Death of the CD? Your thoughts...

vc69

Emlyn wrote: »

Freebies from an artist's web site would be free whatever format they are in. From a site like HDtracks for a rock CD, an individual downloaded track is $1.49 in CD quality (high resolution to some) and $2.49 per track in 24/96 quality. There's not a whole lot available yet besides classical. Whole CD's aren't too much more expensive as downloads...$11.49 vs. $15.49. HDtracks is competing with sites that sell compressed tracks at $0.99. The price difference may close over time, but I doubt it. Where there's a consumer choice and a quality difference between the choices, a price differential will be in place.

I've never downloaded music myself and intend to keep buying CD's. But, the 24/96 downloads are appealing to me because they should provide the same quality as DVD-Audio for lower cost than when DVD-Audio discs first came out. They're still more expensive than CD quality audio though.

I see your point. I have checked out HDtracks before but sadly, not much there that I'm interested in right now. I too, intend to continue down the CD buying path. I have around 1,000 as of right now and I'm working on a nice little SACD collection. I will most definitely support any future format that offers a higher fidelity source (including downloads). Having said that, it's truly about the music for me, and I want that music in the best possible source format i can get. I am not going to be all hung up on a little disk if a better source is available.

mmadden28

xj4094dg wrote: »

My CD collection has grown dramatically since I've been able to preview so many different types of music without having to buy it all. When I find something I like, it goes into the physical collection. The overall quality (read music I personally like) of the collection is improved by the fact that I haven't purchased a lot of music I don't like. I'm enjoying more music now and therefore buying more. I think its way cool.

+1, That's about right for me too. When I find something I really like I buy the CD now (or SACD if avail). If not, I wasted no money. I really wish the Amazon previews were a bit longer or would at least preview better parts of the songs.

Shicks18

I don't know why everyone is commenting about the importance of 16 bit vs 24 bit, lossless, etc. Only a select few of the population (people at Club Polk and the alike) actually take heavy consideration about the sound quality of the recordings. If this was the case you would see everyone in a college campus walking around with a Walkman CD player instead of an Ipod.

On the contrary, the majority of commercial audio users care about the ease or transportation, methods of playing back the music, and accessibility. Digital downloads are a lot more organic than a physical CD, making it more attractive to the typical consumer.

However, I do not think the use and popularity of Audio CD's will go anywhere anytime soon. There are way too many 12 year old girls buying Jonas Brothers CD's just to look at their picture in the pamphlet provided in the CD Case. (somewhat facetious in those comments, but still truth to be had.) Likewise, there are many consumers that make up the lagging market in technology and will buy CD's the rest of their life for numerous different reasons.

In my opinion there are not really any major positives or negatives when comparing each format with one another, which is why they will continue to be endorsed.

kevhed72

Erik Tracy wrote: »

Not disagreeing - I still buy and use CDs - I have a 'collection'...I still have a Beta tape collection and a decrepid snowy Beta player - some day CD owners will be faced with obsolescence.

Maybe not now, but ANY media is doomed to obsolescence because of the pace of technology.

I agree...I still have a Super-VHS player and a bunch of tapes. I also have a Blue-Ray player and own a bunch of Blue Rays. The other day I ordered a Roku box for Netflix and found myself asking "Why did I buy this BD player less than a year ago?" As far as music goes, I would rather own an LP or CD. The whole downloading music process doesn't appeal to me and I think it has 'influenced' alot of artists to making single hits vs. a complete album.

AGUERRA

its been so long since ive bought a cd that i cant even remember what cd it was:eek: thats how long its been

Monster Jam

I will only buy digital copies when physical media is unavailable.

I will buy CDs every time over digital given a choice.

treitz3

There will be no death of the CD.

That is, until another medium comes along that can give us the jacket and record-ability of some sort. The masses demand it.

POIDOG

Norm Apter wrote: »

Well, its disturbing to me. After I placed them on the CD rack yesterday and plopped them out of their cases, I realized how much I like this format. I like walking over to the CD rack and perusing it and the process of removing any given CD from its case and placing it in the CD tray. Not to mention, the sound of CDs on a good system still sounds so much better to me than digital format.

