Are CDs on the way out?

Flash21

I have been toying with the idea of a new CD player, but my need is not urgent and so I have been held back by concerns that it would be a bit of a waste of $$ because I forsee music going to hard-drive or other computer-based virtual media before too long. Obviously my 700+ CD collection will be useful for years to come, but my Denon is functioning perfectly and certainly doesn't need replacement (not that "need" has much to do with any of this ).

I know nothing about "lossless audio" programs or whatever...I can certainly see the attraction to removing transport-related issues from the equation. But the music industry still needs to come to grips with the whole copyright issue.

Thoughts on how imminent this transition might be?

cmy330go

I doubt CDs are going anywhere anytime soon, and I personally am not sold on downloading music. I prefer to spend virtually the same amount of money and have something tangible such as a CD or LP.

I had more to say but I think my dog is destroying something!:eek:

LATER!

shack

Yep...CDs are history...and those black vinyl things are too....

ESavinon

Yes, cd's are on the way out.
To prevent nostalgia and to regain some lost room, send your whole collection to me. I'll make sure to give them a loving home for their remaining lifetime.

Emlyn

I've purchased more CD's this year than any of the 23 years I've been buying them.

Flash21

Yeah, CDs are definitely the primary media right now, and I am not saying they will disappear soon - although I will admit to saying the same thing about vinyl when CDs came out, and that transitioned much more quickly than I thought it would. (Yes I know vinyl is not dead...but it does smell kinda funny)

Just pondering if dropping a grand on a new CDP is worth it in terms of format viability...

audiobliss

Flash21 wrote:

Just pondering if dropping a grand on a new CDP is worth it in terms of format viability...

If I had a grand for it...I'd spend it. While they may not be the medium of choice forever, I imagine they'll have a very strong presence for a good while yet to come.

bobman1235

Flash21 wrote:

I will admit to saying the same thing about vinyl when CDs came out

Vinyl was dead to the vast majority of the general public long before CDs came out. Not to most of the people on this forum, probably, but cassette tapes were the choice for years between the eras of vinyl and CDs.

shack

Flash21 wrote:

although I will admit to saying the same thing about vinyl when CDs came out, and that transitioned much more quickly than I thought it would. (Yes I know vinyl is not dead...but it does smell kinda funny)

If you think vinyl is anywhere close to being dead, you are misinformed. Here is an interesting article I read from a recent London business publication.

Back in the groove

May 14, 2006

Technology Editor Tony Glover reports how in the iPod age the record industry is going forward by returning to the days of vinyl

BESET by digital piracy and increasing customer reluctance to pay for CDs, the music industry is fighting back with its latest technology – black vinyl records.

Music labels and high street retailers are busy turning back the industry’s clock to a time not only before internet song downloads, but also before CDs or even audio cassettes. The irony is that the vinyl revolution is being led by teenage consumers who are prepared to stand in line for the latest 45 rpm single or 331/3rpm LP (long-playing record) in much the same way that their parents, or in some cases their grandparents, did.

According to Rob Campkin, the head of Music at Virgin Megastores, vinyl is now outselling CDs when it comes to the latest records.

“Up to 70% of sales of new releases are vinyl. The fans of popular new rock bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Raconteurs prefer vinyl to CD,” said Campkin. “When the Raconteurs’ latest single was released, 80% of high-street sales were for seven-inch vinyl and only 20% were for CDs.”

“We are not just talking about vinyl singles but also about albums – the format is just continuing to grow,” said HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo.

The trend is born out by figures from record industry body, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). According to the BPI’s findings, vinyl records are a technology that has come back from the brink of extinction to take the industry by storm. Between 2001 and 2005, annual sales of vinyl single in the UK rose sixfold to over 1m, accounting for 14.7% of all physical singles sales in 2005, up from 12.2% in 2004. The industry expects vinyl figures for the current year to be even more dramatic.

The vinyl revolution has caught many of the big music labels napping. It is the smaller independent labels who have been able to snap up successful new bands. This has left big players in the industry, such as EMI, scratching their heads and wondering why teenagers are embracing a technology the music industry had dismissed as outdated and obsolete before most of them were born.

Record labels like EMI are finding themselves losing the next generation of music stars to upstart labels like Domino Records, which handles hit bands Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, and Rough Trade, which handles The Strokes and rock music’s latest human disaster area, Pete Doherty.

According to Virgin’s Campkin, the smaller independents have one key advantage over the larger labels as far as the artists are concerned.

