CDs Are Dying Three Times as Fast as Vinyl Is Growing

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by pseudopod, Sep 20, 2018.

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  1. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Good. I wouldn't want all that fierce competition for owning the best discs.
     
    TheVU likes this.
  2. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing

    Location:
    Nashville
    Are CD's not slightly better sound quality?


    There are at least three streaming services that stream in lossless CD quality. It's taking longer than I expected, but I am confident the others will follow suit in time, the idea of offering a higher-priced tier seems like a no-brainer, even if it's a niche product. It's basically free money for them. It will happen.

    They still do, unfortunately. The vast majority of stuff streamed are still big pop hits pooped out by major label factories. I was hoping streaming would cause them to die a long, painful death, but it seems the opposite is true, because normal people have terrible taste in music, which really isn't surprising, I guess.
     
  3. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    One unintended benefit of CD prices cratering is that (I hope) my collection is no longer worth stealing.

    Just last week I had the longstanding anxiety nightmare of coming home, finding the door jimmied and my possessions cleared out -- always a relief to wake up from this dream! Were this to happen in real life, I hope the thieves would pass on the CDs as worthless.
     
    davers, mikedifr0923 and jay.dee like this.
  4. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing

    Location:
    Nashville
    Apparently I've been tired of life for over a decade now. :wiggle: Guess I'll just go cue up some Coltrane I've never heard before on my tired of life machine.
     
    Vinyl_Blues and Nick Dunning like this.
  5. TheVU

    TheVU Forum Resident

    Honestly. This is great news for anyone who likes stereos.

    You can now buy used CDs for 90’s used record prices.

    You can now get all kinds of music on record that you never would before.

    Before you start sticking the “cd on vinyl” dick in my ear, I’m talking about things like endless reissues of Big Star, High end Rodriguez presses, long lost Ennio Morricone soundtracks, and one step reissues of gold standards. Things that frankly would have died without the combination of the internet and dedicated individuals.
     
    OptimisticGoat likes this.
  6. Joe Haley

    Joe Haley New Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I think that getting rid of CD's, records and tapes and even my my old photographs is a very bad idea. Yes, downloads that are stored on Clouds and on hard drives are convenient and sound and look very good - now- but there is the question of tangibility and future performance on newer technology. I feel a lot more secure being able to hold my music and photos in my hands on tangible formats as opposed to losing it all in one fell swoop when the Cloud goes away or your hard drives lose everything and even the best tech cannot retrieve it. Records and tapes have a long proven track record for sound storage and decent sound quality providing the original recording was well cared for and stored properly AND there are still machines around that can accurately reproduce them. All digital storage, including CD's, has a big question mark around it as far as how long music and video can be stored on that format and still be accurately reproduced by future technologies. No, even though the digital revolution has been wonderful for sound and video and even our old personal memories, do you think it is wise to totally discard your records, tapes and photographs and even your CD's and totally trust your memories, your life's soundtracks and pictures, to Clouds and hard drives with a questionable record of storage longevity? I'm not so sure. That's just one man's opinion and observation.
     
    ChazFromCali and Pop_Zeus like this.
  7. bherbert

    bherbert Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Africa
    Cd Japan is making a good deal of money out of me due to my addiction to mini LP cd’s.
     
  8. fairies

    fairies Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    addiction to mini LP cd’s, YEEEEES me tooooo
     
    bherbert likes this.
  9. weekendtoy

    weekendtoy Rejecting your reality and substituting my own.

    Location:
    Northern MN
    My CD collection grew by four over the lunch hour.

    Purchased from the last remaining record/CD store in a community of 150,000. That part is a bit disturbing...
     
    ChazFromCali and Pop_Zeus like this.
  10. Mr. LP Collector

    Mr. LP Collector Forum Resident

    Lots of interesting opinions here. There always are when you talk about lp's versus cd's.

    I set up at out of state record shows a few times a year. And do two tables if they're 6 ft. long. Over the last few years I do one table of lp's and one table of cd's. For the most part I make close to the same money with each table. There's a few things I look at regarding cd's.

    1. It's getting easier to sell cd's at show if you care about presentation. If the cases show too much wear or if they come in two pieces, it's the trash bin for them. I've gotten it in the shorts recently from online sources for new cd cases so I buy them from Office Depot. A 12 pack costs $5. 29 and lately they've been running sales, the latest one being 30% off if you spend $30 in the store. They're Maxell cases, I like them the best. If anyone out there has a suggestion regarding suppliers, I'd like to hear who you recommend.

    2. I also use polypropylene cd sleeves. I get them from Amazon prime, the dealer who works w/ Amazon there is Uniquepacking. The cost is $6.50 for a package of 100. Needless to say, there aren't many sellers who sell cd's at the record swaps, other than guys who do bootlegs (I don't). People will pay the extra buck if you think about presentation. I've used sleeves on vinyl for years. I do with cd's as well.

    3. STOCK-----I'm real conservative there-here are artists I don't mess with; Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Clint Black, Faith Hill, Bruce Springsteen, and basically mass produced top 50. I don't know how many Dion cd's I've seen in mom and pop cd stores lately in the dollar bins but it's a sizable amount, trust me. I've been warmongering sales, not only yard and estate, but also PBS radio fundraisers, other stores that close, and of course the local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. What people are buying from me is bluegrass, 60's folk, reggae, vintage jazz, pre 1970 country, 1964-1974 classic rock, progressive, to name a few genres. But one thing I always try to do is pay attention to Amazon's prices, and music sites like Music Stack and Discogs. One thing I don't do anymore is buy cd's at the shows, too many times people bring in a box and 90 % of it is stuff the local stores sell for a dollar or two.

