The imminent death of the cd...

[clhboa]

I read an article in Goldmine magazine that said cd sales between 2007 + 2008 decreased 71%. I mentioned this to one of the owners of a record store I frequent. He said he fully expects cd's to disappear completely in 5 years. I think this is somewhat of an overstatement (Like vinyl, I don't think they will ever go completely away). I know that this might not seem like a loss to some people on opposite ends of the spectrum (downloaders and analog only die hards) but I think it sucks. What am I going to do? Buy downloads? The vinyl resurgence won't be able to cover all new releases so I guess I'll be stuck. I'll either have to give up on new releases or give in to downloads (If a new technology doesn't arrive). Never thought I'd see the day, but it looks like it won't be long. Bummer!

[retrokeeper]

Well.....You can always "download" your downloads to CD or tape.At least that's what I'm doing to keep my "software" fix.I shiver at the thought of all of my music only accessible via download,but that seems to be the way the industry is going.Most of the Trance music I listen to is that way.When I do find a CD by an artist I like,I sure don't hesitate to grab it,new or used.Plus,I like the "sound" of music better when it's been transfered to a medium such as CD,or to tape,be it cassette/reel-to-reel or even...8-track!! And yes I have succumbed to the joys of having your music collection in the palm of your hand or in your shirt pocket,who hasn't.But it all goes back to having a medium you can physically hold in your hand,to touch & feel.The "digital download" doesn't do that for me.And yes,I'll gladly take the time and expense to make that "transfer" happen!! Rob

[clhboa]

I guess I'm behind the times. I don't own an Ipod and at this time have no desire for one. I do think it is wise to grab as many new releases as you can. I have a feeling the press runs are going to be shorter and shorter. Kind of like vinyl in the early 90's. I have some fairly collectable titles from that time period. Not many were made on vinyl. So the same will happen to cd's as they are phased out. I don't know, downloads just seem like such a ripoff compared to buying a physical medium. Time marches on I guess.

[shadowlord]

downloads just seem like such a ripoff compared to buying a physical medium.

the downloads now cost as much as a cd a few years ago. now the cd is way more expensive. when the cd disappears i think the downloads will get even more expensive :(

[braxus]

I really hate the idea of a physical media going away. I want to be able to take my music from place to place, player to player- without being tied to a computer or IPOD player. Computer have been known to die, as do hard drives and recordable CDs. So how is downloading a fair option? Plus try and find any music in high rez or anything other then compressed music. It sucks. I'll take a CD any day before I go into downloading.

[gamve]

I really hate the idea of a physical media going away. I want to be able to take my music from place to place, player to player- without being tied to a computer or IPOD player. Computer have been known to die, as do hard drives and recordable CDs. So how is downloading a fair option? Plus try and find any music in high rez or anything other then compressed music. It sucks. I'll take a CD any day before I go into downloading.

I'm with you Brax. The recording industry now finally has us all where they want us. They no no longer promote artists properly. They don't protect the artists properly, and they never did pay the artists properly. We used to get an LP of good quality with a nice printed sleeve with some good info...then a piece of shitty plastic with an equally shitty plastic box and not much info. The final step for the recording industry is to give the performing artist nothing, the consumer nothing except a crap quality digital download and all at the highest price the market will bear. Hows That Dire straits song go? "Money for Nothing"
Proof of this is the fact that most artists nowdays can only make a decent living by physically doing live shows for the ticket money. Why else would the likes of Santana, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles etc, still be touring. Surely these guys made enough money to retire years ago?

[Tapemystic]

I'm with you Brax. The recording industry now finally has us all where they want us. They no no longer promote artists properly. They don't protect the artists properly, and they never did pay the artists properly. ....
True...Feel full sympathy for the artists...And just see the utter 'vulture like exploitation' of Michael Jackson even after his tragic sudden death by Sony Music as an example as well...Just utterly appalling, just real sad...Only $$$ into the execs coffers and the poor artists whether alive or dead, treated like dirt (cash-cows)...:(

I'm also for the physical media as well...I don't like Ipods, nor all that so compressed tinny mp3 soup. I'm rather sentimental etc, and prefer some art works as well, not just little tinny soulless mp3's which have none at all... *shudder* :(

I don't like iPods, nor do I want one...I believe in choices...Not one format suits all thing mentality...*sigh*

That a lot of CD music nowadays so horribly compressed & volume over-cranked (I loosely call it iPod mp3 mastering) isn't a good sign either...*headache*

I warily continue to buy Cd's therefore...

