Three hundred? Wow. I'm afraid to ask how many CDs you have overall!

One of the issues, to me, is that different components have different sounds. My Pioneer BDP-09FD blu-ray player sounds absolutely beautiful; it uses Wolfson DACs. My MCD500 uses ESS Sabre DACs, and that's the difference; I'm not that big a fan of ESS chips, because I've found them to have a less rich sound in my setup. A tube swap would be to help the MCD500 with those bright CDs. The JJs mentioned earlier are already in house and I used them for over a year with pleasure, until the curiosity bug bit me and I started messing with other tubes. Another option is to turn down the treble just enough to remove some of the edge when playing trouble CDs.

Still, you have a point. This shouldn't be allowed to turn into a massive distraction. There are enough distractions in my life already.

Started puchasing CDs when they were providing "perfect sound" in '84. Since the turn of the century I probably haven't purchased more than 4 or 5 a year and almost all of them are SACDs. I have around 900 taking up space. Attempted to sell them (less the SACDs) as a lot recently. Zero interest from used media shops. Don't think I've purchased a CD/SACD in at least 3yr.

The shops don't sell many of the ones they have, perhaps. It's either vinyl or streaming now, maybe downloads. I bought my first CD in 1986, same year I bought my first CD player (a $180 JVC). I still have that CD, and it still serves as an audition/test disc. Tower Records was my friend, as was J&R Music World.

I'd also thought about trying the MC section of my C2300, which has regular JJ tubes, as opposed to the Hi-Performance gold ones I used before. My cart is a Grado Sonata 3 Timbre, and low output. Maybe the MC circuit compensates for the low output and will play at similar levels to the linestage. Using the MM section, I have to turn up the volume much more than when I used a legit MM cartridge there. If the volume is nice, then I'd swap the tubes in the MM and MC slots.

CDs are still pretty popular at the record shops I go to, I even pick up new ones from time to time, generally things like odd compilations of rare 45s and things like that. Even the new ones are pretty cheap, I got a bunch of R&B Christmas CDs last December.

If I had any Xmas CDs I would send them to you. ;)

I was wondering. It's supposedly beneficial to interconnects if you disconnect and reconnect them periodically, as a way of cleaning the connectors. Would that apply to tubes as well? Of course this tactic's a lot more trouble with tubes than with interconnects (depending upon the equipment's architecture), but I was curious. Does anyone here do that?