At 14-15 years old, I dreamed of having a device I could hold in my hands that contained thousands of books I wanted to read. I have the Kindle app on my iPad, and a fair number of books (like 20-30, I think - not thousands by any stretch), but I love the feel of having an actual book in my hands. I've got three bookcases packed with books, plus three others that have a combination of books/DVD/CD box sets. I have four Can-Am cabinets with 12 total drawers for CDs. Those won't be totally full for a couple more years.
I have the vast majority of my CDs ripped, but to MP3, so the originals aren't going anywhere. If storage space wasn't a consideration, I'd have ripped them losslessly, but an iPod only holds so much. My 80G iPod Classic is pretty much full - and it's showing its age. I have a 128G Touch that is getting full, and a couple years ago, I bought a second to replace my classic, but since it's kept running, I haven't done that yet. Years ago, I started out with a Creative Zen player - it had a whopping 20G and was my favorite for a long time (and it was far more durable than the stack of Walkman-type cassette players I burned through). My wife would ask why I needed to have so much music available. It was simple - if something got stuck in my head, I could listen to it instantly. The Zen software was more flexible than the iPad, but the storage space was lacking.
At home, I rarely listen off the iPods - usually in the shower or I'll sometimes pipe stuff through a Bluetooth speaker, especially podcasts. But my preference is to crank it through my stereo.
Much to my wife's dismay, my hard copies aren't going anywhere.
