Vinyl Will Outsell CD's For First Time Since.....

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

The roll-out of "CD is dead" was done when CD was still a very viable format and was done by Apple and the record companies.

Bob

I respectfully disagree having been in the period of change working for startups involved, doing testing, proof of concept, and company research for investors hoping to be funding disrupters. We worked with and played with the first stuff we take for granted now. Though it was as a technician with non-disclosure, it was also a time in same rooms with Fortune 500 execs, Apple, Intel & Cisco execs. At times if felt like we were tasked with making movie props work.

It was also crazy. Two investors I worked for killed themselves. Some young people became wealthy and some who won the birth lottery lost all or most of it.

[GCWaters]

From the Washington Post a Few years back...cd sales started declining just before digital single purchases took off...

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by GCWaters

From the Washington Post a Few years back...cd sales started declining just before digital single purchases took off...

Not a surprise. I remember the complaint back when I was buying CDs that you had to buy the whole album to listen to one song. Then Napster and of course, some wanted the music free but others just wanted a way to get a single song in digital format. iTunes allowed folks to buy that one song without the whole album.

My wife and I still purchase the occasional LP but we're almost exclusively streaming anymore. We have a subscription so we end up paying more $/yr than we would ever spend buying LPs or CDs. If we didn't have streaming, we'd go back to buying one or two a year and listening to the radio instead.

When we play an LP, it's a deliberate act of 'listening to music' and not just something for background noise. For some reason, an LP gives us that sensation more the other alternatives.

[Pura Vida]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Napster came out 4 years before the iTunes music store, which is a lifetime in tech. Yeah, the iTunes music store put the nail in the coffin, but the coffin was already in the ground. It was a completely tech and consumer driven change that the record industry flailed at addressing until Apple figured out a viable model. For a while. Now it's Spotify.

This is exactly how it went down. People were stealing music without any restraint or consequence, and artists weren't getting paid for those downloads either. Anyone remember Lars Ulrich of Metallica battling against Napster users? The iTunes store provided a legitimate alternative to physical CDs, but pirated music never really went away until streaming services became the mainstream.

The music industry took a page from the movie and TV industry, which didn't have the same level of rampant piracy. It's still unfortunate for the music artists, who aren't making any money in streamed music, but they weren't making anything from the uncontrolled file pirating either.

[Tico]

I'm a CD fan who hangs onto his collection.

I've never done streaming music because the audio quality is inferior.
I sold off my vinyl collection for the same reason.

Audio quality peaked with CDs.

[jpd]

Originally Posted by Tico

I'm a CD fan who hangs onto his collection.

I've never done streaming music because the audio quality is inferior.
I sold off my vinyl collection for the same reason.

Audio quality peaked with CDs.

still love the original vinyl.....

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Tico

I'm a CD fan who hangs onto his collection.

I've never done streaming music because the audio quality is inferior.
I sold off my vinyl collection for the same reason.

Audio quality peaked with CDs.

I still buy CDs. I like the concept of getting to know a group's music; I always have. I have never, ever bought a single song.

I bought a lot of LPs before the days of CDs; they are all in boxes in my garage right now, though I still have my turntable. I listen to CDs the same way I listened to LPs in the past. I rarely use music as background.

I sometimes listen to Pandora during the Christmas season, but most of the time I don't like having no control over the content. Sometimes from Pandora I learn about new music and then go buy the CD. Most of the time I dislike what they feed me and turn it off.

If I bought a new car with no CD player, then I would have to think hard about putting one in the car. However, now that I have retired form full time work, I put so few miles on our vehicles, I can't imagine why I would ever buy a new vehicle. Besides, they are awfully expensive.

- Glenn

[1neeto]

Originally Posted by GCWaters

From the Washington Post a Few years back...cd sales started declining just before digital single purchases took off...

Missed this one too. One of the reasons why file sharing and eventually digital music market took off was because consumers were getting tired of buying full album with only two or three good songs. The music industry forcing artists to full album contracts meant mediocre albums with a handful of good songs. I remember you could still buy the single version of a CD with the hot song and whatever else the recording label decided should be another hit, but it was sold at a ridiculous price, like half the full record.

Then like I said earlier, people started ripping CD’s and sharing them for free over the Internet. Napster was the biggest, but there were a lot a file sharing websites back then. iTunes offered something the recording industry was too greedy to come up with; selling songs a la carte for $.99. People could buy the songs they wanted, organize them into playlists, and never carry a CD book with them ever again. The same is happening to the home movie industry. Redbox learned from the giant they took out, and now have a streaming service. Technology will always keep moving, and the market will force the industry to either keep up and be left in the dust.

[PorkPieGuy]

Originally Posted by Tico

I'm a CD fan who hangs onto his collection.

I've never done streaming music because the audio quality is inferior.
I sold off my vinyl collection for the same reason.

Audio quality peaked with CDs.

I can't listen to CDs for more than an hour. After that, my ears get "tired." However, I can listen to records for hours on end. To my ears, records are so much smoother sounding (all my gear is analog).

YMMV.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Tico

I'm a CD fan who hangs onto his collection.

I've never done streaming music because the audio quality is inferior.
I sold off my vinyl collection for the same reason.

Audio quality peaked with CDs.

First understanding that "quality" is a somewhat vague subjective term.

But quantitatively digital audio has gone far beyond the 44.1 sample 16 bit CD format .

How that measures against Tape or Records quality wise depends on the criteria one chooses to adopt.

Quantitatively, Digital has much higher signal to noise and dynamic range.

Qualitatively it depends pretty much on the individual listeners tastes and preferences

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by KevWind

First understanding that "quality" is a somewhat vague subjective term.

But quantitatively digital audio has gone far beyond the 44.1 sample 16 bit CD format .

How that measures against Tape or Records quality wise depends on the criteria one chooses to adopt.

Quantitatively, Digital has much higher signal to noise and dynamic range.

Qualitatively it depends pretty much on the individual listeners tastes and preferences

Very good points. I'm a sexagenarian with confirmed hearing loss and tinnitus. My teenagers have the crazy good hearing I once had. Whatever might be lost or not right, they know there are no skips and pops with our Apple Music subscription. It also seems like there's a family-wide like of the high end computer and entertainment system setups vs the old quality stereo.

This might all be like my photography. I can spend a lot of effort with a $2200 lens on an approximately same camera body, process a RAW image but people love a well framed and by default computer enhanced image from the phone.