Are CD's coming back?

I guess a CD format is a form of hardware. Interesting news.

I use all sorts of streaming as well as collect CD's. I personally like buying the physical format. Even though its handy to access everything on streaming, it's nice to have your favorite artists and try building a collection in physical format.

I Thought CDs Were Supposed To Be Dying, But Maybe I Got It All Wrong

 

No, not coming back at this time. Several major CD plants have closed down, or ceased pressing CD.

 

WEA Manufacturing and DADC/Sony Disc Manufacturing in the USA have closed down, both huge plants. Or no longer pressing Compact Discs.

 

Interesting article, especially the info about the manufacturing plants relocating to Mexico and production challenges for the occasional spikes in demand.

 

I am buying more cds now than ever before. I love LPs too but its got to be a month or more since i played an LP. Seem to be listening to more music than before. I guess i am staying in a lot more now its cold. Ordered 4 CDs this week end. CDs are here to stay. Promise

 

I don't think the article suggests that CDs "are coming back". The gist is that the majors underestimated CD demand for some key releases that turned out to be hot sellers.

I think CD will continue as a niche format. That's fine with me. I don't care what the mainstream does and I'll still buy them.

 

Cars and Apple products must be dying as well since they're mostly no longer made in the U.S..

 

The used market is where its at with CDs.... They can be found dirt cheap... Where as used vinyl prices have skyrocketed because "They are cool" at the moment... I remember 20 years ago used vinyl was cheap and CDs were super expensive...

 

CDs will be continued to made. Think of the some 3rd world countries where internet isn't used widely. Streaming isn't a valid source of obtaining media for consumption there. But I will state that setting cell towers are much easier to set up as infrastructure, so there will be a push to get the lagging countries up to date. So the CDs decline may further accelerate. But, I doubt CDs will disappear as fast cassettes did. We are almost 20 years into legal downloads and now we are into rental distribution models. They are still are being sold. But Best Buy doesn't sell them. If they stop being sold at Wal-Mart, you'll know the bottom is about to drop.

 

Absolutely! Maybe a good thing that cds are becoming more niche....maybe they'll start offering better mastering now instead of the brickwalled cr*p. And yes, the time to get good original masters/copies of cheap 2nd hand cds is now.

 

Other than the occasional thrift shop find, I haven't bought LPs in years. My CD buying has also dwindled significantly. For now, 90% or more of my listening is streaming. The main reason is because I finally have good wi-fi at my home in the boonies. Along with increased bandwidth have been an increase in high bitrate internet radio streams. Add in Pandora and Spotify Premiun (I get the student version) and I can listen to whatever crosses my mind at a quality level that's pleasing to me. I spent a LOT more than the $5 a month I pay for Spotify today when I was buying records in the 60's-80's and then CDs from the late 80's until the last couple of years. I can spend $5 for 30 days of almost any album I want to listen to or $8-10 for a CD of one album. I don't see CDs making a big comeback unless the streaming model collapses.

 

Who cares if new cd's are still made if they are squashed and distorted? I'm in this for great music that sounds great, not ear bleeders. Hopefully they start to realize that many of the people who still buy CD's are audiophiles and want them to sound good. The people that don't care about sound quality are gravitating towards streaming anyways. Rarely does modern music sound good. I agree with @TheRealMcCoy , the used market is where its at. I have been buying a nice mix of CD's and vinyl lately after buying mostly vinyl for a year. I think on average I can get the CD's for about 1/3 of what the vinyl costs.

 

Well, that may have been true once but I don't think is true any longer. When you can stream at CD quality or better, I think your statement begs credibility. I don't have the system that some here have but with a Marantz PM8004 IA, NHT SuperOne speakers, and streaming though my iPad on high quality streams, the music sounds awfully good to my ears.

 

I didn't say audiophiles don't stream also. I was commenting on the decline of CD's because the majority of listeners don't care about sound quality, streaming makes a lot more sense. Where if you have a Hoffman mastered CD, you know what you are getting.

 

The more I read about streaming the more I play physical media. What if Media Streaming went the way of San Fransisco housing and you could not afford it anymore, 100% streamers would be left with nothing. Once the service provider knows your hooked the cost goes up.

 

I still buy CD's but only at the thrift for $2 or less, and there are lots of great ones available at every trip. There is absolutely no reason for them to "come back" as it is a storage medium, not an audio format. NO reason for them to come back any more than the 5.25" floppy needs to come back.

 

If that happened, we would be back to the Napster days. The labels would not let that happen as the revenue they get from streaming is far better than nothing. They complain about how little they get per play, but there are huge economies of scale at play, and their delivery costs have dropped to nothing.

Honestly, I like the concept of "renting" my music since the previous model was a charade any way. I was told for years that I could not do what I wished with my media because I only bought the right to listen to the content and not the content itself. As such why have I bought many, many copies of so many titles in so many formats?

 

Interesting comments, BT, and well made.

 

I don't think they are making a comeback and even if they did, the stores where they used to be sold are all gone now. It's a pity because record stores where like bookstores - a very relaxing place to waste free time and meet interesting people.

 

The difference is, when you buy the physical format, you buy the right to listen it for free at any time for a lifetime, and whoever inherited it, also can listen to it etc. With streaming, you have to pay to the "landlord" a monthly tax, and he have the right to cut your access to you favorite music at any time. Not to mention the Internet provider who's also involved. With the physical media you depend only on electricity.

 

That actually happened to me with my Tidal subscription and some albums that disappeared from my music library. Without any notice a whole bunch of them went *poof*.

 

Yes, and that's normal - same happens with movies/tv shows streaming platforms. But while I don't mind if some movie is not available for streaming for a year or two, I'm not OK when this happens with some favorite music of mine. I have a Spotify subscription and I enjoy it (so much music to explore etc.), but everything valuable and favorite I prefer to own in a physical format.

 

Not sure I understood the point of that article. I mean, the author even admits at the end that CDs are in fact dying. So why would he think that "he got it all wrong?"

 

I'm curious, with Spotify, if you download a song or an album to your device and quit your subscription at some point, does the downloaded material go poof?

 

One can stream at CD quality or better, but are there any citations that a significant number of people are?