The Amazing Collapse of CD Sales

[Condorsat]

Putting aside SQ for a moment, one thing I don’t like about streaming is that it’s yet another case of being hostage to forces I don’t control, like Internet providers and companies with virtually no public face or service presence. Owning physical media gives one a sense of control, and independence. How much of my life do I want hanging on a thread leading back to nowhere?

Understand you point .. but metaphorically speaking .. someone moved your cheese. Sometimes you have to go out into the maze again.

 

[reddodge053]

I buy my vehicles,never lease them.I like owning and doing what i want with them.I feel same about the music,if'n i wanna fly a lp or cd like a frisbee i can.

 

[RobRoy]

Back around the turn of the century I was at my daughter's varsity basketball practice and noticed a lot of CD's strewn all over the benches. Must have been 30 or 40 of them. I then started looking through them and noticed that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was home recorded. This was in the days that we were transitioning from Napster to Limewire.

I turned to my wife and said, "CD's are done". Frankly, I've believed ever since then that this has actually skewed the numbers regarding what music sells the best. That is, the music popular with those that don't have the means or ability to copy music will appear to be more popular (in sales numbers) than the music popular with those who easily copy music.

I also said to my daughters in the late 90's that PRE-RECORDED music will become the equivalent of the toy in a happy meal. It will be something you get "for free" when you buy something else. I think pre-recorded music has finally made the full move from something highly desirable to something you throw on as a distraction while you do other things. And streaming is perfect for that. It doesn't have to be your "favorite" song. Anything you like is good enough for the moment. Just let Pandora/Spotify decide for you.

That is, pre-recorded music is a simple commodity now.

Vinyl is different. It's not just about the music. It's about the package. People buy vinyl for roughly the same reason that they buy antique furniture or fix up old cars. Sure, we all need furniture and most of us need a car, but that's not really the point in those cases.

LIVE music is a different subject, BTW.

 

[GChief]

LIVE music is a different subject, BTW.

My preferred order: live pre-Covid (we have a lot of great venues close enough), vinyls then hi-res streaming. I have my whole AMHD library (which includes every physical media I have and much more) on a card in my Kindle. All down loaded at HD or UD, also change my phone downloads often. Works for many but not for all.

 

[DesertRatt]

Understand you point .. but metaphorically speaking .. someone moved your cheese. Sometimes you have to go out into the maze again.

Quite true that the pipers can call a new tune at will and get everyone to learn the new dance, as it suits the pipers. But, one has to be mindful of becoming a trained trained dancer for others purposes.

 

[RobRoy]

My preferred order: live pre-Covid (we have a lot of great venues close enough), vinyls then hi-res streaming. I have my whole AMHD library (which includes every physical media I have and much more) on a card in my Kindle. All down loaded at HD or UD, also change my phone downloads often. Works for many but not for all.

Yep. I don't think vinyl is better sound quality than CD or good digital, but whenever I'm strictly focused on the music it is, with rare exception, vinyl or live. In both cases it is the full experience, rther than just the music.

 

[DesertRatt]

LIVE music is a different subject, BTW.

Amen. In our house we play guitar and sing every day for a minimum of an hour each. Playing and hearing live music is a crucial staple of life for me.

 

[GChief]

In both cases it is the full experience, rther than just the music.

Its not really about the ritual for me, I can’t remember the last time I studied a jacket or liner (although I do like eff’ing with vinyl) probably why I can enjoy my BT speaker at the beach, deck, work or camping just as much as sitting in front of my main systems.

 

[RobRoy]

Its not really about the ritual for me, I can’t remember the last time I studied a jacket or liner (although I do like eff’ing with vinyl) probably why I can enjoy my BT speaker at the beach, deck, work or camping just as much as sitting in front of my main systems.

I really don't do liner notes any more either. If I want to do that I use my phone or my smart TV to look up the band and album on the internet. I've actually read the Wiki page on an album as I listen to it.

 

[Condorsat]

That is, pre-recorded music is a simple commodity now.

Just as David Bowie predicted back in 02.

In a 2002 interview with the New York Times, the late David Bowie predicted that we would eventually treat music like running water or electricity, in that we would pay for access rather than ownership.

