CD's Gone By 2020?

So, 2020 is now 5 months away, and I doubt they'll go that fast.

However, I am noticing some changes:

1) Amazon are not stocking as much. I figured sites such as Amazon would always have a link up, their logistics really should enable them to either hold stock, or get it quickly to fulfill an order. The reality is, once the initial stock is sold out, I'm seeing things simply sit with no reasonable expectation of coming into stock again.

2) The secondhand market is drying up. I have a wish List of more than 2000 items, and have had for years. Unlike some on this site, I'm genuinely wanting many discs, from many genres, and I don't mind much which order I get them in. So, if it's not especially urgent, it goes on to the Wish List until a compelling price comes up. I'm noticing that less and less of them are coming down in price in recent months. If anything, prices have gone up slightly.

3) As others have noted, Amazon are sneaking in CDR's that masquerade as new CD's. The debate about this practice is being had elsewhere, but I think it's happening because some idiot somewhere imagines CDR's are the answer to less CD sales. THEY'RE WRONG, but it doesn't stop them trying.

That's my immediate observations. There are still bargains out there, but you have to dig deeper. I'm putting together a list of CD's I simply must have, even if they're full price. I'll whittle away at that list in the coming months.

 

Yep, the new Stray Cats album is a CD-R from Amazon. That's why I have held off on ordering it, until I get the extra cash to buy it on vinyl.

 

was thinking of picking up some of the 97 Kiss remasters from Amazon, but now its got me wondering. Don't they still have to mention if its a CDR or not?

 

From what i can make out, sometimes they do, sometimes not.

You can read something about it here: Anyone Bought Commercially Released CDs That Seem to BE CD-Rs?

 

I think you're trying to redefine "audiophile" from it's actual meaning -- lover of audio -- to a meaning closer to "lover of physical media." They're not the same thing. Neither by literal definition nor in practice.

I modify all my audio gear; I do real time analysis of my listening room with calibrated equipment to set up my gear for the flattest possible frequency response and most even decay times; my listening room has extensive bass trapping, broadband absorption, diffusion -- I'm extremely engaged by lifelike imaging and a kind of broad deep soundstage where the speakers disappear as apparent sources and these things help a lot in that regard; when I listen to music it tends to be the only thing I'm doing, I don't put on music all that often as background to other activities, music and audio is not a mood thing for me, I sit in my carefully designed listening room and listen to the music; and there are tons of recording I enjoy as much for the audio as for the music -- I take pleasure in just how it sounds. The source can be anything -- CD, LP, streaming, even downloaded files, though I tend not to prefer downloads. But my interest is a) the music; and b) the audio. Not so much the record or CD or stream, or where it comes from. How it sounds, yes. What format it's playing back from, nah. BTW, the CDs aren't damaged , just the jewel cases.

As I said, the literal and practical meaning of "audiophile" is lover of audio, there's nothing in the word or concept of "audiophile" that means lover of physical media.

 

I find this incorrect. Audiophile stands for those who search for exceptional quality, not just a music/audio lover.

 

Amazon lists whatever their distribution partners offer. All 7 of my releases are on Amazon, and from numerous vendors, including myself. If it's not listed on Amazon it can either be out of print or not offered through a distribution partner. Under my releases it can show as available from 13 sellers but in fact many of them don't have it in stock but list it because it's available from Alliance Entertainment. So whether you order from ImportCDs or RareWaves, or some of the others, the stock will be coming from Alliance. The stock status on a number of these places can also be misleading. There are times when it will show as something like 10 copies of one of my titles is available, next thing I get a request to send in more stock because Alliance is out, and then the posting will update as from X number available to "Available in 2 to 3 months", but then when I send replacement stock that 2 or 3 months changes back to "in stock".

 

Not literally. Audio means audio; -phile means lover of, or as Merriam-Webster defines it, "a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction." Some audiophiles may believe that one format or another delivers better high-fidelity sound reproduction of course, and obviously we audiophiles have endless arguments about LP vs. CD and digital vs. analog in that regard. But it audiophile doesn't mean "lover of exceptional quality" and even if it did, nothing about that would suggest that a high res stream is not capable of exceptional audio quality.

 

I think that the major record labels will eventually get out of the physical media business. Streaming is the future of music buying. It already is the preferred method to listen to music for most people. However, there will be a niche market for physical formats that is too small for the major labels to care about but a huge opportunity for smaller companies. Alliance Entertainment is one of those companies and here is an article that should give hope to physical format fans:

Meet the Company Preparing to Be the Last CD Distributor Standing

I love streaming. I love to listen to albums before I buy and to hear albums that I don't want to buy but do want to hear once or twice. I think that even if the major labels won't license their music, many artists will record and release music independently. This is already happening in the blues world. I get a blues magazine (Blues Music Magazine) that reviews maybe 50 to 100 cds every quarter. Just about all of them are on independent labels, many are self-released by the artists. The magazine operates a store where you can buy the cds. The cds are pressed, not cd-rs.

Dying baby boomers will put large collections of cds up for sale online. We may not be able to get every album we'd like to have on a physical format, but we all will be able to buy on physical formats more music than we can listen to.

