How long do you give the CD?

[Symarip]

I haven't purchased one in probably a year or two. Sometimes a band I'm into will float me one but the second I get home I rip it and stick the physical medium on a shelf never to be played again. Everything is moving digital and it seems like once a month I read about how CD sales are down or the only place to buy a new CD from an artist is from Best Buy or Wal-Mart. I say, by 2010, the record industry will announce a move to a completely digital format.

I don't think this will mean a full extinction of the CD because that would be impossible. The CD is far more durable than a tape and everyone has CD burners/players in their computer for not only music, but data storage, as well. The LP never went away, either, they just stopped mass producing.

On a positive note, independent stores would probably do better with Walmart and Best Buy out of the CD selling business.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. I still like to buy CDs.

Given that I have finally joined the 21st Century and have myself an MP3 player now, I am in the process of ripping a good amount of my collection on the player, but still there is nothing like actually going and physically buying a CD you've been looking forward to buying for months, opening up the case and popping it in the CD player in your car. Somehow, the concept of downloading a new album seems rather anticlimatic to me. But I'm just funny like that.

The downside is, with the digital download revolution, I see less incentives for bands/artists to make actual albums that are worthy from start to finish. I see more bands/artists simply putting out one or two notable songs and the rest being filler.

[Symarip]

2. I totally agree

In fact, I still buy records because I feel this romanticism with vinyl and record sleeves with lots of art. It feels like it's a big deal. Stealing music off of torrent sites? Not so much.

[kentauros]

24. You don't have to steal from this site:

(and it's not torrent)

http://freealbums.blogsome.com/2005/07/21/hello-world
http://freealbums.blogsome.com

:D

[Initech]

4. Agreed.

I still like buying the CD and gettiing the actual physical copy of an album. I have all my albums ripped to a 160GB iPod classic and it's pretty sweet.

[guitar man]

3. Its hard to say

but I'm going to venture a guess at around 3-5 years. I'm curious to see how the development of portable digital audio progresses. As of now, I find the sound of mp3s and other compressed audio formats seriously lacking in fidelity. I am probably part of a small minority though because most of my friends I have polled on the subject either don't mind the quality loss or more commonly can't tell the difference.The convenience of downloading and putting it into the ipods and mp3 players from their computer at home or burning to CD to play in the car or whatever seems to outstrip quality loss.

I'm curious as to if/when we will see a portable format that is at least equal to 16/44.1 uncompressed PCM. Right now, file size seems to be the big barrier, but as drives get bigger and bigger, the prospect of carrying quality audio on the go becomes more promising.

[begin_within]

5. 74 minutes

The playing time of the CD format was chosen because the average running time of Beethoven's 9th Symphony is 74 minutes.

[DS1]

6. Far more durable than a cassette?

While tapes can break, the cassette itself was extremely durable compared to a CD surface. How many boxes of CDs have you rummaged through?

None. Because you can't.

[RadiationTherapy]

7. CDs are crap and any forward-looking artist can, essentially, do away with them.

CDs as data storage is already past tense. Any issues of quality really comes down to storage space since we can already digitize music at near-analog quality producing fairly large audio files.

[guitar man]

8. "near-analog quality"

+1 :thumbsup:

Most of the youngsters these days wouldn't get that reference, but I do. Digital audio is still struggling to deliver the best that analog had to offer. 24 bit is getting close, I'm using an ADAT hd-24 in my studio setup due to cost considerations, but if I won the powerball and money was no object, I'd have a 2" 24 track analog machine and mix down to 1/2" analog at 30ips.

The problem I see now is, for all the advances we have made in recording technology, a really large portion of the music that gets recorded with it winds up getting mashed down into a 128kbps mp3 file that sounds like ass for the sake of portability. It's akin to to watching an HD movie on Youtube. Convienent? Yes. Highly Portable? Yes. Quality? No. :(

[Symarip]

9. My first album I recorded on 2 inch

Good times. I'm more of an analog listener, anyhow. Probably why I have twice as many records as I do CD's.

[guitar man]

10. yes indeed

I had a friend back in the 80s that scored a MCI 2 inch 16 track for his garage studio and I was green with envy. The best analog machine I ever had was a Teac 80-8 half inch 8 track. It did pretty good for what it was, but the difference in that and the 2 inch was breathtaking.

[ipfilter]

11. Oh come on,

next your going to try to tell me that an old Fender Twin Reverb sounds better than the latest Line 6 gizmo. :)

[guitar man]

14. of course not

everybody knows the latest line 6 gizmo will produce an exact replication of not only the Twin Reverb but 100 other classic amps as well! :silly:


:sarcasm:

[bif]

12. The sound quality is still superior to mp3s.

So I don't think they'll ever go away.

[Symarip]

13. That didn't stop the CD from replacing the record

And records have better sound quality.

[ipfilter]

15. I thought the CD killed the cassette and not the LP.

You can still buy LP's, I haven't see a tape in years.

[Symarip]

16. Tapes were still in mass production until the late 90s

CD's main target was the record owner because it claimed higher fidelity and portability.

[bif]

17. Plus LPs cost more to make than a cd.

[Symarip]

18. It was a complete concerted effort

Notice record players were manufactured out of plastic parts around the same time that CD's were making a splash.

[Orrex]

19. I could never quite get the record player to work in my car

Especially when driving over train tracks.

[Symarip]

20. Geez, get with the times.

http://www.elpj.com/

It's only like, 13,000 dollars.

[Orrex]

27. That's like 10X the bluebook of my current vehicle

Sign me up!

[ipfilter]

21. You must have had one of these.

[Bake]

22. I'd miss the liner notes.

It was bad enough when LPs died, because there was more space for the liner notes, credits, etc.

Bake

[guitar man]

23. that's why I liked LPs

The art of the album cover was fantastic. I remember getting a new album and putting it on the turntable then kicking back and checking out the jacket and sleeve. I'd read every word and look at every picture while the album was playing. When I had friends over for a get together, I'd stand the currently playing album cover up on display in front of the stereo so everyone could see what was playing. Sometimes though, the album cover might be getting passed around. :evilgrin:

[Deja Q]

26. And the graphical art put into them

[Deja Q]

25. With consumers buying blank discs to play the media on set top players and in cars anyway

:crazy:

Besides, a professionally pressed disc will last rather longer than a burned copy -- not to mention your hard drive, technically, can snuff it without warning. As many computer users need help finding the 'esc' key or even the power button, they're not going to back things up. Backups can fail too.

Native CD quality is far higher than compressed MP3 or other formats. Though 320kbps MP3 quality is near-CD quality.

[AlCzervik]

28. i hope a long time, i have tons of cds but i also have lots of tapes.

we have one independent record store in my town and that's where i buy most of my music, i can get it new but they almost always have it used as well which is a hella deal.