I think I feel the pain. My issue, I miss going to the brick & mortar stores & perusing all the CDs and exploring for hours new styles. This was a holdover from my "LP" days when we would rush to "Licorce Pizza" and for $10 USD we had 3 new LPs for the weekend.

We made special trips to LA to purchase our LP plastic protectors. Going Green, only Kermit. We liked our plastic thick mil please. It was easy to accept CDs.They looked, handled & stored easily. We bought the Kool aid about the improvement in sound.

To the point, today , I love my media servers. Storage is way cool and with the right bits & equipment the sound can be very good. But... I miss the social interaction of exploring Tower for new sounds. I think maybe :eek: time is moving forward & I can't stop it :cool: But the love of new music & equipment to reproduce, doesn't seem to care about time. I'm just saying

Krazyz1

OK. Vinyl is making a come back . Where do cassettes stand. All MAJOR and Hi-End manufactures still offer them. Out side your home where you gonna play them. Magnetic media SUCKS any how. Theyre like tires on your car. Eventually all wore out. IS reel to reel the next big come back after vinyl? Vinyl ok but even NEW to me always sound slightly used from the get go. I'm sold on the clarity and sterileness of CD's

Danny Tse

Krazyz1 wrote: »

Where do cassettes stand.

Blank cassette is actually on the rise this year, according to TDK.

You know that Cheap Trick just released its most recent album on 8-Track, right?

Many recent cars still has cassette players....like my 2005 Toyota Highlander, with its stock stereo system. I still have tons of pre-recorded cassettes that may never see a CD release.

reeltrouble1

You can Record a Record or Record a Record.

In the end you have a record.

RT1

madmax

I gave up on CD's long ago. Luckily more and more new stuff is available on vinyl.

F1nut

I gave up on vinyl a very long time ago. Thank God I did because I've never enjoyed my music more than I do now.

madmax

CD's were just a bad phase in life we were all required to suffer through.

Graboid

I haven't even had a turntable for nearly 20 years. Don't want one. Very happy with CDs in general. If vinyl accounts for more than 1 or 2 of a percent of all music currently being purchased I would be surprised. It is a very small niche. I don't think the CD is danger of passing away anytime soon, thanks in part to the monsterous success of the Beatles re-issues. If and when music is only available as digital download I will no longer be buying music. End of story.

venomclan

madmax wrote: »

CD's were just a bad phase in life we were all required to suffer through.

Still a good medium.

Vinyl = A lot of work for a lot of enjoyment (minus the ticks/pops)

CD= Little work for 90-95% of the enjoyment.
MP3= No work for 50% enjoyment.

Server with CD or better quality files= No work for 95% enjoyment. Ding, Ding, Ding.

Ducking

reeltrouble1

you see with vinyl you take a long rod with a sensitive tip and place it into a curved groove which moves continuously around it until the tip reaches its end, accordingly, vinyl is naturally orgasmic.

now with a cd you get to take a light and focus it on a surface filled with bumps, still nice, but third base at best....

RT1

everpress

I love vinyl. Whenever I buy something on vinyl, I record a huge FLAC file of each song, save it to CD and toss the CD in a stack. I take the FLAC fiel, convert it to a high-level MP3 and throw it in my iTunes library, which runs through a digital-out to my HT receiver.

So my vinyl only comes out when I want a "good listen" and I still have a decent quality digital file of all of it when I want a "background music" listen or a "I'm too busy drinking this beer to change the record" listen.

benr

The Death of the CD...

Just the trailing edge of a far larger problem with modern media devices, where it's not how good it sounds, but rather how much of it you can carry with you at any given moment.

If the buying public cared about the quality of their music we'd see portable SACD & MiniDVD-A devices instead of a wash of flash media based devices.

As it stands, the future for people who want the pride of owning a physical object will still be able to go down to their favorite A/V retailer and make a purchase, except that all you'll get will be an envelope with the album liner and a code to redeem your songs from a website.

Danny Tse

Don't forget that CD were developed more than 30 years ago (CD just turned 27 years old on October 1st) and the technologies available at that time are a lot different than what's available today. Sure, there're a lot of bad-sounding CDs out there but that can also be said of whatever format one can come up with. However, given enough care about the production and mastering, the CD format can sound excellent....almost enough to give up on hi-rez formats like SACD.

reeltrouble1

Danny Tse wrote: »

the CD format can sound excellent....almost enough to give up on hi-rez formats like SACD.