 

It’s interesting how many say that vinyl is pretty insignificant (and I see why when you look at hard numbers) and yet the labels are tripping over themselves to get titles out the gate. It doesn’t make sense to me. Mark Fremer claims that because most places don’t report to Soundscan, that the actual sold units are significant under reported. Now that makes perfect sense. Obviously I could care less, just find it interesting. If the labels could be trusted, it would be good to go back to having them report units shipped to see actual numbers. They don’t accept returns anyway, so that old reason is gone now.

 

Agree 100%!

 

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/RIAA-2018-Year-End-Music-Industry-Revenue-Report.pdf

Or, if you want the numbers back to 1973:

https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/

 

Crazy we’ve just about come full circle. Vinyl was all but buried back in the day and yet it appears that it’s going to be the only physical media that survives in mass production.

Cd’s will always have an aftermarket presence but I can see a day when record companies are no longer issuing product all be it not in 2020 but the day is coming. Oh and you can add iTunes to the DNR category.

 

CD’s what gone by 2020?

 

Remember new cds are still shipping 3X the number of units of vinyl. The dollar amounts are closer because vinyl is more expensive. See the 2018 link above.

 

I can see a day when streaming will no longer exist. That day is coming. I just can't get any more specific than that.

 

What was that gap 5 10 15 years back? The margin has narrowed substantially and at its current rate the writing is on the wall.

Look I listen to both formats (approx 1200 LPs & about as many CDs) but I can clearly see where this is heading.

 

10 to 15 years back Lp sales were growing by 50% to 100% a year. Last year that was 7.2%. I don't think anyone knows where this is going.

 

I mean nearly half a billion dollars in the US is obviously significant, it's just relative to where most of the market is -- more than $7 billion from streaming -- it's small.

I don't buy the whole a case for the fact that somehow there are millions and millions of uncounted LPs that have been sold. For one thing, the revenue numbers I was using were from RIAA -- which tracks net shipments to retail -- it doesn't rely on SoundScan POS data. For another thing, I don't think that the sales totals that Nielsen Music reports are just the numbers from SoundScan reporting retailers. I think Nielsen takes the SoundScan numbers, and then looks at the number of other kinds of retailers that are out there similar to and near the reporting stores, and estimates how many titles were moved across all extant retailers, not just the SoundScan reporting retailers. To the extent that there's a significant difference between the shipments and the POS numbers, there's always X amount of unsold inventory sitting out there. Sure, they're estimates and incomplete counts and not perfectly accurate, but I'm suspicious of the contention that they're off by orders of magnitude for vinyl.

Obviously any given number could be completely manipulated or completely off or whatever. But the RIAA number for vinyl albums shipped in the US last year was just under 17 million units.

 

The latest Dylan Rolling Thunder set :

14 CD set - approx. 95 UK pounds (was 60 on release)
3 disc vinyl - approx 54 UK pounds (was 45 on release)

 

It's because the labels want CD's to go away. They want to channel all of the digital sales through a streaming service that allows them to maintain complete control over the finances they give to artists. It also means they can reduce their costs by not pressing digital media and having to distribute it. Consumers weren't blasting them begging them to kill off CD.

Vinyl on the other hand, admittedly as I've said many times, is the ultimate anti-piracy medium. They're happy to go back to Vinyl because a) It can't be pirated form for form; b) They can charge a premium price for it; c) It's been off the market for so long there's a market to sell all the same music again. As such, they're throwing all their eggs for physical media into Vinyl. This is also evidenced when you see Vinyl being played in movie after movie these days. Look how cool it is!

CD's on the other hand are ubiquitous, cheap for the consumer, open to be copied and/or replicated, and essentially an alternative to Streaming which means they're competing with themselves.

By turning their catalogs into an app, they're cashing in on the common usauge of micro-payments etc. to entice people. Streaming ought to have been an alternative option, not THE option. But who cares about the consumer? IMO.

 

I have bought a couple of CDs from Amazon recently and been surprised to receive CD-Rs. There is no clear indication on the page that they are CD-Rs, though apparently "Sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC" should be the tip-off.

I returned them and downloaded the albums in FLAC. Why settle for a second generation copy when you can have a first generation copy.

I have to say I am wary of Amazon now and have been buying more from Barnes & Noble and Import CDs.

 

Out of spite, and childishness, I'd copy the CDR, and then return it. Keep in mind, I don't pirate music - I buy it. But they're driving bad behavior, imo. In fact, I wonder how often you could do this before Amazon puked.

 

The Vinyl LP has been around since 1948; it never died no matter how hard the labels tried and now it's made a big comeback. Prerecorded cassettes have been around since 1965, and they may have died for awhile but they are also now back. The CD has been around since 1983 and I'd say it's not going anywhere. I can see a CD revival sometime in the near future.

 

that sucks-seems they aren't even telling anyone now. I thought the Sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC meant it was available for you to download. I could be wrong.
Thats what I may do go with barnes & noble. usually don't have any problems with them. hopefully they aren't doing the same thing. If it states sold by marketplace then they may do it too?
not cd related but Amazon related- lately they have have been sending LPS in bubble mailer envelopes...of course they arrived all messed up. too bad I usually buy a ton of music from Amazon. maybe have to go the more expensive way like cdjapan from now on- at least I know its legit.