Like I said, the digipacks are surely the best piece of eye candy, but if that's your thing then why not opt for the vinyl option

High-fives and hugs all around! 

So many digipaks on my shelf right below my desk .

I've been thinking about buying a new turntable actually - mostly because I miss not being able to digitalize my vinyls. For that I have to go see my friend who lives at the other end of the country. Cds are of course great in that respect........BUT and that's a big derrière, once you've sat with this cover art in full LP size

it's hard going back to the teeny tiny cd

I bet that sticker has saved a lot of air inspector arse...

Yes, yes, and YES to getting damaged discs in the mail/sacrificing integrity upon opening .

Could've been Walter with all his 'post 89 music is rubbish'.

Anyway if you have to slice any prog album, then it's probably fair it winds up being the Flower Kings *yikes*

We, the opposite sex, are prone to demolish everything we come in contact with - even the stuff we love and try our best to safeguard.

Everything from my shoes to my shirts to music and bicycles, furniture, the actual room I reside in - everything looked and still looks, much much worse and beat down than my sister's version of the same.

I have never seen anything substantial to contradict this thesis.

The longer "they" talk about jewel cases, the more I want a turntable, too .. even though I already have 3 of them :) Turntables are theraupeutic. 

Yes indeed. I used to have an older model (was my parents', thing was a gem of a player), but have since been out of luck. I'd like to get something decently affordable without sacrificing quality too much. After all, that's kind of the point with vinyl, is it not? 

All of this talk about jewel cases/digipaks has me wanting to review my collection .

Oh stop it you evil man! You're drowning me in lotion and old men with butter crushes.

I was actually visiting an old friend of mine, who I found out had turned into quite the Flower Kings fan. We obviously started busting caps in our respective arses, when we found out - bang bang and all that jazz!!!! 

Nahh we tend to focus on the stuff we have in common instead (while viciously attacking each other's poor tastes in music. He tends to swing for my love of Krautrock - a type of music he loathes about as much as I do the Flower Kings)

My turn: 

Heston Blumenthal!?!?!!!?  

Nah it's me attending a barbecue with some student friends of mine. Our 'team' had the colour purple and needed to decorate every team member with this fabulous colour. I had a female friend do a top for me - something she thought up all by herself. She promised she'd make me a costume - I promised to wear it (regardless of the outcome).

Don't get me wrong. I try my very best not to f*ck up my stuff - especially the stuff that really means something to me. I don't go out of my way to be destructive (unless I'm attending a metal gig), it just often winds up that way. I throw a party and start doing DJ things - 'Hey you guys!! I know we've been dancing to Michael J for the last hour, but you gotta check out some Van Der Graaf Generator' - or maybe I'm at a party in the woods, and someone somewhere suddenly decides to start dancing on the bonfire and seconds later, I'm that guy and it's bye bye to the new Converse I bought earlier the same day. I have stories about every facet of my life like that. The only things I've ever been successful in protecting, are probably the kids I throw around in my work (hoho - let's wait a few years and see how many that wind up in the mad house).

Jewel cases do not age well. Somehow the hinges and the teeth on the hub that holds the CD break off for no apparent reason. Besides, they take a lot of space without adding significant cultural value (unlike LP jackets, which often have great art on them, legible booklet/poster inserts etc). 

Maybe it's the due then? I've never been compared to Heston

Anyway, do I still look like him now?

Yes. I am purposely messin with ya

Also with the newest one, I wanted to reflect the ease in which I mingle with people on toilets.

I would love it if we could get cds in vinyl size - or maybe just a normal cd and then a big shell. Either way, it should then preferably be wrapped in all kinds of plastic and thus be saved from the terrors of men and their destructive powers. Sorta like jewel casings meet vinyl. Oh yeah...then I'd be a happy bunny!

Because Jewel cases can be taken to pieces they can easily be repaired, but they break too easily and in any other product that would be wholly unacceptable. We tolerate it because the industry hasn't bothered to produce a better solution. We really shouldn't have to put up with brand new CDs being delivered with broken centre-splines and busted hinges. And whoever invented the double-pack needs a firm kick up the arse.

Digipaks are not a better solution and vary considerably in quality, those that are not coated get dog-eared very quickly and those that are soon lose their "mint" appearance. They also (can't think of the right word here...) skew when stood on end such that you can't stand an old Digipak on end without it falling over. I know that isn't a major requirement of a CD package and we don't pass the time by standing CDs on edge, but it's irritating when you remove one CD from the rack and the one next to it falls over. At least the double Digipak is an improvement on the double jewel case, so we can be thankful for that I guess.

So what else have we?

The mini-LP format - is crap, the spine is unreadable when stored and they dog-ear just as badly as a Digipak and without a protective sheath/sleeve for the disc they scratch the disc surface and that's just dumb.

The book format, this is like the double Digipak but has "pockets" to slide the disc into - is also crap. Anything where you have to slide the disc surface across card surface is just stupid product design. I've even had one where the pocket has delaminated leaving the CD glued between the two sheets of card that once formed the pocket, and that's dumb.

Non-standard size/shape: This annoys me more than anything else because they don't fit in a standard CD tower and I have to make a special tall shelf for them to stand on - it doesn't take long for me to really dislike the arrogance of a package that demands its own special shelf. 

The case for the prosecution would like to present, Exhibit "A"

 

Yup... that's a mild-steel plate with a scrap PCB bolted to it, there is no protection for the CD at all.

And this is how nicely it fits into my CD tower:

(yeah, there is no logic to my filing system either)

My storage looks very similar, TBH. +1 for the PCB .

Nothing, I repeat NOTHING, is more aggravating to me than opening a brand new jewel case and finding a broken center spline/plastic bits floating around inside. It's happened more times than I care to count, both from the store and in the mail.

Looks like mine.

Cool to see Can and Cradle Of Filth together. Just a casual look at my cd stack reveals Wu Tang Clan and Janis Joplin mingling with each other.

Oh yes, that's pretty cool. Anyway, if I go for something vinyl sized, I may as well go for the LP

Brilliant album btw. Love Jose Cid's prog albums. If you dig that one, then you should definitely check out:

I've found jewel cases far too easy to break. I've frayed the edges of digipaks a bit, but I've never broken one per se.

You do, you really do!

What's the budget??

The mini LP is a CD in a card slip-case that is a miniature replica of a full-size LP cover.

Oh no, they're much better than that. They are perfect replicas of the full size album but in miniature and are very collectable.

Although we should note that there are digipacks in which the disc holder is also a plastic piece with a center spline glued to the cardboard, so in these the disc does not touch any surface either so they are better in this respect that those in which the disc surface rests touching paper.

Well by now you will have read the final sentence   Yes I believe most are actually like that (and the plastic disc holder is usually less brittle so the center spline is more durable), I will have to search but I believe that I have some where the disc is just slide into a pocket, all cardboard, no plastic holder. This is the "book format" mentioned by Dean in page 3.