    At some point in time the future of cd's at shows might go kathud, but might not. But I've been lucky reaching buyers who go through the vinyl and have a stack and then go through my cd's. If they pull out a stack of cd's, what do I do. Give them a big discount! The corniest saying in the 21'st century is "The Golden Rule", but I always make people feel welcome at my table, always offer a discount when possible (except for consignment items), always thank them for their purchase.

    Treat people like you would like to be treated.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2019
  11. wallpaperman

    wallpaperman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Edinburgh
    We had the unfortunate reality just over two years ago, the house was fairly well ransacked (though not actually trashed). I have quite a fair CD collection, they tossed a few CD's about but didn't appear to take any, which kind of lightened the mood with my wife when we got over the initial shock.

    Though to this day I cannot find one CD in an Icicle Works expanded edition set of 3. I like to think they took one as a souvenir but in reality it's probably somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot find it. :D
     
    billnunan likes this.
  12. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    You'd give up new music just because it isn't on CD?

    I never want to be this narrowly focused when it comes to new music consumption.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2019
    DumbMagician likes this.
  13. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    It's a business, not some guy's house.

    I'm sure the owner crunched the numbers, looked at the new retail space and decided on what would make the most sense to sell. One of my somewhat nearby record stores have had a $2 CD fire-sale going on for awhile now and that owner had told me at one point that they were curtailing used CD purchases in general.

    Unless these owners are just clueless. But it's their business and livelihood, not mine.
     
    deredordica, TonyCzar and Vinyl_Blues like this.
  14. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Just standard stuff - quality music and a decent presentation. You will not run out of buyers, not nearly as fast as you run out of vinyl.
     
  15. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Same feeling. Car stereos are pretty critical as that's where you get the "instant gratification crowd".

    Go to a store, see a CD that's either a new album best seller, or a greatest hits package and you can play it almost immediately (once you get the damn wrapping off). No CD player in the car = no more of these people. They'll just stream as data plans and coverage improves.

    The lack of optical drives in laptops is the other killing blow. That's where many people would listen to a CD, five years back - it wasn't on their home stereo. Today you have Echo's and HomePod's and, surprise, their is no optical drive there.
     
  16. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    You do realize that a good chunk (perhaps most) of the consumers buying vinyl are older classic rock folks who all want the same 100 albums (Kiss, Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, etc.). As far as hipsters go, they've been analog people for quite some time. In fact, they go all the way back to the 50's. Stupid people with taste! I'm all for the cd by the way, I just get tired of people saying "hipster this, hipster that." It really has nothing to do with hipsters. I'd rather see young scruffy skinny guys doing something they love than working for some rich guy waiting for a million cds to arrive from China.
     
    Imagine70 likes this.
  17. MYQ1

    MYQ1 Forum Resident

    The majority of the world are like "CDs are square. You know like four corners":

    [​IMG]

    I don't care.
    I'm still buying them, cheap too.
     
  18. Norco74

    Norco74 For the good and the not so good…

    Going CD is the best and cheapest way of buying/beefing up a collection.

    I recenlty dived deeper in the classical music repertoire. Incredible bargains are easy to find.

    I love vinyl but at its current price and dodgy quality, only 1 out of 15 item will be on vinyl.

    Soon the cd will be a niche market if not already.
     
    Papi Hipbone323 likes this.
  19. Danby Delight

    Danby Delight Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    Mike Dreese has built an empire out of one little comic book store on the ass-end of Newbury Street long before it was a shopping Mecca. Pretty sure he knows what he's doing. Hell, I bet they probably bought the new space instead of renting it.
     
    Gaslight likes this.
  20. rene smalldridge

    rene smalldridge Senior Member

    Location:
    manhattan,kansas
    My local music emporium is quite similar. The owner , for the most part , will not purchase CDs although she will accept them gratis and will give vinyl trade value for certain artists ( not much though ). She still manages to have quite a stock of them on hand with reasonable turnover. Vinyl simply flies out the door both used and new.
     
    Gaslight likes this.
  21. rene smalldridge

    rene smalldridge Senior Member

    Location:
    manhattan,kansas
    Some folks just really have a long hair up their behinds about the vinyl resurgence and the CD collapse and can't seem able to remove it.
     
    Pop_Zeus likes this.
  22. MYQ1

    MYQ1 Forum Resident

    Just bought two more CDs since my previous post.
     
  23. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    The "no dying here! I just bought some CD's!" comments in particular are very strange. [see the post right above mine]

    I actually buy more CD's than vinyl - been this way for at least a year now given the dirt cheap prices. But I am not under the delusion that somehow this means that a CD return is on its way. If anything else, the fire-sale prices are more akin to an early store liquidation sale.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2019
    TonyCzar, davers, Vinyl_Blues and 2 others like this.
  24. Musical Chairs

    Musical Chairs Forum Resident

    There is only one quality used CD store in my area. The combined CD inventory of all the other record stores is smaller than my personal collection.
     
    mrogers and Somerset Scholar like this.
  25. MYQ1

    MYQ1 Forum Resident

    My previous post doesn't deny CDs are on their way out.....
    I'm often buying them for less than the cost of a download, shipping included.
     
    Somerset Scholar likes this.
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