Just feel sad...real sad... *frown*

[SaSi_Sidi]

I envisage the time when a new album will be LP sized and contain an LP and a CD version of the album, a proper sized leaflet and perhaps a BR/DVD with extras or a concert.

Download can be a cheap way of previewing the material and perhaps collect hits for those buying single tracks, but unless the "physical medium" receives proper care from the publisher so as to become desirable, it will certainly die soon.

[close652]

I envisage the time when a new album will be LP sized and contain an LP and a CD version of the album, a proper sized leaflet

However not an industry standard quite a few album has been published recently like this. The latest Depeche Mode, Dave Gahan, B-52's -- to name a few.

[Dazen1]

I read an article in Goldmine magazine that said cd sales between 2007 + 2008 decreased 71%. I mentioned this to one of the owners of a record store I frequent. He said he fully expects cd's to disappear completely in 5 years. I think this is somewhat of an overstatement (Like vinyl, I don't think they will ever go completely away). I know that this might not seem like a loss to some people on opposite ends of the spectrum (downloaders and analog only die hards) but I think it sucks. What am I going to do? Buy downloads? The vinyl resurgence won't be able to cover all new releases so I guess I'll be stuck. I'll either have to give up on new releases or give in to downloads (If a new technology doesn't arrive). Never thought I'd see the day, but it looks like it won't be long. Bummer!

For most people, downloading is an easy and simple solution to buying music. It is inevitable that CD sales will suffer.

In the absence of vinyl and CD we can only hope that uncompressed downloads will eventually become mandatory.

Traditional record stores are dying. Make the most of them NOW before they are all gone.

[Elite-ist]

Hold it... CD sales are down. Yet, conversely vinyl LP sales have increased. There had been a previous thread which I referred to a local newspaper article claiming vinyl sales in 2008 increased substantially. Recently, I posted a thread speaking of the new Pearl Jam record:

http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=5836

Yesterday, while I was in Vancouver, I stopped by a used record store, "Audiophile", after picking up some fresh pastry at my favourite Italian bakery. I've bought records there, before, and I was after the Rolling Stones " Get Yer Ya-Yahs Out!" album. He had 5 copies stowed away, below the record display. I picked the best of the bunch, and it was a Japanese pressing. But, I wasn't paying his price of $60, so I picked the next best, costing me $6. Of course, I needed to create my own keeper, by sorting through the remaining 4 copies to get the best record, best liner, and best album jacket with protective sheath. Come on, I'm sure you all do the same, when you're out shopping. After all that, I played the first cut, when getting home, and my initial reaction was," this sounds flat." Will have to fatten it up, by other means, to really enjoy it.

Take care,

Nando.

[clhboa]

Yes, vinyl sales have increased substantially, but at this time they still only account for less than 1% of sales according to the RIAA. I have picked up quite a few vinyl releases that include the cd too. You probably can tell, I sure am doing my best to support my local record stores.

[Elite-ist]

Yes, vinyl sales have increased substantially, but at this time they still only account for less than 1% of sales according to the RIAA. I have picked up quite a few vinyl releases that include the cd too. You probably can tell, I sure am doing my best to support my local record stores.
Hi clhboa,

Any guess on how many LPs you've collected, new and used? If CDs are on the skids, this doesn't bode well in finding many SACDs in current, or older titles. I, only, have about 6 SACDs.

Nando.

[clhboa]

Hi clhboa,

Any guess on how many LPs you've collected, new and used? If CDs are on the skids, this doesn't bode well in finding many SACDs in current, or older titles. I, only, have about 6 SACDs.

Nando.

I would guess around 5000. Add another 3000 cds and who knows how many cdrs and hundreds of prerecorded tapes. I can't help it! I'm hooked!

[Elite-ist]

I would guess around 5000. Add another 3000 cds and who knows how many cdrs and hundreds of prerecorded tapes. I can't help it! I'm hooked!

That's an astounding collection! What about pre-recorded and blank 8-tracks?

