Talk:Caddy (hardware)

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For protection or for convenience?[edit]

"Although the idea behind this—a tougher plastic shell to protect the disc from damage—was sound, it did not gain wide acceptance among disc manufacturers. Consumers also eschewed the intended and pricey use, which required each disc to be protected with a caddy for its full useful life, preferring to only buy one caddy and transfer the discs between their traditional storage jewel cases and the caddy when in use, then the reverse when finished."

Was this really the intention – that it was designed to be a protective case in which a CD can be permanently stored without having to take it out of the case to use it, effectively turning CDs into an analogue of 3½" floppy disks? I had begun to think the whole point was to serve as a quicker/more convenient way of swapping discs than tray-loading or slot-loading drives.

I first came across CD caddies in the early 1990s. My family had some involvement with a local radio station, so we sometimes went to the studio, which had Denon caddy-loading CD players. From what I remember, the normal mode of operation was that CDs would be loaded into caddies ready to play when the time comes, and at the end of the programme they would be transferred back into their jewel cases (or whatever packaging they came in originally).

The idea that people would store each CD permanently in a caddy, thereby effectively more than doubling the price of a CD in some cases, seems ridiculous to me. So if this is indeed how the manufacturers intended them to be used, we need a source for this claim. — Smjg (talk) 11:46, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have no source but vividly remember caddies being primarily intended for protection, mostly of CD-ROMs. A few high-end audio players also used them, possibly because buyers were still unfamiliar with the robustness of digital storage. Some CD-ROMs could be quite expensive, so it made sense at the time – most early CD-ROM drives used caddies before more low-cost, consumer-oriented models took over. --Zac67 (talk) 13:22, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Zac67: Hmm. I'm made to wonder why it was thought that this protection was necessary. Jewel cases do an adequate job of protecting CDs when they're not in use, and CD drives surely do an adequate job of protecting them when they are in use. Thus the only real risk of damage is while transferring the disc from one to the other. But as long as you handle CDs responsibly, you're not likely to damage them in this process. That said, a case (no pun intended) could maybe be made for caddies benefitting young children and people with disabilities.

I'm made to wonder, of the consumers who used CD caddies in their heyday, how many in comparison:

possessed only one CD caddy, and transferred CDs to it to use them as and when
had a small supply of caddies, and would load a few CDs into them as and when so that they can swap them quickly
stored each CD permanently in a caddy

A further question is what people in third category tended to do with the original cases/inlays. Though with CD-ROM software that came in jewel cases inside bulky boxes, people not in this category would have probably stored away the bulky boxes and just kept the CD in its jewel case on a rack, so for those who are in this category it would be simple to leave the jewel case inside the box.

Furthermore, I'm made to wonder why the caddies were this expensive. It seems you can still buy them, and a quick web search gives GBP 16.99-22.99. They don't seem to be much different from the integral casings of 3½" floppies, and if my memory serves me correctly then you could buy a pack of 10 floppy disks for less than this.

Another question: Were CD caddies standardised, or did each make of caddy-loading CD drive/player have its own proprietary construction of these? — Smjg (talk) 18:38, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The extra protection was apparently deemed necessary, if only for marketing. Very much the same repeated with BD-R, if only shortly. Caddies were expensive because very few people bought them, rendering them counterproductive – fiddling with the caddies exposed CDs to a larger risk than using trays. I don't know if there were proprietary variants, but the caddies I've seen and used were all interchangeable, there's very likely a standard in one of the rainbow books or so. --Zac67 (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]