The end of CD?

I don't think there is demand. It wouldn't convert downloaders and history shows that most people are happy with CD quality.
 
But download quality isn't all it's made out to be as I was watching the gadget show a while back and they compared download services and they had a audio/music type guy testing with them and he said that the quality varied between the services
 
Knowing the Gadget show they would have compared a downloaded mp3 with a jar of marmalade or something equally stupid :laugh:

I do only buy music from download sources as a last resort though, but as stated elsewhere, a lot of the youngsters just don't care as they've grown up listening to absolutely shocking sound quality (and music!) on Radio 1.
 
Ok, but why not use the blu tech to create new audio format that allows less compressed audio, it's not like they have to start from svratch the blueprints here and getting cheaper, asda have a blu ray for £40
The problem is that there aren't any 'BLu- ray-Audio' players nor is there any in the pipeline. I've been reading comments by those who bought the PF Blu ray discs and generally they prefer the SACD for audio content. It's not as simple as 'we'll use that format for audio' as the needs of Audio and Video content are very different.

You could say that as long s it's 'good' who cares? Trouble is, is if you do that you've defeated the whole point - which is what the manufacturers would argue. The average punter, as Download figure show, as even those who but CD and then rip it to whatever shows, just isn't interested enough for them to bother produce mass market blu ray audio players.

As I've said before, the sales of real hifi (ie separates) in this country is a tiny, tiny market. Even inc the sterling work done by the likes of Richer Sounds to bring 'hifi to the masses'. It's telling that only Richer Sounds of the numerous companies of that type that started up in the 80's, is left.

I would like to see Blu Ray adopted as the Audio format of the future with it's enormous potential for high bit rate recordings, but I can't see the industry being bothered with no guarantee of anything but highly specialist demand.

As for £40 Blu Ray players, well, no thanks............. I've seen too many cheap (DVD) Players on the council tip to spend out on anything that's not built properly.
 
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I don't think there is demand. It wouldn't convert downloaders and history shows that most people are happy with CD quality.
They are, but that doesn't say much. Cassette was the biggest selling Audio format until CD overtook it in the early 90's. I do hope no-one would argue the toss for the sound quality of Cassette..........

As before, 'we' won't decide. If Downloads break certain barriers then choice will be taken away from us. Certain people (not you) can rant all they like, but they weren't working in hifi/audio sales when it happened last time. ;)
 
I'm still somewhat optimistic about the future availability of high-quality audio recordings, even assuming that CD's will eventually disappear (although probably not by the end of next year). I'm sure that the mass market will be happy with compressed formats (mp3 and Apple formats), but there already are at least a few Internet vendors who offer music in CD quality or better. The fact that such a vendor can sell directly to customers world-wide (barring regional licensing problems) makes me hope that they can survive. Even if only 1% of all music consumers are interested in their product, I would hope that would be sufficient.

My interest in music downloads has just recently begun, as I am now a happy owner of an Oppo BDP-93, which can play a diverse range of media from external HDs and network streaming devices -- including FLAC up to 196/24. I assume other devices with similar capabilities will be available in the coming years, so that the market for HD audio (or at least well-mastered 44.1/16) will at least remain constant.
 
I'm still somewhat optimistic about the future availability of high-quality audio recordings, even assuming that CD's will eventually disappear (although probably not by the end of next year). I'm sure that the mass market will be happy with compressed formats (mp3 and Apple formats), but there already are at least a few Internet vendors who offer music in CD quality or better. The fact that such a vendor can sell directly to customers world-wide (barring regional licensing problems) makes me hope that they can survive. Even if only 1% of all music consumers are interested in their product, I would hope that would be sufficient.

My interest in music downloads has just recently begun, as I am now a happy owner of an Oppo BDP-93, which can play a diverse range of media from external HDs and network streaming devices -- including FLAC up to 196/24. I assume other devices with similar capabilities will be available in the coming years, so that the market for HD audio (or at least well-mastered 44.1/16) will at least remain constant.
Looking at the US figures, in 2010, demand for hires, in this case vinyl, had peaked. The view is that the market is now saturated, and that no further increase in demand for hi-resolution media is likely - at the very least until the recession ends. We forget that sales of vinyl over the last five years has grown steadily to make it a substantive nice market, however, by niche we still mean 'small'. At the same time CD sales have collapsed, Downloads have increased (whether we like it or not) exponentially, and hires digital remains a niche within a niche.