Do Not Blaspheme, go say seven Hail Mary's and two Our Fathers.

RT1

steveinaz

IMO, Redbook is an extremely capable standard. I have heard too many very well recorded 16bit CD's that were every inch as involving as vinyl. The problem lies in the mastering/engineering. But good luck getting those standards raised.

Very few of us are passionate about the quality of music anymore, now it's all about the quantity.

reeltrouble1

yea, like these compressed music guys are going to go jogging for two straight years and heaven forbid you might hear a song twice.......................

remember the closer to the bone the sweeter meat.

I certainly do have some cd's that have excellent sonics and do it for me everytime, besides the source players for redbook are getting better every year, well I have large collection of SACD, CD and Vinyl, more than I could ever listen to in a year or two for sure, so I pretty much set.

I still think the Labels would rather have us not own any physical media except maybe vinyl, but I do not sit in their boardrooms. I see some hope for digital music servers if firewire gets adopted for home markets or if they ever get usb upgraded but I still want the hard media on the shelf.

RT1

comfortablycurt

I reiterate...

comfortablycurt wrote: »

CD's won't be leaving my house anytime soon.

Like Norm said, half of the reason is the actual experience of collecting CD's, and selecting one to listen to.

A bunch of files on a hard drive IS NOT a collection. It's a data file. When you have hundreds of CD's displayed on a shelf...it's a collection. You actually look through them...selecting the right one, you pop the CD in, maybe thumb through the booklets and look at the artwork, read the lyrics etc...

Selecting a file on an ipod isn't quite the same, and never will be.

When friends come over you can say "hey, check it out, I just got this new CD". They say, "cool, let me check it out man". So you pop in the CD, and hand them the case for them to look out.

Now on the other side of the fence...

"Hey, I just downloaded a new album". "Cool, let me check it out". You then select the file, and that's the end of it. Nothing to look at...nothing to hold...nothing to collect.


Just my $.02

Still just my $.02

BlueFox

comfortablycurt wrote: »

I reiterate...




Still just my $.02

So, this is how one gets over 4000 posts in 1 year. Clever. :rolleyes:

vc69

^^^^^

LOL

comfortablycurt

BlueFox wrote: »

So, this is how one gets over 4000 posts in 1 year. Clever. :rolleyes:

Now you know the secret to my success.


See how I managed to get two posts out of that one?;)

sucks2beme

I read a little story in an old Stereophile that goes like this:
A couple of guys were demoing a new tape system back in the early
70's for Disney execs. The tape held a movie, and it would erase itsself
as it was played. You'd then take it back and for a fee they'd record
another movie for you to play back. The exec's response:
"But other people could watch the movie at the same time"

That same mindset exists in the recording industry today.
DRM is #1 priority to them, over content and quality.
They want control. If they thought they could get away
with making you pay every time you played a song, they would do
it in a heartbeat. And that day could be coming faster than you think.

danger boy

Lets hope that CD's are not on their way out any time soon. I just got a new to me CD player

The format is cheap to produce and it's rugged for the most part. Easy to replace should the disc get damaged and can make back ups easily.

I would though really embrace Blu ray audio to replace the CD format. I think that has a lot of potential to really improve the sound quality of CD's. move it to another new format.

I have a feeling though.. that Blu Ray music has the potential to go the way of DVD-Audio and for the most part SACD. never catching on with the general population. Sad.

Digital downloading of music will never satisfy me... there are seveal formats for Mp3's out there.. if they standerized the format, maybe I would think more highly of it. The quality is all over the place.. and we all know why. it's compressed to download fast no matter what download speed you are connected at.

If CD's were gone..and I had to move to download only music... I would hate that. So much has to happen for me to be happy with that.

Plus I'm not organized enough to manage 1000's of computer files.. only to have my hard drive crash and lose $1000's of dollars when it crashes.

danger boy

Plus... as we've found out with the Beatles remastered discs.. CD's can sound amazing... pushing the limits of CD's to sound better should be the next move for the CD.