[Amore di Viola]

Last time I moved I gave away almost all my LPs. I regret a few of them but not more than I can live with it. I have never significantly culled my CD collection, as I have used paper slips, small boxes and strict sorting for many years, so my experience comes from my books. I must have given away a couple thousand, in several batches. I have to wait for the right mood, it cannot be forced. Then, when in doubt about a given book, I ask myself the probability that I will read or reread it, given the alternatives on the shelf AND given the fact that with luck, I probably have around 10.000 days left to think. Cynical, but efficient. Keeps my collection down to around 25 shelf meters. Of all the books I have given away, I regret only a handful. I guess I could easily remove 30% of my CDs the same way in the first batch.
I do not try to sell, it's sunk cost.
Afterwards, it's actually a good feeling, because when one continuously removes the least interesting, the average quality increases and the gems are more visible.
But it hurts the first time!!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I must have a pretty good sense as to what CDs I'll never listen to again, since I've gotten rid of a couple hundred of them, and only regretted or re-purchased a handful.

If I'm not entirely sure I want to get rid of something, I give it one last listen, and decide based on that.

I usually take culled CDs to this place:

https://www.reckless.com/

and either trade them in for new ones, or get cash.

Afterwards, it's actually a good feeling, because when one continuously removes the least interesting, the average quality increases and the gems are more visible.

Yes, that's a nice aspect of it. I view collecting as an ongoing process of experimentation and improvement.

[Jo498]

I have found overall, i.e., in all types of music, that remasters don't always sound better than the original CD.

I more or less stopped buying newer remasterings for this reason. I got a few where the improvement was fairly obvious, often with rather early (mid/late 80s) CDs of older recordings. One example is the Callas/de Sabata Tosca. For others, e.g. the Furtwängler Schumann 4th and Haydn 88 I did A-B on decent equipment and there were slight differences but I could not decide which one sounded *better*.
But there are still several boxes I got where I had older singles to get rid of. (But buy now I tend to not buy boxes if I already have most of the stuff I want...)
I see my collection partly as a "library", so I don't care if there is some stuff I listen to only once or never. But I have certainly cut back on new recordings of the same material (usually standard rep). Of course there are some cases when I yield to temptation. And there are also fields I hardly cared about until recently where I could buy 100s of discs (but I will not).

[Ken B]

This is easier said than done for me. I have thousands of CDs. Not an easy task to do something like this.

Yeah. Mookalafalas did that. I think I probably should. I sold three feet of discs recently to make space. But its a lot of time and work. But it would save a lot of space, and weight when I eventually move.

Do you know of any good storage cases? They need to store a large number of discs to be useful, I am thinking 500 a case or something of that magnitude.

ADDED I cull all the time, always have. Some of us picked wives we liked but culled, so Harry's argument does not persuade me 

[mc ukrneal]

Yeah. Mookalafalas did that. I think I probably should. I sold three feet of discs recently to make space. But its a lot of time and work. But it would save a lot of space, and weight when I eventually move.

Do you know of any good storage cases? They need to store a large number of discs to be useful, I am thinking 500 a case or something of that magnitude.

ADDED I cull all the time, always have. Some of us picked wives we liked but culled, so Harry's argument does not persuade me 

Does using the word 'cull' for both lead to an automatic disqualification? I'm thinking so.... 

[Jo498]

I have no desire to cull my music collection at this point, but then I only have little over a hundred CDs and a dozen vinyls 

Expand I say!!! 

I agree. Expand until the # of discs reaches around 1000. Then go more slowly or start culling, because it starts getting unwieldy. (I remember when I first moved out of my parents' house at 19 my collection fitted in two shoeboxes, or maybe three, not completely sure, I might have left some discs in the room I still had at their place.)