Although, it's a huge number, I met a collector who had an equal amount of LPs, categorized and well-organized in a 9' X 12' room, and you'd never guess there were that many records in one area. What have you found, which works well, to store all your records, CDs, and tapes?

Nando.

[8mmag]

I would guess around 5000. Add another 3000 cds and who knows how many cdrs and hundreds of prerecorded tapes. I can't help it! I'm hooked!

*fit*I'm jealous! I'm back into vinyl now since last Xmas. Counting my original college collection, I think I'm up to near 1000 LP's and that seems like a lot to me.

I do need better organization & storage for them though. I am also curious what folks have come up with for storage. The boss is getting tired of me storing my top 25% up in the family room in boxes on the floor. What are others using? Pics would be nice too...

[clhboa]

I'm guessing on these figures: prerecorded 8-tracks-over 300. I know I have bought over 200 sealed ones in the last year and a half. I think I probably have at least 50 sealed blank 8-tracks. I keep my cd's in large cd racks with adjustable shelves. Records are stored on heavy duty bookshelves. One of these days when the rooms are straightened up I'll get some pics posted. Right now both rooms are a mess. Last year my Grandma died and they were selling her house. My Dad died about 3 years ago and Mom put her house up for sale at the same time. So I had to go back to Ohio and get a bunch of stuff out of her house too. So now my house looks kind of like a big storage unit! I'm slowly making progress. A while back I sold about 350 of my Dad's cd collection to a guy at work for $750. They were titles I already had or didn't want. To sweeten the deal I threw in about 150 cdrs. I had about 3000 albums before inheriting my Dad's collection his bumped me up to 5000. Before I shipped them back here I weeded out about 500 crappy ones and gave them to the Salvation Army. I have no idea how many 45s I have.

[clhboa]

Hi clhboa,

Any guess on how many LPs you've collected, new and used? If CDs are on the skids, this doesn't bode well in finding many SACDs in current, or older titles. I, only, have about 6 SACDs.

Nando.

Mobile Fidelity has recently been reissueing older titles on SACD. Foghat, Doobie Bros. etc.. Check out musicdirect.com.

[clhboa]

However not an industry standard quite a few album has been published recently like this. The latest Depeche Mode, Dave Gahan, B-52's -- to name a few.

Yes I have bought some lps that came with the cd inside. I also have some that come with a code to download the mp3 too. I've never bothered to do it.

[DolbySProject]

The Chickenfoot LP I bought came with a code for a download; but, I'll never use it. When it comes to mp3 player or more blank tape, well, you know...

Yes, vinyl sales have increased substantially, but at this time they still only account for less than 1% of sales according to the RIAA. I have picked up quite a few vinyl releases that include the cd too. You probably can tell, I sure am doing my best to support my local record stores.

I don't trust RIAA reports. I could be wrong but I don't think they include many of the independent/used records stores where I routinely find the largest variety of used and new vinyl. Right off the top of my head there are 3 shops in close proximity in the Nashville area that have a good and continuously growing variety of new vinyl. And, of course, a boat load of used. There are a couple on the outskirts, as well. Select BB stores randomly carry new vinyl.

Like you, and many others, I have never stopped buying LPs. As a matter of fact, there's a whole lot more competition in the aisles these days. Young. Old. Male. Female. Sucks for me. Great for the record pressers. As a matter of fact, there are more places to get vinyl now then there were 15 years ago.

Only time will tell; but, I would imagine at some point, if CD's do disappear, youth will look around and realize they really don't "own" a whole lot they can put their hands on and will become disenchanted. The rise of vinyl sales is a good indicator of that already, in my opinion. Heaven forbid they should lose track of their iPod and lose all that music. Then when it really sinks in that the leaders of the gov, banks and corps have been screwing them out of ownership (of just about everything) for decades... ...then we'll see another Columbia Univ. takeover, maybe even riots. *stirpot*

[Tapemystic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3396887.stm

http://www.nme.com/news/ipod/25033

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/14294271.html


'Quality don't care notion'...Smells somewhat like Gen Y who mostly listen to iPods...Quantity/Convenience over Quality' ... *fit*

I have over 1000 CDs...*sigh* The future of music looks real dim to me....sad.

[KatCassidy]

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/14294271.html
That article is hilarious!

