CD's Gone By 2020?

2017? You might as well be quoting a survey from 2007. The market for CDs has shrink by more than 50% since 2017.

 

This is right on, the components will become increasingly difficult to find and much more expensive to source. There are already issues.

 

Turntables are better than they have ever been, people probably thought that would be the end of high end turntables after the demise of vinyl years ago
The turntables now wipe the floor with models of 30 years ago
The same wil happen with CD players

 

I’ll take that bet any day of the week and twice on Sunday. If CD players are produced in 2030 or beyond, they’ll be crap.

DACs will continue to improve though.

 

most are already crap...

 

You can stop me from buying CDs when you pry my smartphone with the Amazon & Ebay apps on it from my cold, dead hands! CDs might get a little harder to find but, as for the styles of music I purchase, I think I'll be able to keep buying CDs for the foreseeable future. The sky is always falling when it comes to predictions about CDs and none have proved true yet. I'm cautious yet optimistic.

 

I reckon in 20+ years the cd players will be better than now, because cd,s will become like what vinyl is now
If they can improve a DAC why cant they improve a CD player

 

I have a bad feeling that if CD players start disappearing as a newly manufactured item, the few companies that do choose to keep a CD player in their product line, will realise the potential to exploit the CD listener and price them accordingly.

 

Maybe. The problem is that with turntables you can use some pretty stock AC and DC motors and standard bearings and such. CD players rely on laser and drive assemblies and servos that are purpose built for reading optical discs. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how easily or readily or affordably these could be built or obtained if and when the big manufacturers in Asia stop making them, but I don't know if, without those big factory sources, there will be the kind of boutique builders that helped keep turntables alive.

 

I wanted to buy the Maddie Poppe but I've only been able to find mp3's. That's a sale lost.

 

The point is CDs won’t become what vinyl is now. The point is there will be no incentive to improve CD technology because it will be antiquated technology (it already is in fact); they’re just a dated mechanism for sending data of dated resolution to a DAC. DACs will continue to improve because they will still serve a purpose for playing back recorded music - at least as we currently understand playback of recorded music.

Folks act like vinyl is a proxy for all technology when in fact it is an anomaly. CD will join the massive dust bin of technologies that provide neither a technological nor ease of use advantage (and perhaps most importantly in the case of CD, intellectual property protection advantages) over the technologies that succeeded them.

The complaining here is going to be a 7.0 on the Richter scale which each succeeding nail in the CD coffin. And virtually none of the planet will hear a sound.

I’ve got thousands of CDs. Hate to see some of the consequences of it’s impending death. But I’m not emotionally oblivious to the confluence of facts.

 

Have you skipped a few steps? Assuming you have a dedicated box which interface Spotify to your hifi then:

Login
Menu then sub menu then sub menu then sub menu...
Play

 

Records were seen as a crackly noisy medium and the turntables then were not exactly great either so soon became looked upon as "outdated"
CD,s to some are the same
In the future if companies still make the parts and dont become greedy then we should be ok, a new company could be born and take over
The truth is none of us can predict the future

 

This again.

Same data, different mediums. One is a physical manifestation of that digital information, one is information only. One of them is less vulnerable to corruption than the other, yet retains all of the advantages of portability. AND enjoys more versatility because you can rip the data to several different formats and still retain that beautiful, shiny, physical source.

If they were truly the same, CDs would have died out completely in the late nineties, early aughts. They are not the same. Yes, if you threw out the 'physical' part of the equation, they would be. But that's not an insignificant thing you're discarding. The physical nature of the medium, and everything it entails, is ENORMOUS to a lot of people.

 

What I'm going to say has been said a million times before on this forum.

CD's would probably sell better if they didn't sound so bad. Some of the best sounding CD's I own were made by Sony. Some of the worst sounding CD's I own were made by Sony. Sony invented the CD. They seem to now be hell bent on killing it. Maybe because the patent expired and they no longer get royalties on every CD made. The patent on MP3 expired and suddenly the company that invented it said that it was no good and had no futre. MP3. No future. It does not compute.

Anyway, forget the marketing of "Perfect sound forever". We know it doesn't have perfect sound. But a well produced CD can have near enough to perfect sound. And by "well produced", I mean all aspects. It doesn't matter if it was recorded to above audiophile standards and mastered by the best, if the recording is of a synthesized alarm while someone shouts over it (search LMFAO) then it will probably still sound like rubbish.

Having said that, several years ago I bought Taylor Swift's album "Red" on record as a joke: "Look! Taylor Swift on record!". But to my surprise, it sounded good. Not just good, great. There was a "buzz" that was missing from the times I'd heard the hits on the radio or on the TV. You can't hear this "buzz" but, on playing the record, believe me, you can hear it when it is not there!