The lack of will behind hi-res digital was scary, with the most low profile roll out ever, and a total lack of any sort of commitment to anything bar 'big sellers' already established. Apparently (according to Neil Young) it was left down to artists themselves to chase any new releases on vinyl/Hi-res digital. Looking at it, most obviously don't see the point...........

Which is a worry for CD. Many artists seem quite happy with Downloads, some openly embracing it. If that mood goes across the board, then we really will be in trouble.
 
... hires digital remains a niche within a niche.
I'm sure that will always be the case. But considering the fact that all mastering is done in the digital domain these days, the pool of potential material for hi-res distribution is vast. It's just up to the vendors to make the material available to the audiophile market. Even if that market is quite small, I would hope that the amount of offerings will increase.
 
I'm still somewhat optimistic about the future availability of high-quality audio recordings, even assuming that CD's will eventually disappear (although probably not by the end of next year). I'm sure that the mass market will be happy with compressed formats (mp3 and Apple formats), but there already are at least a few Internet vendors who offer music in CD quality or better.

I wish I could share your optimism. Just this week, I've been enjoying the new Metallica EP of abandoned songs, but I'm still annoyed that it's only available in 256kbps download (this from a band that sells FLAC recordings of their shows directly from their website). I also chickened out of buying the lossless download of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack and went for CD after the website suggested that they'd done a Radiohead and neglected to tag their files (plus I still like having a box to stick on the shelf). It would be great if bands could really embrace the direct selling of lossless.

But I still want to be able to go to my chosen two or three record stores, and buy albums in at least the quality they were available in five years ago. I realise this is unrealistic. And anyway, I only buy around 70 albums a year, so I figure I'm no longer the target consumer, and I'm just enjoying the ability to buy music in a reasonable quality while I still can, before the "256kbps is good enough" argument wins. Pretty much everyone I know has decided that compressed, preferably whatever is available on their chosen tenner-a-month subscription service, is fine.
 
I'm sure that will always be the case. But considering the fact that all mastering is done in the digital domain these days, the pool of potential material for hi-res distribution is vast. It's just up to the vendors to make the material available to the audiophile market. Even if that market is quite small, I would hope that the amount of offerings will increase.
As with everything in life these days, it will be down to money, not giving quality to those who want it. The licence owners charge the download sites per track, not per album, plus it costs more to store FLAC than MP3 in terms of storage space. You are talking thousands of tracks in MP3 format as opposed to hundreds in FLAC.

This is no big deal for the major companies, but for small time outfits looking to supply (and make a profit) to people who want quality downloads, it could be a deal breaker.

I suppose the best thing would be for the developers to produce a lossless format that is a lot smaller in terms of file size than Flac.

But there you go...........
 
The subscriber model still has some kinks to iron out, aside quality, content is still an issue. It seems certain companies are stopping artists appearing on subs models. In reality, what this means in Napster is you get a 30 second clip instead of the full song.

It doesn't occur a lot from my searches, but it does limit what your monthly fee covers. Of course you can purchase the songs separately, but if this trend continues, the subs model will become less and less attractive.
 
The subscriber model still has some kinks to iron out, aside quality, content is still an issue. It seems certain companies are stopping artists appearing on subs models. In reality, what this means in Napster is you get a 30 second clip instead of the full song.

It doesn't occur a lot from my searches, but it does limit what your monthly fee covers. Of course you can purchase the songs separately, but if this trend continues, the subs model will become less and less attractive.
We have two Apple Subscribers in this house, and they are both happy with what they get - but then they are only interested in new material.

As you say, for the majority, if Downloads are cheap, easy to access, and offer a wide variety, they don't care.

For those who want quality, if they offered FLAC and covers at a sensible prices, then I don't see the problem? Most of the blurb that's handed out on remasters is for 'purists' only. As long as I have the details: musicians, track authors, lyrics, the rest can go in the bin. Even top quality CD/DVD media is so cheap now that the choice would be yours to burn to physical if you wanted.