Simon Cowell, who is also a suspect in a mass plot to ruin pop music, is being questioned by police.

"I sure am going to miss the CD," said Paul McCartney, whose Beatles are one of the last groups to refuse to sell their albums on iTunes. "On the bright side, new technology means that Beatles lovers now can buy our albums for the third or fourth time."

On the other hand.....

5 reasons to mourn the CD

5. The CD's 74-minute max was enough: With MP3s taking over, we could face 150-minute hip-hop albums -- featuring 28 annoying skits, two good songs and four different remixes of those songs.
I have a sinking feeling that is going to be true

[Maxell-LN]

Only time will tell; but, I would imagine at some point, if CD's do disappear, youth will look around and realize they really don't "own" a whole lot they can put their hands on and will become disenchanted. The rise of vinyl sales is a good indicator of that already, in my opinion. Heaven forbid they should lose track of their iPod and lose all that music. Then when it really sinks in that the leaders of the gov, banks and corps have been screwing them out of ownership (of just about everything) for decades... ...then we'll see another Columbia Univ. takeover, maybe even riots. *stirpot*

Very well said. I've always pondered that thought, somewhere in the back of my head over the years.

I pretty much have all the book shelves in my flat loaded with LPs, and my CDs? stored inside two filing cabinets and a few wall units.

[ferriteman]

*fit*I'm jealous! I'm back into vinyl now since last Xmas. Counting my original college collection, I think I'm up to near 1000 LP's and that seems like a lot to me.

I do need better organization & storage for them though. I am also curious what folks have come up with for storage. The boss is getting tired of me storing my top 25% up in the family room in boxes on the floor. What are others using? Pics would be nice too...

Ikea sells the "Expedit" shelves. They are sized exactly for LPs...are about $99 each. I use 2 of them myself. The odd thing is that the website only displays shelving units with 4 sections, the ones I have use 8 sections each, but they still have the tall, narrow ones with 5 sections. Here is the link:

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/search/?query=expedit

cheers
Grant

[8mmag]

Ikea sells the "Expedit" shelves. They are sized exactly for LPs...are about $99 each. I use 2 of them myself. The odd thing is that the website only displays shelving units with 4 sections, the ones I have use 8 sections each, but they still have the tall, narrow ones with 5 sections. Here is the link:

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/search/?query=expedit

cheers
Grant

Hey cool stuff. Thanks Grant, these could be marriage savers*Hi5*.
I guess next time the better half wants to go check out the IKEA store, I better 'reluctantly' tag along with her, as long as she'll do something I want to do some other time *devil**devil**devil*.

[gamve]

I've got two of the 16 hole ones for record storage and they are very cost effective and tailor made for this application. Don't know how I ever survived without them. Will be looking for two more shortly. Bit of a bugger here in Tasmania as there is no Ikea here. I actually got mine from Office Works. They must have some sort of deal with Ikea.

[Eldorado]

I honestly think the days of MP3 are numbered. Despite its current widespread use, it's just as vulnerable to obsolescence as any other PC-based technology - perhaps more so considering the unnecessarily long run it's had. Once sufficient demand establishes itself for the next big thing, whatever that will turn out to be, MP3 will wither and die with gratifying speed.

I think it will be replaced by 24-bit sound, because the only real advantage MP3 has over anything else is its smaller file sizes. Back when Napster was getting MP3 established in the public's affections, that was important, because a PC would be likely to have a 40GB or smaller hard drive, and the (4GB!) iPod didn't even exist yet. But now, and indeed it has been the case for years already, who cares about 60 MB vs 600 MB? Storage space is constantly increasing, and becoming incredibly cheap.

I can well remember when sound storage was an issue because of file size vs. hard drive size, and storing video on the PC in those days was effectively out of reach. Now we can have hundreds of movies or hi-def TV shows on the terabytes of storage space we own, plus all the uncompressed audio we're likely to want.

And mentioning video brings me to another point - the hi-def movement in video, BluRay especially, I suppose - will do a lot to educate people about the sound options available, and in the face of that, MP3 isn't going to look good. There's not going to be a return to analog audio for most people, but the fact that MP3 has to compete with other, far better digital formats means that there is little chance of it still being dominant after the next ten years.

