[Zanth]

I was in a high-end audio store which also stocks a decent selection of music and I grabbed a Bluenote release of Joe Henderon's Page One. Included in the release was a copy of the CD. Nothing fancy, it was in a plain envelope with the nicely printed CD. I was quite excited by this and mentioned to the clerk that I had picked up an indie record the other week which also offered this. Now that this practice had bridged over to a major jazz label I began to think of the possibilities and all the while thinking "they should have been doing this from the start." I actually voiced that when the owner came in.

He responded: "Of course, we both know vinyl usually sounds better, and honestly, how much is a CD worth these days?"

I laughed and nodded but it wasn't until I got home today that I started to think about this. Since getting a TT, I've found myself avoiding spending money on CDs and either dodging a release outright (if it is CD only) or waiting until the LP is released (which these days is pretty well simultaneously).

For Bluenote or any label to slide a CD in the package, the estimated cost is about $.20 from the dealer I was speaking with. Even if we went as high as $1, I have to say, the price of the package is the same as if they were selling the LP alone, so maybe the dealer is right on the money...$.20.

Could it be then, that the future of music will be downloads (lossy or high-res lossless) or an LP with a CD inside? The labels feeling that those that are really into the music and collecting will buy the LP (automatic copy protection, or at least a major deterrent) and throwing the CD in just makes it a bonus as an automatic digital backup of the already quite profitable LP sale? Those that want immediate gratification can buy the music online and download it for a cheaper cost (or perhaps as a subscription) but to get a physical copy, one will have to buy the LP+CD?

Maybe I'm overestimating the downfall of the CD and the rise of the LP, but given the numbers, CD sales drop SUBSTANTIALLY year by year whereas LP's are rising nearly exponentially year after year. True, LP sales are quite low overall but, if digital downloads overtake the CD anyway, the labels may just cut them out completely for the most part and sell the LP (making great buckets of money) and throwing that CD in for kicks.

Either way, I am starting to feel as if CD's really are worthless and the LP or a high res disc is the way to go.

Too bad so much great music is released on CD only. Though I can't complain, I really enjoy my CD player.

 

[jsaliga]

I want my music to sound the best it possibly can and not cost me a fortune to obtain. Of course that strategy hasn't really kept me from spending a fortune catering to my insatiable appetite for music.

I have four sources: a turntable, a reel-to-reel tape deck, a universal player (for DVD-A and SACD compatiblity) and a network music player to handle CDs that I rip to FLAC.

I buy music for all of these sources. With 1/4" 4-track stereo tape it is mostly classical music. Tape sounds truely great, it's abundant, and relatively inexpensive. Some of the best recordings I have ever heard, anywhere, are on 1/4" stereo tape. My turntable is my gateway to music from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. I buy newer music on vinyl to be sure, but it's a really great feeling to pick up 150 classical music LPs in a lot for about 50 cents per record.

I still buy CDs, but mostly of classical music (especially if a SACD is not available), and I really do love the jazz CD boxed sets from Mosaic Records. I have several of them and the mastering and music restoration is a labor of love for them. It could take you years to run down playable 78s of all of Bix Beiderbecke's recordings, or you can plunk down $112 for the Mosaic 7CD boxed set of all of his OKeh recordings and call it a day. There's no doubt in my mind that the Mosaic CDs are going to sound a lot better than any 78s you are likely to find.

--Jerome

 

[Tridacnid]

If they kill the CD, I think I will die.

Or buy a turntable

 

[Dublo7]

I'll be terrified if the CD does die, then all we'll have is ****ty 128kbps iTunes tracks to choose from.

 

[Zanth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dublo7 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'll be terrified if the CD does die, then all we'll have is ****ty 128kbps iTunes tracks to choose from.

I used to think this as well, but I don't know if that will be so true in the future. I'm betting the future will consist mainly of subscription all you can eat style listening which is streamed at 192 kb/s. If you want to pay for it, you get a FLAC choice and you an keep it, but you pay $1/track.

LP's will exist and CD's will be relegated to those audiophile or indie releases (because of concerts). Though, with all you can eat subscriptions, the artist will likely just upload to iTunes or whatever, and get some money from the advertizing.

 

[troubleshooter]

The industry did this crap to itself.

I'm an old head, and we old heads on the forum lived through the changes. When vinyl was replaced by CDs- almost overnight- I was paying about $7 for a release on vinyl, and that jumped to twice the price for the CD release. At the time, the recording industry assured the public that once CDs caught on, the price would measurably drop. Guess what? It didn't happen.

Early CDs sounded like crap, stayed around $15 each and as the years passed, the listening crowd changed; with the advent of the internet and pirating, people stopped buying CD releases full of filler music for this or that song, and started to share music with each other. CD releases stayed in the $15 range, with MSRPs higher than that. Is it any wonder why people found other ways to get their music?

I'm someone with 2000 retail CDs on his shelves, with around 1200 vinyl albums I put into storage ages ago, so I've done my part to contribute to the industry as well as the artists that bring me the music I want to own. These days not so much; if a CD comes out I really want I'll usually wait a few months and find it in a used music store these days for half the new in stores price, or I'll pick it up used on the net for a price along those lines.

As for vinyl coming all the way back, nope, it ain't gonna happen. There is a place on the market for CD and vinyl but that place is becoming smaller. The industry is now being driven to act by the buyers market, and the buying mainstream wants their music to be completely portable. We're going to be doing what we are already doing now.... buying digital rights to releases that we can download and store in whatever form we want, burn them to disc, drive or whatever the flavor of the year at the time happens to be.

