Cds demise, or not?

It offers far better sound than vinyl LP's can: lower noise floor, wider dynamics, silent backgrounds - the problem with CD isn't the media itself, simply the botched mastering most of the time.

This ^^^^^

Definitely this ^^^^^^

 

Your entire life "big media" has largely controlled what you see or hear in terms of what movies and books and records got made, how they were distributed, when and how they went out of print. These days, with so many platforms for media, and with the internet, and with file sharing, and with the cheap digital and networked means of production and distribution of words and pictures and music, "big media" has less control than ever before. Artist put out their own material and it has national and global reach; there's a gigantic black market of instantly available media, and BTW there are other streaming services besides Netflix. By 1954, when A Star Is Born was done with it's theatrical run, it was done, no one ever saw it again, unless "big media" of TV decided to air it (at a time when ever the largest markets has only a handful of TV stations operating in them). When a TV show went off the air, it was gone. In 1982, how easy was it to watch an episode of The Judy Garland Show?

And, BTW, "big media" always controlled when, where and how you got to see The 40-Year-Old Virgin since the day Universal Studios acquired the distribution rights.

Of course neither Netflix nor Amazon are "free," subscribers pay a monthly fee to use them. If producers of a film to make sure you're charged to watch a movie, that hardly seems unreasonable to me, same thing with the makers of an audio recording. You had the option of watching the movie you wanted to watch, you just had to pay for it, just like you would have if you went to see it in the movies.

If people in the public find that the music or movies or shows they're interested in are not available on their streaming services, they'll switch to another streaming service or drop streaming entirely. Let's see what happens, it's going to be an interesting couple of years now that in music streaming has become the revenue leaders (at least in the US) and the various stakeholders in the market are fighting over a share of the pie; and in movies and TV with the war between Netflix and Disney over TV production talent as Disney preps its own streaming service.

 

@ShayLaB wrote that "CDs have gotta do something better than anything else". So, of course CDs have benefits. There just isn't a benefit that you can't get just as easily using some other format. Vinyl on the other hand has certain benefits unique to the format (as well as many disadvantages of course).

 

What benefits does vinyl have ?

 

"tactile pleasure" to once again quote @ShayLaB

 

So does CD.

 

I beg to differ. ymmv

 

Don't know, I have to touch mine to get them in the player. We're not going to have a debate about degrees of tactile pleasure, are we?

 

Yes, this does seem to be a bit desperate.

 

Unobtainable mastering. Same can go for compact disc. All is not equal on either side
Not sure went wrong with the compact disc format of this single.

 

I love vinyl but I would buy more newer artists on CD if the mastering was better. I get the argument for brick-walling (wait for it) for streaming services. Most of the time you wont be listening in ideal situations or you'll be hearing different tracks from different artists. But there's no reason to keep it up for psychical media.

CD technology is still great! You can't say that about much technology that was first released in the early 80's. Would love to see a three mastering system of Vinyl, CD and Streaming. But I know that will never happen.

 

Well, it's not vinyl that's taking the starch out of the market for CDs. Vinyl hasn't been the market leader, in the US at least, since 1982 -- cassette had overtaken it in 1983 -- and even after years of revival it's still only 5.4% of the market. And streaming also has all the above virtues plus it's even cheaper and even lower maintenance. CD's decline really ramps up when internet file sharing arrives, and picks up speed as paid downloads and now paid streaming really started taking off. So the choice most people are making is not between CD and vinyl but between CD and non-physical digital.

What's interesting is that in the prior eras -- CD, cassette, vinyl -- there was a clear dominant format that largely displaced other formats. Now the market is music more of a mix of revenues from a variety of formats. In the US, streaming is the biggest portion of that, with paid subscription streaming the biggest part of the streaming total (streaming subs alone represent 49% of the market and with ad-supported and other streaming, the income from streaming is above 60% of the market; CD's only around 12%). In these atomized times, where instead of mass media we sort of have media of the masses, multiple formats seem to be necessary to reach all the different sorts of consumers out there.

Below is a version of the RIAA chart of dollar volume US sales by format adjusted for inflation. I've eliminated things like sync fees and fees from the likes of satellite radio and formats like 8-track, below is just the chart for LP, CD, cassette, downloads and streaming.

Looking at the interactive version is even better because you can customize it and mouse-over parts of the chart to see detail: Tableau Public

 

I'll add my two cents to this and say that vinyl can colour the sound in a pleasant way, while digital can represent the master more accurately.

 

CD appears to have a greater market share than all other formats, barring paid subscriptions.....

 

Not to dwell on this point, but the colour is actually distortion.
I'm still to hear of a clear, accepted, unique benefit of vinyl, not just opinion.

 

Can't you buy a digital version from amazon?

Yes, you can, it's ten bucks.

 

If you go to the RIAA website you can mouseover and see detail. Yeah, last year in the RIAA stats CD was around 12% of the market, paid subs around 49% of the market, limited tier paid sub another nearly 7% of the market, revenue from satellite radio and the like another 7.5% of the market, on-demand ad supported streaming another 7.5% and "other ad supported streaming" another 3 percent. Downloaded singles and download albums were each around 7.5% so together downloads are actually bigger than CD; and obviously paid and ad supported streaming together is much bigger than anything else.

 

Let's all celebrate National Netflix Day.

 

Ten bucks! I haven't paid more than £1 for a movie for years. You can pick up decent boxsets for £5.

 

My point was that it's easily available. And ten bucks isn't going to break anybody who collects dvds.

When I was a kid I had to wait years to see and hear things I had read about.

 

Remember that the 90s were unnaturelly profitable. Any dumb sexy thing could sell millions of CDs since the single was dead. Quoting a rate my music user:

"The 90's was by far the biggest decade for the music industry.Sales were so massive it seemed like nothing could go wrong. Literally anything could sell 10 million copies or more, country, pop, grunge, metal, rap, even musical scores. By the late 90's the record business had boiled down much of its CD business to a simple formula:2 good songs + 10 or 12 mediocre songs = 1 $15 CD, meaning billions of dollars in overall sales.

In the short term dozens of artists and labels made mountains of cash off this formula. Remember OMC's "How Bizarre", Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping"? These were one hit wonders, but the acts were lucky enough to make records in an era when fans had no other choice but to buy the album in order to get the single.

But hell was around the corner for the music bizz. The next decade would be the greatest time of upheaval for the bizz as CD sales were cut in half.
"​

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/abyss89/the_100_biggest_selling_albums_of_the_90s__usa_/

Why not both. If you trust the governments and big cooperations completely to mean you no harm, go ahead. I won't ever..

 

i don't trust government or big corp inc and your statements up there are spot on

 

I think I owned seven off that list. I probably won't buy anymore of them though.

 

And yet - it's apparently hard to buy a new car equipped with a CD player.

 

Not in the UK, it isn't. Still plenty of new cars with CD players.