[tcp100]

Well, don't talk to the more brazen "technologists" out there; the trend is even going beyond having stored files on your hard drive.

In 10 years, most likely music will be listened to on-demand via a connected device, with the actual file being stored on a remote server somewhere.

That's right, you'll own, store, hold, and keep precisely nothing.

Wireless connectivity should be more or less ubiquitous, and that will be the main delivery system.

I don't like it; but the "cloud" is where things are going.

One of my fondest memories of youth is getting introduced to music by my dad; he'd put on old tapes in his car and drive us around the neighborhood until we fell asleep (this is when my brother and I were really young..)

Now, what's available will be up to execs who choose what to provide by popularity; there'll be no dusting off your dad's old albums and listening to what he listened to as a kid...

So, folks, start storing stuff away while you can -- or get ready to really like the Britney equivalent of 2022 - you might not have a choice.


As for SACD.. Yes, they have been reissuing, but sales have hardly been stellar, and a lot of titles have been promptly discontinued. I've been doing a lot of SACD collecting lately too; actually that's the majority of what I transfer to tape.

My brother actually visited the SACD center in Boulder, CO yesterday. He's a much bigger SACD nut than me, with over 450 albums. SACD releases are fighting an uphill battle to come out. For example, they've fully remastered and recorded Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" in DSD; but they have NOT gotten the OK to release it. The studio execs are still trying to determine if it'll be profitable, and it might not happen. He got to listen to it yesterday and said it sounded great - but general public might not have a chance to hear it.

Unfortunately audiophiles and niche groups like us are exactly that - small groups of fervent dedicated folks. (Although the nuts who spray Auric Illuminator on their CDs don't help the cause, really.) It's the masses that dictate what's available in the market, though - and the masses want thousands of small files to be played over white earbuds connected to their cell phone. :(

Yes, Blu-Ray does show some appreciation for quality - but blu-ray hasn't exactly been selling like gangbusters, when you compare it to DVD's introduction and sales records. If it weren't for football, HDTVs would still be a niche market product as well, IMHO. (And i'm not a big sports fan.)

The current trend is clearly quantity, not quality. Kids today listen to a song to death for 2 weeks, then throw it away and never listen to it again. The days of the epic album are gone, never to return, in my opinion.

[Eldorado]

Tcp100, good points. I'm not sure I mind too much about the direction you indicate we're going in, but I'm also not sure it will happen exactly that way. I think there's room for streaming and physical formats to exist side by side: the dominance of streaming doesn't preclude the existence of other formats, even if they only represent 1% of the market. If you believe that streaming will be the only way people get their music in future, perhaps you underestimate human acquisitiveness and the desire to own something tangible.

And I have a feeling that Pink Floyd SACD will be released after all. It's not Pink Floyd they worry about - that's exactly the kind of thing people buy again and again in new formats.

Maybe I'm too optimistic - that's not helped by the fact that I live somewhere where secondhand vinyl is alive and very well indeed, and the market for new CDs still seems robust. In some ways, for me, there's never been a better time to be buying music.

The "masses" have always made do with an inferior sounding product, even during the Golden Age of music, whenever that might have been. Mono lasted almost to the end of the 60s in pop/rock, then people went over to low quality cassette played on boomboxes, then glassy sounding CDs (for many, a vast improvement on what they had before) and now it's MP3. But the thing is, for a lot of people, it works. It's all they're looking for. Is it really the case that the number (percentage) of people interested in pursuing higher quality sound is lower now than it was 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago?

[michidragon]

I'm not so sure...

The way businesses and the economy works now is that you find the hottest demographic, sell to them, and *eliminate everything else*.

Most people under 30 that I talk to have NO desire to own physical media, and view it as an anachronism and an encumberance. They grew up, for the most part, without it.

Current 18 year olds were 11 when the first iPods were introduced. They were 9 when Napster happened.

Time and time again I talk to people in this age group - yes, they have a desire to 'own' *something*, but music isn't in that mix.

To most folks now, music is just a 'jangle' that you put on in the background; it's ringtones, a 'background soundtrack' to your life. It's common for kids to have an "anthem" for a week or two and play it till they can't stand it, and then move on to the next currently acceptable track.