Again though, it's down to pricing.
 
I think a subscription model is the worst option to be honest. At least downloads can't suddenly disappear. I can't count the number of times albums have been removed from Spotify and left me disappointed.
 
I think a subscription model is the worst option to be honest. At least downloads can't suddenly disappear. I can't count the number of times albums have been removed from Spotify and left me disappointed.

Well, current subscription services have so many problems (catalogue holes, low bitrate, no gapless etc) that they're no match for actually owning and playing the stuff you want your way. While bands continue to receive such poor royalties the missing albums/artists problem is unlikely to be solved. With headphones and personal playlists, the playback problems are a non-issue for most. I see streaming services as a useful add-on for discovering music, but most people I know seem to accept them as a 100% replacement and seem to think that "Metallica/ACDC/Cannibal Corpse/Pink Floyd/etc simply don't exist because they're not on Spotify".
 
Well, current subscription services have so many problems (catalogue holes, low bitrate, no gapless etc) that they're no match for actually owning and playing the stuff you want your way. While bands continue to receive such poor royalties the missing albums/artists problem is unlikely to be solved. With headphones and personal playlists, the playback problems are a non-issue for most. I see streaming services as a useful add-on for discovering music, but most people I know seem to accept them as a 100% replacement and seem to think that "Metallica/ACDC/Cannibal Corpse/Pink Floyd/etc simply don't exist because they're not on Spotify".
:eek: Wow! That is scary!
 
On a slight side note, did anybody read this??

Apple Launches iCloud, iTunes Match, Dubbed "Piracy Amnesty"


Apple today launched their new iCloud service at the annual WWDC event, and while a lot of the focus was on the free service's ability to sync your personal data and files on multiple Apple devices, via the Internet, the feature gaining the most attention has to be "iTunes Match", the service that some have dubbed as a "piracy amnesty program".

So what does iTunes Match do? Well, to put it simply, it scans your computer for songs, and if a matching song is found on iTunes, you get access to the high quality legal version right away in the cloud, even if the song on your hard-drive was pirated. You will have to pay an annual $USD24.95 fee to access the service, but it could be a very cheap way to "legitimize" your, um, "less than legal" music collection, as long as you continue to pay the yearly fee to access the legitimized songs stored in the cloud.

And the best bit is that all of this is done with the blessing of the record companies. 30% of the $25 will go to Apple, with the rest going to record labels.

For songs that don't match up to anything on iTunes, users will still be able to upload the song to their iCloud drive, and share the song on multiple devices, similar to the way cloud drives work on Amazon and Android.

Nick O'Byrne, general manager of the Australian Independent Record Labels Association, questioned the move by Apple. "Why buy at 'full price' when you can pirate as many songs as you like and absolve yourself of guilt by paying $25 a year?" asked O'Byrne. However, O'Byrne also admits that iTunes Match could be a great way to "monetise tracks that have already been pirated".

iTunes Match will initially only be available in the United States, but Apple is expected to launch the service elsewhere soon after


er............ sign me up ! :laugh:
 
Well, it's not a side note.
This is the beginning of the end for CD. This does something very interesting, even if the tracks are not yet CD quality, or CD plus quality.

I was considering moving to streaming last year but two things stopped me

a). Having to keep my entire Cd collection in storage to legitimise storage on hard drive.
b). The concern about hard drive failure and the additional complexity.


This means I could now burn everything to disc and legally sell the CD collection enabling me to recover the cost of moving to the new format.
I would not need to physically store onto a hard drive.

Of course it's not yet perfect because not all the tunes are available and quality is probably not there yet. However it does mean that the next stage is not to bother with any ownership at all. The idea of a high quality, streaming subscription service with all music and a full database would be very attractive. There is still another fly in the ointment, which is the Internet feed. I still can't understand why we need to pay individual subscriptions for iSPs and still have variable quality. Surely we could just have a small fee on all internet purchases which would pay for the entire network and have fast, mega bandwidth connections. This is how we pay for goods from the high street, we don't pay an individual subscription for the high street, the cost is absorbed into the price of goods. It would probably a nominal extra cost and would let the network expand like wildfire bringing many benefits to all, particularly rural communities.