 

[GChief]

I really don't do liner notes any more either. If I want to do that I use my phone or my smart TV to look up the band and album on the internet. I've actually read the Wiki page on an album as I listen to it.

AMHD has a button for that while the song is playing. It’s right below the play/pause button.

 

[oscarinovp]

I pretty much stopped buying CDs when SACDs came out. Now that SACDs have been reduced to a niche format by digital downloads, I will curtail SACD procurement; especially as I already have a substantial library; some of which had never been played.

I will continue to play the vinyl game as some of the best recordings/performances were made in the vinyl heydays. Still, I will likely limit my vinyl purchases to the $1 thrift store bins or estate sales.

I imagine most of my future audio purchases will be limited to high resolution digital downloads or Blu-rays with lossless high resolution audio plus video.

 

[Quadman2]

Got a 300 Sony carousel that I tend to use for more background listening, going to the more LP's for the intense experiences. Maybe just lazy in my usage as well, plus can group, random play.

Portability to a degree a factor in the keeping of CD's as being a lot more forgiving in handling/playing. Finding a vehicle which offers this option is no longer a choice.

High sampling is so tight; it comes close close to the orig sound, but still it lacks the coloured end results of record format.

Still do a fair amount of DL'ing CD's, playing FLAC in lossless high res player, which in turn is the ultimate in portability.

Times change as do the devices that allow us to embrace the sounds we listen to this days.


Still no streaming...a Luddite in this respect I guess?



Q

 

[RobRoy]

AMHD has a button for that while the song is playing. It’s right below the play/pause button.

What is AMHD?

 

[GChief]

What is AMHD?

Amazon Music Hi Def. the button bacsilly has all the “liner notes” plus more.

 

[DesertRatt]

Just as David Bowie predicted back in 02.

And, much of it sounds like running water.

As a commodity, it is headed for artificial synthesis. There’s no technical reason to need artists to create music. AI systems can design music faster, cheaper, and with more variety for essentially zero cost. NOTE: most bottled water for sale in brand name plastic jugs is just tap water.

 

[Buanadha]

I still like CD's. I use streaming most of the time, but like others I like having the album in hand (either CD or LP)

I like Spotify recommending other music, but I've had a lot of luck getting batches of cd's off of ebay and getting some random things I'd never have come across myself. Got a huge batch of CD's from a Canadian collection that I'm still going through. Tons of interesting Jazz, Blues, and Folk music that I never would have come across otherwise and a good chunk of it isn't available on Spotify

 

[Andyman]

Ultimately, this is my favorite physical medium:

View attachment 2060603

CDs are but a means to an end. I can store my entire digital music library of about a thousand albums (including lots of 24 bit content) on one.

Highly portable.

In my Focus I had an Alpine aftermarket CD/radio with a USB port. The software would only recognize .mp3 and 100 folders, but I had a 64GB thumb drive with about 12 GB full of 320Kbps .mp3s with over 100 LPs/ROIOs/collections on it. I used to use shuffle or just let it play as it may take a month or longer to get through everything.

My current car doesn't have the USB port, so I have a FM BT converter I can access my phone on. I can stream Quboz on it, and when I travel out west (Denver/Phoenix) and run into dead zones I can play downloads from Quboz, the thumbdrive files I copied to the phone, plus some FLAC files I have on the phone, which has 128GB storage, 64 built in and a 64GB microSD card. As of this typing I have 90GB of the 128GB used, about 22 GB of it music, so it looks like I need to clean it up, or maybe ask Santa for a 256 or 512 GB card for Christmas.

 

[twiiii]

Its amazing when I visit stores like Verizon and with younger guys and gals at Apple stores, that they don't really know what a CD is. They know about DVD's a bit, but they stream everything. All I ask is what have they got when they are finished, but some file in a cloud. Then I ask what happens when it rains, meaning they loose the data or it comes out compromised? They say it can't happen. Anything can happen. They ask why would I want a disc burner? Just get a bigger hard drive or SSD.

Then they ask if LPs really sound better than digitalm. I say they shouldn't but many of them do.

 

[GChief]

As @E-Stat mentioned... it’s a great time to be an audiophile... and not a Luddite