How the CD lost its sheen - a 30 year tale of rise and fall

i don't think lowering the prices would have helped, people got tired of cd's, it's that simple really.

What are they going to do with cd's? Most people do not even have a stereo in the living-room anymore.

 

People in America drive their cars quite a bit, listen to music on laptops, and listen to music on boom boxes, making the CD a portable format. Compression allows people to listen to music in the car at a volume that they are satisfied with.

 

Yes, in that sense, but it still has absolutely nothing to do with compression.

 

Compression allows people to listen to CDs in the car at a volume that they are satisfied with.

 

When I met my wife in '98 her CD collection was almost all hits collections. She says she just likes good songs that she hears on the radio. She is elated to have downloads and Satellite Radio. I am sure some streaming service will come next.

 

Well, I'm glad to say that in the twenty years I've been involved in putting music out I've never had a conversation about mastering a CD to sound good in a car stereo.

 

You don't need CDs to make files. You just need the file itself from a download.

 

What's the volume knob for?

 

Switching between loud and really loud

 

The internet needs to be functioning for your equipment to work, right?

 

Compression more than just mastering for radio, many mastering-engineers think that's how it suppose to sound, that they actually enchance the product. that's what scares me the most. Lack of good taste.

Why would they bother puting that much compression on remasters not ever going to be played on the radio?

I watched the video about the mastering of Iron Maiden back-catalog, the engineer bragged about his state-of-the-art equipment and how for the first time you can hear how the master-tapes sound. What he though was the right thing to do was compress them to brick-walling standard. The end result, well... Sounded like crap!

 

Everyone at some point exchange gold for mirrors. CDs then were the perfect 12cm mirrors.

 

No. No internet at all. Files are locally stored, it uses my home wifi network.

 

30 Years is actually pretty good. VHS tapes and Laser Discs would have fantasised about a 30 year lifespan.

 

That's what I do: buy a CD, rip to the hard drive, then streamed through various devices around the house. Add Spotify and I can stream heaps more music. Sorted.

CD had a good 30 year run, but just as it replaced vinyl for convenience, so too will downloads and streaming replacing CDs. 'Twas ever thus, although I for one do not fully welcome our new non-physical music delivery overlords. Sure I enjoy having Spotify, but streams disappear, and there's no second-hand market for downloads, meaning no snapping up bargains as I do with CD/LP.

Convenience and "good enough is good enough" perceptions of quality win out, always.

And LOL at those in earlier posts hand-waving away vinyl's inconvenience; there are so many posts here and on other stereo forums I read about having to exchange new records because of warps/scratches/noise; having to clean both new and old records; buying expensive record cleaning machines and cleaning solutions; setting up arms for correct tracking weight; buying what looks to be pristine vinyl only to find out that someone's used a worn needle that has wrecked the sound; etc. You gotta do all that before you listen? Then it's inconvenient, and most people don't want to deal with that. With a CD I am 99.99% sure a new one will play without problems, and a used one, even with some scratches, can generally play/rip with 100% accuracy (although there's no denying that some CDs can be trashed, and these are easy to spot). With iTunes its click, download, and play; and with Spotify/bluetooth I can think of a song, find it, and play it just about wherever I am. Notice the increase in convenience (though not necessarily sound quality) with each step from vinyl to CD to MP3 to streaming. That's how it goes, that's where it will go from here, too (maybe hi-res streaming of any song/any time/any where, but who knows).

--Geoff

 

OK, gotcha.

 

or if you have one its pretty much a bad quality one...

 

Yeah, same here. I still have a few hundred albums, mostly stuff that is collectible. Every time I play one of them I worry about damaging it.

I've never even played the vinyl that comes in the deluxe Led Zeppelin box sets because I don't want to make it look less than pristine and the download card that came with the set satisfied all of my needs.

 

Seriously, if anyone wants the better sound quality out of vinyl without the hassle, I don't know why they don't just rip the vinyl to digital and use the digital file from there on out. Of course you still gotta deal with all the hassle of vinyl to even get the digital rip in first place.

 

Complicated? How old are you 100? Even my 70 years old man streams his music from an Apple time capsule using his iphone 6.

Ah, don't tell me, i get it....too much dope on the younger days damage the brain, say no to drugs

 

Vinyl — not for wimps mad for all mod cons.

 

Okay, just checking.

 

You guys sound like a barrel of fun to hang out with.

 

Yeah, I have all my stuff on hard drives. One time we had a very serious possibility of tornado outbreaks. I grabbed all my hard drives and threw them into a "go bag" before I left for work, just in case my apartment got flattened.

That would have been impossible with CDs or vinyl.

 

I enjoy CDs as a back up method or a cheap way to get a physical copy of a lossless file/particular pressing. For playback methods, they're pretty much worthless at this point. But they're nice to have as a physical copy of the source just in case the hard drive goes out or something like that. Or they're just nice to have in general, if you're into the physical aspect of things. But again, as far as playback goes --- no.

Vinyl is fun to play with but the added bulk and fussing about with making it "right" is too much hassle for me. But I enjoy it when I go to others' houses or whatever. I myself have vinyl but I haven't fixed my record player in years. I gotta get on that, as I wouldn't mind having it set up just play with.