Actually taking that to its ultimate conclusion is almost scary. We could work and live completely in the virtual world. No driving to work for office based jobs would be the start of something immense.
 
The media just refer to downloads now, had radio 1 on yesterday for some reason and its all download this and that now. Same when I heard Radio 5 talking about the Christmas number 1.

Edit: This report mentions kids will be receiving music vouchers this christmas and online stores using parental guidance. I know Napster already identifies explicit songs and albums.
 
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Toasty said:
The media just refer to downloads now, had radio 1 on yesterday for some reason and its all download this and that now. Same when I heard Radio 5 talking about the Christmas number 1.

Edit: This report mentions kids will be receiving music vouchers this christmas and online stores using parental guidance. I know Napster already identifies explicit songs and albums.

And It looks like the beginning of the end for HMV, so that's practically the end for high street CD sales in small towns and cities.
 
Shops like HMV have been taking the **** for years with their prices though. I remember before I got the internet they were charging nearly £20 for some rock and metal CDs. I was working in Derby at the time and found a really small independent music shop that sold stuff at a reasonable price.

I've never used HMV or Virgin since.
 
I used to love and loathe going into HMV and Virgin as a kid. They were some of the only places I could source the bands I wanted to buy and it was great seeing them on their shelves, but then you see the price tag..
 
I used to love and loathe going into HMV and Virgin as a kid. They were some of the only places I could source the bands I wanted to buy and it was great seeing them on their shelves, but then you see the price tag..

I don't remember HMV when I was young (don't think they existed as a retail outlet), but I used to like going into Virgin. This was in the mid-late 70s, and the first shop I remember was in George Street, Croydon - by the Technical College. Obviously, there wasn't the internet back then, and a typical LP would have cost about £5.50. That makes prices now seem very good value.

In later years I disliked going into these shops to buy CDs. I couldn't stand the loud music playing and the fact that a lot of the cases were scratched. In about 2000, I started buying CDs online from Amazon - and I've never looked back! Apart from the prices, the whole shopping experience is so much better.

I've only bought one CD in the last 5 years, having more-or-less stopped in 2005. After discovering DVD-A and SACDs, I remember initially trying quite a few retail outlets for these. The response shocked me back then, the fact that most shops didn't know what I was going on about! That for me was the nail in the coffin for music shops - the fact that the staff don't seem knowledgeable of what's on the market. I'm aware that this is rather a sweeping statement, and I have found the odd exception.
 
BBC News - UK album sales fell in 2011 but digital downloads rose

26.6 million digital albums were sold, a 24% rise on the previous year.
CD album sales fell by 13% to 86.2 million discs. Overall, 6% fewer albums were sold than in 2010.

I've long suspected that the "album" is going to be an endangered item soon.

Worthy of note though, CD sales are still over 3 times greater than those "digital" sales. If you kill it off you'd loose serious amounts of sales!
 
Worthy of note though, CD sales are still over 3 times greater than those "digital" sales. If you kill it off you'd loose serious amounts of sales!

I think the idea behind killing off the CD is that , one , you get rid of an easily copied high quality source for pirating , and two , you force customers to buy digital , the big record companies see this as a win win situation , I have no doubt they will do it.
 
Does anyone have the figures? How many albums were downloaded last year vs physical CD sales?

If the split is 85:15 in favour of downloads, I suspect 10 of that 15% who buy on CD won't download, so the industry will be throwing away 10% of the market.

There are clear differences to the move from vinyl to CD. I was really getting into 'good' hi-fi in the mid-late '80s, and most audiophiles (and old-timers) I knew were very quickly resigned to buying a CD player. I personally feel that, if CD goes, there's a pretty big part of the public will simply stop buying music. I think there's a larger portion who won't move to downloads than who refused to move to CD.

And there's something we haven't touched on. Modern music is rubbish!

Old.jpg

No, seriously. I'm not some old stick in the mud who only likes things from my youth. Music has had peaks and troughs throughout my life, but just about the only CDs I've bought recently are re-issues.

There's another thing. If U2 re-release an album on a 2-disc CD with the b-sides and rare tracks on CD2 I might buy it. If there's no CD I'll not download the whole album again - just the 3 or 4 b-sides I missed.

Just how I feel.

Steve W
 

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