“The independent labels will release material on vinyl where the more established are more reluctant to do this,” said Campkin.

One reason for this situation is believed to be that the mainstream music industry has forsaken vinyl to the extent that there is now no big vinyl processing plant in the UK. This means that the discs must be pressed offshore and that a large number of new vinyl recordings are limited editions that quickly become collectors’ items. This type of operation, where limited pressings are carried out by factories in other countries, is better suited to the independent labels than to the more established players.

Virgin also reports a trend where fans will buy the CD when it is released and will wait weeks or months until the vinyl release before buying that as well. Some vinyl albums, such as the last White Stripes release, continue to sell consistently for months.

In addition to the new releases, retailers Virgin and HMV report a growing demand for classic pop records on vinyl from artists such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. Market research has shown that these new releases of older material are often being bought by younger customers, just as older “baby boomers” are increasingly augmenting their collections with LPs from modern artists such as the White Stripes.

“The original baby boomers, who are now in their fifties, are not only buying classic pop records by the Beatles or the Stones but are also adding new artists from the independent labels to their collections,’ said HMV’s Castaldo.

According to Virgin’s Campkin, one major reason for the renewed popularity of vinyl is its collectability, which operates on two levels. On one level, collectability means seeing the value of a 99 pence (E1.43, $1.73) single CD increases 50-fold in a single year.

“The first 7-inch single release from Arctic Monkeys, which came out a year ago, is now selling on eBay for £50-£60,” said Campkin.

He added that the second sort of collectability is the desire to own a record collection of one’s own.

“Vinyl is far more iconic in this respect,” said Campkin. “The record sleeve offers the consumer art work as well as information about the performers and song lyrics.”

Some well-known music figures believe that the industry did itself irreparable damage when it switched to CDs 20 years ago.

Roger Daltrey, lead singer of 1960s supergroup The Who, said in a recent interview: “The record labels sold everybody a white elephant with the CD. They pushed it over as being this wonderful musical formula that you can play forever that sounds better and is scratch proof. None of it was true; CDs do not sound as good as vinyl and they last for five minutes.”

Like other artists of his generation, Daltrey believes that pop music generally sounds better on vinyl as so much of it was originally developed to be played on the vinyl format rather than on digital equipment. Vinyl enthusiasts say that the bass and vocals on most songs cannot be accurately reproduced on a compressed digital format and that the music inevitably loses something by being reduced to what is essentially just a binary computer code.

Daltrey also believes that record sleeves are a key part of the attraction of vinyl.

“We threw away an art form that was so much more than the record,” said Daltrey. “The size of the cover was perfect for art work. Sometimes the covers were more important than the music. The more fingerprints you got on it, the more it was a part of you. With a CD, you start with a nice plastic box and end with a scratched plastic box; it has no character whatsoever.”

Campkin said: “I think the record sleeve is paramount. With a vinyl album you feel you have spent £10-£15 on something tangible that will last.”

Daltrey also believes that it was the switch to CDs that ultimately led to the music labels’ horrendous problems with digital music piracy.

“The problem with the CD is that if you can copy what is on it for nothing, as you now can, why would you want to buy it?”

Music retailers such as Virgin and HMV are also coming to the conclusion that consumers want a return to a more tangible format. They fear that the logical conclusion to the evolution of digital music is a world without high street music retailers where fans do everything over the internet and download all their music via a PC.

Virgin plans to opens a new 25,000 square-foot Virgin Megastore in Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre that it hopes will transform the way consumers perceive record stores. More space than ever will be dedicated to vinyl records and customers will have access to turntable and

listening booths in the same way that teenagers did in the 1950s and 1960s. The store will also offer “chill-out” areas with armchairs and sofas where customers can relax and listen to music.

Virgin plans to use the same formula in other stores in the hope that it will be able to persuade teenagers to see the megastores as social venues as much as music shops. The company hopes that the strategy will enable it to offer consumers enough added value to head off growing competition from cut-price supermarket CD offers and internet download services.

The music retailers do not believe that vinyl will ever entirely replace digital music formats. Instead, they predict that the same fans will often subscribe to both formats by downloading music for their MP3 players and PCs but will also wait for the vinyl release to add that to their permanent record collections.

Virgin believes that digital music downloads may not be as big a phenomenon as some the industry anticipates and will account for no more than 10% of the overall market by 2009 and that the appeal of vinyl will continue to grow to shoppers who want to take home something tangible and lasting.

