Cd’s when are they obsolete ?

Somebody's buying. That's my take.

 

1. When hard drive failure rates are way lower than they are now so storage is as reliable as CD.

and/or

2. When streaming is CD quality and artists/albums are available to stream consistently & reliably. E.g. An artist's catalog doesn't suddenly disappear from streaming sites.

I would consider unloading my physical collection if either of these conditions were true.

 

If you look at the numbers, CDs still sell a ton more than vinyl, and more than full album downloads. But yes, their sales are definitely at a decline.

I swear, a day doesn't go by where I don't hear someone says "who still buys CDs?", to which I have to answer... "um, me?"
Though to be fair, I buy about one CD a month, maybe one every other month. I have cut WAY back.

 

Um no,not by me,cd's are bad cassettes are good.

 

Im pretty much only buying special editions and Japanese remasters these days anyway.

Other stuff will just be a purchased download.

 

I bought like 18 CDs this week.

 

The trouble with the comparison is that it is relatively easy to produce a vinyl record and to manufacture a turntable. Both operate in mechanical principles. Neither requires a clean room or complicated electronics. A single artisan given enough time could make a record and a record player.

It is very difficult to manufacture a CD and a CD player. An artisan could not do it from scratch. You would need a factory.

This basic fact would make a revival after a shutdown of CD production extremely unlikely. The equipment involved is vastly more complicated and economies of scale could not be taken advantage of for what is sure to be a niche product.

When Blu-ray and DVD fall out of favor with the public, CD is done.

 

I don't pretend to know when the bottom's going to completely fall out. I mean, of course it has already to some extent, but its still a hundred million dollar industry so its not happening tomorrow. It will probably happen within the next 5-7 years as streaming becomes even more mainstream. But again, that's a complete guess. However, as with vinyl, second hand sales will continue as long as there's an internet. So its not like you'll never be able to buy a CD again.

As some has suggested, buying new players will be the real hurdle. But I think some company will always be there to fill that niche, even if it takes a few years for one of them to figure out that niche exists.

 

I suspect that as well. Just as turntables always were available (even if just by small scale niche manufacturers), I can't imagine a CD player not always existing, somewhere, in at least a "niche manufacturing" capacity. Of course, when I say "always existing somewhere" I mean probably at least for another 70 years or so perhaps.

 

I just bought a thrift cassette player and have been picking up a few cassettes at the thrift also.The reason...my 1997 Lincoln Town Car has a cassette player and I mainly use the car for road trips so I pick up more obscure old music on tape for those trips.No I do not plan on collecting cassettes.I thought i was done with them twenty years ago.

 

Yes! And remember - Japan is still out there doing their own thing. And they still very much love their CDs. So I imagine the newest players will all be Japanese and will probably kick all kinds of butt.

 

20 years from now young kids and the old folks still around,will be getting excited about National CD Store Day in mid April.There will be page after page of discussion here as to why did i get rid of all my CD's back then,why are they so popular now,it makes no sense,they were dead a few years ago!
There are many who collect 78's,45's,8 tracks,cassettes,no physical format will ever go completely out of style.Especially as long as thrift stores and flea markets exist
The three oldest record stores in this area,still have as many CD's for sale as they do vinyl,must be a reason for that.Also my local Half Price Books has more space devoted to CD's than they do to vinyl.

 

as I'm finding out this week, the problem with ripping CD's to your hard drive is that one hard drive failure and you're in a lot of trouble.

 

For me, old CDs are irresistible! Old fashioned dynamic mastering (and sometimes flat copies of original master tapes??!) captured in solid state... *slobber*

 

Don't have an answer to the OPs question, but I just bought 20 cds for $60 bucks in the past week. It's a good time to be adding to the collection.

 

I have no idea when or if CDs will become obsolete, but here is what I have noticed in the last few weeks. Bestbuy no longer sells CDs in my area. My local Walmart’s CD selection has dropped considerably in the last two weeks. Many of the shelves used for their CDs have been replaced with DVDs. The only place to buy CDs where I live is one used store and they keep raising prices.

All the while, the amount of CDs I have packed for customers to ship to their homes has increased significantly. I work for an online retailer and the number of CDs I pack are equal to the number of LPs I pack and they are growing. I have never seen a cassette come my way to be prepared for shipment.

I have also noticed a significant increase in flac digital downloads. Every week I notice more and more. I’ve seen the number of 24 bit albums becoming more common then what I saw available just five years ago. When I first discovered Hdtracks, I could not find another site like it. Now I find more and more websites that offer the same quality as Hdtracks.

So what does this all mean? It means that things are changing. Maybe CDs will disappear or maybe they will make a huge comeback. I really don’t know. The one thing I do know is that music will be here for a long time so enjoy it.

 

I still love CDs, though for the most part I just rip them to my computer and listen to the FLAC or WAV files. Ripping has gotten pretty flawless these days and you avoid the weird glitches that come from a disc player. And with huge GB hard discs you can rip all the tracks on lossless formats and not worry about storage space.

Best of all, thanks to the vinyl craze and streaming, everyone is dumping their old discs, so you can get great-sounding discs on Ebay and other places for cheap. My latest pickup was the Clash's Sandinista, a sprawling 3-LP set I bought used and shipped on CD for $5, and it was flawless.

Right now, I'm listening to Aerosmith's Pump, FLAC tracks ripped from the original 1989 CD. Sounds great!

 

Never bought into the cassette revival. I don't miss the tape getting chewed up, the rewinding, the playback getting worse with every play.
CDs properly cared for can last decades & sound as good as the day you bought them. No contest.

 

No wonder OPPO digital is packing it in.

 

the industry has been destroying itself to the detriment of bands and consumers for years ... and they wonder why kids now just want to play video games .....

 

Not hype. There is lots of great music being released in limited cassette or download only. Costs less. If you want the physical product you get the cassette. I've compared well produced cassettes played on my Nakamichi ZX-7 with FLAC downloads of the same music and I can't hear a difference.

 

All this talk about "the vinyl resurgence is on the verge of a bust", and "cd's are obsolete, and outdated". Blah blah blah..........I've been hearing the same talk for the last 5 years. Let's all take a break from beating the same dead horse. There will be a demand for physical media because it satisfies the urges of many groups of people. Vinyl hounds, collectors, hipsters, hoarders, analog junkies, art lovers, and those of us who love the sound of different masterings. The wonderful compact disc is not going anywhere for a long time.

 

And don't play them in a car stereo. One of my biggest regrets is playing my old v/c of Genesis' Foxtrot in my car. That's a hundred dollar disc. Now its got a bunch of hairline scratches. Thankfully, it still plays flawlessly. But - lesson learned.

 

$100 disc? Nice to know

 

I would like to know which version is worth $100. In the meantime, I'll finish listening to this Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick CD that I'm led to believe is quite hard to find.