So why, for the most part, do they make records sound better than CD's? They say you can't brickwall a record. Well you can: Compress the dynamics and cut. The groove is literally what you hear, so if you cut a brickwalled master to record, you will get a brickwalled record. It might not be as "loud" as the CD but the same sound will be present.

Maybe they master records better because they cost more, so they're selling a premium product for that premium price? I mean, they originally made great CD's and they charged more for those. A lot of it is also marketing. After "Remastered" became a selling point, it started popping up all over CD's. Now it pops up all over records. I've seen records, in the last couple of years, that are only on record and have not been on CD since the 1980's and these records were probably never going to be re-released on CD ever again. Yet they're back on record only?

And as I've said a million times, I prefer records, but at the price of a record vs the price of the CD then I know which one I'm getting! Second hand, I've picked up almost 200 CD's in the last year that 25-15 years ago, I would have killed for, all at a few dollars a pop and usually for 1/3 less than the price of a record. I go to the shops and I see a new release CD for $20 (note I am in Australia) and the same thing on record for anywhere between $40 and $60. Honestly, I usally end up buying neither as I don't like the sound on new CD's and I can't afford the record.

Now, CD's won't be fully gone by next year. They'll be around a while yet. Classical music label Naxos, for example, started out making CD's for the price (or less) of a record in 1987 and I don't think they've ever made a record and they're bringing out at least a dozen new releases every month. (Side note, if you like classical music, put Naxos on your radar, they're great). And there's little budget labels all over the world that will still be stamping out these things as long as their licenses hold out.

New CD's days may indeed be numbered. But there's still plenty second hand. Same with records (remember when everybody dumped those in the 1990's? It was a real buyer's market!). Same with cassettes.

One more thing, compressing the dynamics so that people can listen through headphones is a ******** excuse: I listen to music through headphones when I'm out. Compressed formats: MP3 and minidisc! All made from our CD collection. And our CD collection has many, many great sounding, not-too-loud, not-too-quiet, full dynamic range recordings. They sound great through my headphones as is. I'd rather play my 35DP Billy Joel "The Stranger" than than the 1998 or 2007 remasters any day. It sounds awesome as 320k MP3's coming from an iPhone.

[/rant]

 

That does not necessarily mean the demand shrunk by 50%. It might be a reaction to less CDs available (at leasr on release day). And they were also dropped from Best Buy in that time period.

 

So what it’s still digital ONES / ZEROS and the recording companies couldn’t care less about the physical nature of the medium. It maybe be important to some but they don’t care, it’s the bottom line. The subscription based model (RENTING) or the vehicle for distribution of downloads didn’t exist in the 80’s and most of the 90’s....sorry but it’s only a matter of time before cds are phased out completely, not tomorrow but it’s coming. Like I said there will always be the second hand market but for new stuff it’ll be download for most and LPs for the niche market.

 

The bottom line is CDs aren't going away anytime soon in the US-centric thread. As long as Japan and Germany continue to buy CDs, they will be made and sold.

 

Do you realize how small of a market that really is.....

 

Don't confuse people with documented facts

 

CD's Gone By 2020?

I don't think so in USA. Not that soon, not as long as there is another buck to be made.

Internationally... no way - can't see it happening. Many countries, like Japan, have a love affair with CDs. CDs are great for 'album' collectors worldwide.

And 2nd and 3rd world countries... maybe things have changed. Many buy CD bootlegs anyway.

But I haven't played in 'the international scene' for 15 years now so I don't really know for certain anymore.

CDs will be around for a while longer. Hope for at least 5 to 10 more years. Anyway... there are only a trillion billion of them out there already. That's enough.

I think the problem will be quality 'stand alone' CD players.

 

The recording companies don't decide, the market does. Consumers do. Supply and demand. And I agree - the demand is on a downward trajectory, but its still a billion dollar industry. And that's in the US alone. Therefore, its not going away in 2020, 2021, or 2025.

But you're moving the goalposts anyway. I was responding solely to the tired old argument that 1s and 0s are all the same, despite (and disregarding) the differing mediums and advantages/disadvantages of each. Now you're talking subscription models which have even less advantages short of the alighty God of convenience and has even less bearing on the 1s/0s argument.

I'm not going down this rabbit hole any further. I've explained my stance clearly already. And frankly, this is already well trodden country.

 

But what if CDs sell as well this year as they did last year? Someone mentioned 50 million last year, I think we're on track for at least 50 million this year

 

See Marcb’s post above for the business side of this narrative.

 

I'm good. Thanks.