Those industry players which do not become part of the vinyl revolution will see their market share decline as smaller nimbler players snap up the new artists and establish brand loyalty with an increasingly vinyl-hungry record buying public.

And then there is our own Madmax's recent thread on the subject...

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44626

It seems vinyl could use the old Mark Twain quote , "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

zombie boy 2000

bobman1235 wrote:

Vinyl was dead to the vast majority of the general public long before CDs came out. Not to most of the people on this forum, probably, but cassette tapes were the choice for years between the eras of vinyl and CDs.

That's funny you bring this up, as I was thinking about it last night...

Tapes were all I knew as a kid... not records, 8-tracks, or CD's. What strikes me is how small the window of time for tapes really was, yet it was through this medium that I was introduced to music. So in many ways, it remains the existing paradigm.

some more food for thought.... I have, and I suspect always will, refer to music stores as "record stores". To this day... and I'm still in my twenties.

danger boy

that's cool, but damn that's a long article.. i can't keep my attnetion focused in one place for that long.

we're all just analog people living in a digital world i guess.

zombie boy 2000

And one more thing...

many local bands only release on vinyl. It's considered "selling out" to do anything but. I remember when Man or Astro-man? crossed the line and released their albums on CD, they were considered sell-outs by a few hardcore fans....

interesting.

shack

danger boy wrote:

that's cool, but damn that's a long article.. i can't keep my attnetion focused in one place for that long.

we're all just analog people living in a digital world i guess.

Should I text it to you on your Blackberry?

audiobliss

Man, I thought commercials were long, but I had to stop reading that article when my show came back on! :eek:

shack

Besides, it's only 1,485 words (thanks to MS Word®).

audiobliss

...and about 1,460 more than I like to read at one time!

reeltrouble1

Yes, the Redbook CD will be replaced. Futurist's look for tendancies and then develop scenario's for worst, expected and best case.

The expected general audio case is for music servers to dominate in conjuction with some sort of mobile wi-fi. Vinyl and SACD or some form of it will niche market.

shack

You guys ever read books?

You know...those stacks of paper bound together...with words on them...books. Not digital as I recall.

reeltrouble1

Might I suggest The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz, Doubleday.

RT1

Shizelbs

IMO, CDs aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

reeltrouble1

I certainly think there will be players and CD's for quite a while albiet in a diminished role. The CD is becoming a bit of a **** child, of course the little boogers last forever and with what billions of them in circulation, yes, safe bet they will be around a long time.

RT1

Shizelbs

If anything, digital media (flash, hard-drive, whatever) will coexist happily with their physical, tangible sibling.

Midnite Mick

Not much of technically knowledgeable guy as this post will reveal, but it would awesome if they could come up with an analog recording that could be read by some form of non contact means such as a laser. Sign wave would be real rather than "filled in" and the medium would still sound clean, quiet, and maintain integrity over time.

Crazy I know.

Mike

Shizelbs

Midnite Mick wrote:

Not much of technically knowledgeable guy as this post will reveal, but it would awesome if they could come up with an analog recording that could be read by some form of non contact means such as a laser. Sign wave would be real rather than "filled in" and the medium would still sound clean, quiet, and maintain integrity over time.

Crazy I know.

Mike

It exists. Its expensive as hell, but there is a vinyl record player that uses several lasers to read the grooves. No needle needed.

www.elpj.com

audiobliss

I was going to mention that, but that device makes it digital, does it not?

dorokusai

F CD, 8 Track rulez.

dkg999

Doro - 8 trk does rule! I couldn't believe what a car restorer gave me for two Pioneer 8 track car units and a milk crate full of good condition 8 trk tapes I had setting in my shop! Woohoo!

dorokusai

They still make them, albeit not often and not many. Weird huh?

steveinaz

If you haven't heard an 8-track fade---change tracks in the middle of a song--you haven't really lived.

Midnite Mick

Shizelbs wrote:

It exists. Its expensive as hell, but there is a vinyl record player that uses several lasers to read the grooves. No needle needed.

www.elpj.com

Too bad it couldn't be done at a more reasonable price point. I suggest we start a thread to sign up for a group buy. Maybe we can get them for $14,500 each.:D

Mike

dorokusai

steveinaz wrote:

If you haven't heard an 8-track fade---change tracks in the middle of a song--you haven't really lived.

Hell yeah...rocking out to your favorite song of all time, ka-chunck...keep on rockin'.