Cds demise, or not?

Our choices have been enhanced. There's never been more recorded music, nor more kinds of recorded music, available to more people in more places in the history of recorded music than there is now.

 

I like that stuff. But I don't know that the general public gives a crap about having something to hold in their hands or about liner notes, at least not in the US, otherwise streaming wouldn't be growing at 45% year over year, and physical media wouldn't be shrinking by 14.6 percent in the first six months of this year, continuing a three-year trend; and physical media wouldn't make up only 15% of the recorded music market as it did in the first six months of 2018. But, mentioning indie bands, it does seem to be hanging on more in the rock sector, so maybe it's more a matter of different interests and expectations among different slices of the audience more than generally people liking having something to hold in their hands.

 

At the moment.
There will always be a market for previously owned physical music. But imagine a world where there is no new physical media at all, where all official content is in the cloud, and access comes from licensed applications only. That's exactly where we are going.
Can I download content now for later listening? Maybe, maybe not.
Think of the fragility of that model, 25 years from now. Does one gamma ray burst destroy all our recorded music??

 

I do think we're heading towards that, and not just for music but for official documents, and for "print" material, and, yeah, it's easy for stuff to be lost in a pure digital realm, and even thought for the stuff to be served it has to be on a server somewhere. I would be good if there were at least a repository somewhere of stuff stored on durable media and held disconnected from a network. When all recorded versions of human knowledge exist only on network connected devices in a digital only realm, the potential for loss is catastrophic. I agree with that.

But I do think in terms of enhanced access, the internetworked world has provided instant global distribution of music from myriad sources, from big companies to independent artists, to joe schmoe in his bedroom. Not everything ever made is available, obviously, but more is available now to more people in more places than ever across the universe of options, and barring a nuclear winter sort of meltdown of the networks, I don't think the scale of that is going to lessen.

 

It is those that go to a show that will care about the liner notes, having something to hold in their hands. People that care enough to go hear live music want something to show from it. That's why people buy band tee shirts and caps. They are memory enhancers.

 

So you're saying that HALF the people you know don't have a Blu-Ray or DVD player, both of which
play CD's just fine...….

 

Yes, they’re dying , so are books and like it or not, your precious vinyl(s). We can all happily dance on their graves.

 

Dvd's are dying.

 

Well, yeah, but the T-shirts and caps are also display items. You show them off, you signal something to others who are seeing them when you wear them. I think they're different from CD purchases at shows, though I'm sure there are CD purchases that are souvenirs as much or more than they are things that people are going to listen to and read the liner notes of. But most people who go to a concert -- and I'm talking about any and all kinds of concerts, not just indie rock shows or rock shows -- probably don't walk out with a CD. I think people caring enough to go to the show don't necessarily feel the need to get a souvenir, and if they do it isn't necessarily a CD.

 

Good point. But in most cases, these players are not part of a decent audio system. They would play through television speakers.
But DVDs and Blurays are dying, too.

 

This board is a bubble. We cannot assume that we represent the majority of the population. Just a quick poll of asking your friends and family when they last bought a CD should tell you everything you need to know about the state of CDs today.

 

And anecdotal evidence is just that - anecdotal.

 

I enjoy the advantages of both formats

 

Well I'm talking about all variety of musicians that play a variety of venues. Not specifically any one type artist. But I'm not talking about major acts playing outdoor theaters, concert halls. and stadiums. I'm talking about artists that play local circuits often hold down full time jobs etc. All I'm saying is that their will probably remain a place for CDs there. As far as the demand for CDs as a souvenir I have to ask, are you married? I've seldom gone to a show somewhere like Pigeon Forge or Myrtle Beach with my wife when she didn't insist that we get their DVD or CD. And there is always a long line to get them. There are a good many collecting dust at my house.

 

Well vinyl is doing anything but dying. New vinyl sales are way up even at the much higher price than downloads and CDs. Used vinyl is in demand such that prices are inflated right now.

 

As long as they still keep making DVD/Blu Ray players, I think your safe!

 

That's where Keith's CD collection comes in.

 

CD was a great format. I don't want it to go away, but its pretty much dead to me now. If mastering and brickwalling hadn't killed it for me, I'd still very much be in the game though.

Brickwalling killed the silver disc star

 

Vinyl sales are up, and in the US were up at a very healthy 19% rate for the first half of 2018 vs the first half of 2017....but in absolute terms the unit and dollar volume, even giving higher unit prices, of vinyl sales remain so small that vinyl's growth hasn't offset the decline in CD sales among physical media in the US. The good news for people in the business here is that streaming's growth has been so enormous that the industry is growing and, not contracting, which hasn't been throughout the internet era until the streaming boom.

 

Well, sales of DVD/Blu ray players have also been shrinking steadily for a couple of years. Companies like Sony and Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology have gotten out of the business of making optical disk drives for computers and DVD/Blu ray and CD players. I don't think tomorrow everything is going to disappear, but the market for both the players and the component parts (as such drives also disappear from computers), is shrinking.

 

Well, the friends and family crowd have largely thrown away their CDs. Some a long time ago.

 

You can make a turntable with some pretty off the shelf or conventionally machined motors, pullys, bearings belts and pieces of acrylic and/or MDF and the like. With the CD players you're going to need to make sure some big companies are still producing the drives/lasers/optics. When and if those become harder to come by, as you note, then it could be harder to make reasonably priced CD players.

 

The industry is trying to reborn the K7, if this happens today, CD for diem i don´t know...

 

I'd say it's pretty much dead to the general public.

For better or worse, anyone can pay $10 a month to a streaming service and have access to pretty much everything. That's the equivalent of what used to be buying 10 CDs a year.

To the general listener, streaming audio sounds exactly like a CD. For those that care about owning a physical item, they usually turn to the vinyl release instead.

 

These threads make me long for the long lost CD vs. Vinyls threads. Lols.