People *do not* "sit down and listen to records" anymore. Granted, it was herbally assisted usually, but in the 60's, 70's and 80's, this happened. I talked to a 19 year old friend who got very defensive about this last night: "Why would you want to sit down and just, stare at the wall while listening to music? You have to be doing something while it's playing."

Getting rid of physical distribution helps the distributors, and the current lucrative demographic likes it: no anachronistic tapes, discs, or cartridges to plug into anything. 900,000 craptastic-sounding songs all accessible through a slick interface.

I had no idea that cassette was even in danger in 2002. Now though? People laugh at this, but I feel that CD will be gone in five to seven years.

12-15 tracks? On something bigger than the size on an ipod? When really people only want to listen to one track on the thing, anyways? No, physical media is on borrowed time. Most of the used discs I've bought (out of print/rare) are from people on Amazon who are selling off their entire collections after ripping them to mp3.

Here's hoping they don't have a hard drive crash.

Also -- I feel the vinyl resurgence is completely temporary. Most of this is fueled by hipsters who either want to put them on their wall, or be 'seen' by their friends with oversized (low quality aviation grade) headphones listening to "a record" -- I don't know how long that's going to last.

[Naknut]

Michidragon is dead on on his assessment. My daughter is of this generation and I'm amazed at how she listens to music, everything is downloaded and maybe burned to CD for the car. I was taken aback the other day when she was about to throw away 10 or so brand new CD jewel cases (these were manufactured music releases she had been given as gifts). I fished these out of the trash and asked why in the world she pitched these? Her answer was that see didn't need these cases as she transfered the CDs to a little travel case for her car.! Some of these were trifold slip case releases with wonderful artwork and liner notes. She saw no value in them....

[michidragon]

With a lot of kids, the same thing will likely happen to the CDs themselves (tossing the mout) after they're no longer popular, and have been ripped to a 'pile of files' on a hard drive. "Why do I need the disc? I have an mp3 of it."

I've got 400+ SACDs... I figure in 10 years I can invite some of those kids over and have them say, "Whoa, music used to sound like this? How come it doesn't now??"

Well, because that's how you wanted it, people, that's why.

[clhboa]

The real headscratcher is why don't they trade them in at the record store rather than toss 'em in the trash?

[michidragon]

The real headscratcher is why don't they trade them in at the record store rather than toss 'em in the trash?

probably something like:

"I got these at Best Buy and they won't take them back. What's a 'record store'? "

The concept of a "record store" to younger folks probably sounds like the notion of a warehouse store that sells nothing but forks, to us.

[michidragon]

'Quality don't care notion'...Smells somewhat like Gen Y who mostly listen to iPods...Quantity/Convenience over Quality' ... *fit*

This same 19 year old I talked to last night, this came up. He was VERY adamant about "convenience", and was almost hostile when I suggested that convenience came at a cost. The response was, that little else if anything else had as much value as "convenience".

[Eldorado]

This same 19 year old I talked to last night, this came up. He was VERY adamant about "convenience", and was almost hostile when I suggested that convenience came at a cost. The response was, that little else if anything else had as much value as "convenience".

I'm aware of this kind of attitude, I've encountered it myself, but I still see it as little different from the way people always approached music (or many other fields). It's MP3s today, but fifteen years ago it was poor quality prerecorded cassettes, and before that it was recycled vinyl and before that it was mono, and before that, tinny little transistor radios. The serious audiophiles have always been a minority fighting a losing battle. And we probably have to accept that for everyone, there is something called *good enough sound*; it's just that different people draw the line at different levels.

As for MP3s, I just don't think they have a long-term future. Are they seriously cheaper to produce than other digital formats? The two key reasons for their continued existence, I believe, are the iTunes store (never spent a dollar there, and never will), and the single, increasingly trivial advantage of MP3s that they requir less storage space. This may still be an issue with portable devices, but I don't see it being a dominant factor too far into the future. Meanwhile, the disadvantages of MP3 are likely to be increasingly apparent to users, or at least those of them who have more than a passing interest in music.

People are starting to adopt HD in massive numbers, specifically HD video, but along with that is the potential for high resolution audio. This may be television and PC driven, but if the music industry fails to keep up, it will simply be swept aside, and innovation will come from elsewhere. In effect this is what already happened with MP3, which was initially PC-based, and then adopted for use on portable devices, notably the iPod -- from Apple, a computer company. No one consulted the music industry on whether they were cool with this. It just happened, and all the record companies could do was watch.

Now, along with the increased adoption of HD is a consumer base that is becoming more knowledgeable about the various options available. To even be able to use the equipment nowadays - your PC, your home theater, your television, whatever - you have to educate yourself on the different formats. It was easier in the days of vinyl/R2R/cassette. So I think with that will come a lot of people with a better understanding of the technology and a desire for higher quality. The convenience-above-all people will always be there, but there are others who want more, and there will be a market for that. It just won't make sense to have a bunch of Bluray movies with top-notch sound and then a music collection made up entirely of MP3s. The disconnect is becoming too great.

I think (and hope) MP3 has pretty much had its day. It's had a very long run, but there are numerous competing (and vastly superior) formats out there, and eventually one of them will take over, leaving MP3 in the dust.

[Dazen1]

I'm aware of this kind of attitude, I've encountered it myself, but I still see it as little different from the way people always approached music (or many other fields). It's MP3s today, but fifteen years ago it was poor quality prerecorded cassettes, and before that it was recycled vinyl and before that it was mono, and before that, tinny little transistor radios. The serious audiophiles have always been a minority fighting a losing battle. And we probably have to accept that for everyone, there is something called *good enough sound*; it's just that different people draw the line at different levels.

As for MP3s, I just don't think they have a long-term future. Are they seriously cheaper to produce than other digital formats? The two key reasons for their continued existence, I believe, are the iTunes store (never spent a dollar there, and never will), and the single, increasingly trivial advantage of MP3s that they requir less storage space. This may still be an issue with portable devices, but I don't see it being a dominant factor too far into the future. Meanwhile, the disadvantages of MP3 are likely to be increasingly apparent to users, or at least those of them who have more than a passing interest in music.

People are starting to adopt HD in massive numbers, specifically HD video, but along with that is the potential for high resolution audio. This may be television and PC driven, but if the music industry fails to keep up, it will simply be swept aside, and innovation will come from elsewhere. In effect this is what already happened with MP3, which was initially PC-based, and then adopted for use on portable devices, notably the iPod -- from Apple, a computer company. No one consulted the music industry on whether they were cool with this. It just happened, and all the record companies could do was watch.

Now, along with the increased adoption of HD is a consumer base that is becoming more knowledgeable about the various options available. To even be able to use the equipment nowadays - your PC, your home theater, your television, whatever - you have to educate yourself on the different formats. It was easier in the days of vinyl/R2R/cassette. So I think with that will come a lot of people with a better understanding of the technology and a desire for higher quality. The convenience-above-all people will always be there, but there are others who want more, and there will be a market for that. It just won't make sense to have a bunch of Bluray movies with top-notch sound and then a music collection made up entirely of MP3s. The disconnect is becoming too great.

I think (and hope) MP3 has pretty much had its day. It's had a very long run, but there are numerous competing (and vastly superior) formats out there, and eventually one of them will take over, leaving MP3 in the dust.

Interesting post Eldorado.

It is all about education. Most people have probably never bothered to take time out and consider the sound as opposed to the content. This has been doing the rounds in the UK recently:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/8351921.stm

I think that says it all about what can be achieved on a very modest budget.

As for MP3s, well I think they will be around for a good while yet. A whole generation has embraced them and most won't give a damn about how they sound.

The record companies were too slow to react to the market. Apple (and others) jumped in and took advantage.

The potential to get great sound from your MAC/PC is there. It may be sterile and soulless but it is going to be the future for the majority.

I think I am one of the few Tapeheads that actually like CDs but even I will admit that optical media is on it's last legs.

[clhboa]

Dazen1, I too like cds. I resisted them at first but short of a full scale vinyl resurgence (not going to happen) I'd sure hate to see them disappear.

[DolbySProject]

Coincidentally, I just received a new MusicDirect catalog and it is jam packed with more new vinyl than I've ever seen in one of their catalogs. Acoustic Sounds, SoundStageDirect is bursting with the stuff. And as I've mentioned before, I've got a choice of several record stores for new (and used) vinyl. If there never is a resurgence, doesn't much matter... The stuff is readily available and folks are buying it, young and old and in between.