The problem with audiophile vinyl and even CD now is, the mainstream really doesn't care how true to the recording their copy of this or that song is.... they just want to be able to put it on their iPod. For people like us who care about sonics? As long as the programmers keep working at making higher quality, lossless storage formats that will bring better and better sonics to the market I won't complain too much. I've heard some pretty spectacular stuff coming from my systems and the systems of others listeners that care about sound quality, even using CDs and DVDs, and I think digital download quality is getting better.

 

[Zanth]

Good post troubleshooter.

 

[japc]

Interesting subject. Kudos to the OP for bringing this up and to troubleshooter for valuable contribution.

 

[troubleshooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japc /img/forum/go_quote.gif Interesting subject. Kudos to the OP for bringing this up and to troubleshooter for valuable contribution.

Thanks for the kudos guys

 

[jsaliga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by troubleshooter /img/forum/go_quote.gif The industry did this crap to itself. I'm an old head, and we old heads on the forum lived through the changes. When vinyl was replaced by CDs- almost overnight- I was paying about $7 for a release on vinyl, and that jumped to twice the price for the CD release. At the time, the recording industry assured the public that once CDs caught on, the price would measurably drop. Guess what? It didn't happen.

That depends on what kind of music you are buying. New pop/rock/jazz releases are priced relatively high as they typically retail for $18.99. But catalog titles usually go for about $9.99 to $11.99. In many instances I can buy Philips or Decca 2 CD classical music sets for $12.99. In short, there are a lot of great bargains in music on CD if you are willing to shop for them.

There's no real point in comparing how a vinyl record was priced in 1985 to what you pay today. It is 2008 and not 1988 -- and pricing seldom if ever sits still over a long stretch of time. I don't know how that works out in inflation-adjusted dollars, but I'm not sure it is all that much of a difference.

Quote:

Early CDs sounded like crap, stayed around $15 each and as the years passed, the listening crowd changed; with the advent of the internet and pirating, people stopped buying CD releases full of filler music for this or that song, and started to share music with each other. CD releases stayed in the $15 range, with MSRPs higher than that. Is it any wonder why people found other ways to get their music?

I don't disagree with you about the sound quality of early CDs. The industry had not yet overcome the learning curve of this new format at the time and today they appear to be deliberately wrecking the sound with hot mastering. The more things change the more they seem to stay the same.

But you seem to be making the same argument that the RIAA is about why there is declining CD sales (piracy). I didn't accept it from the RIAA, and I won't accept it here either. You are merely speculating and there is not one shred of empirical evidence to support this position. I agree that the digital age has made it easier for people to illegally obtain music. But guess what, people did it in the 1970s and 80s as well. A trip to the public library to borrow a stack of records (or a trip to a friend's house) and a few hours time was all it took to dub LPs to cassettes. And people were recording music in droves from FM and AOR radio back then.

I'm sure there are lost CD sales to piracy. And I am also sure there are a lot of people downloading and copying music simply because they can. But I think there are other contributing factors to declining music sales. Hot mastering with crushed dynamics is fatiguing to listen to for extended periods of time. So it motivates people to listen less often to music, not more. And it may in fact motivate people to grab illegal downloads because it reduces the value proposition of a music purchase. Is someone more likely to pay for music they will listen to many times, or only listen to once or twice?

And then there is quality of the music itself. Hey, I am not going wax nostalgically about the bygone era of 1960s and 70s rock... or jazz...or country. Hell, you can probably argue that 1950 to 1980 was the most fertile and creative period of music during the 20th century. What exciting developments are happening in music today? In the last 10 years? And I mean aside from audiophile labels reissuing all the great music we were buying in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

Quote:

I'm someone with 2000 retail CDs on his shelves, with around 1200 vinyl albums I put into storage ages ago, so I've done my part to contribute to the industry as well as the artists that bring me the music I want to own. These days not so much; if a CD comes out I really want I'll usually wait a few months and find it in a used music store these days for half the new in stores price, or I'll pick it up used on the net for a price along those lines.

I buy all of my music as well. My library is similar in size to yours: 2,600 CDs, 1,800 LPs, and about 150 1/4" 4-track stereo tapes. I'm still buying all three. But very little of the music I am buying today is from active artists.

Quote:

As for vinyl coming all the way back, nope, it ain't gonna happen. There is a place on the market for CD and vinyl but that place is becoming smaller. The industry is now being driven to act by the buyers market, and the buying mainstream wants their music to be completely portable. We're going to be doing what we are already doing now.... buying digital rights to releases that we can download and store in whatever form we want, burn them to disc, drive or whatever the flavor of the year at the time happens to be.

I agree that vinyl will never return to dominance as a music carrier. The market for it is just too small for that to happen. But I am thankful that there is enough interest in it and a market for it that a handful of audiophile labels can thrive. However, the vinyl labels need to get their act together too. If you thought CDs were expensive just take a gander at the $32 to $50 price that a nice slab of vinyl will set you back. Anything with Steve Hoffman's name on it is going to cost you at least $30 on a 33 1/3 LP, and at 45 RPM the price of admission is $50. There are a lot of 180g reissues out there for $20 or less, but many of them don't sound particularly good. For an LP to be worth the money, it has to offer you something you can't get elsewhere. Taking crappy mastering, slapping it on a stamper, and pressing LPs from it is NOT the way to go. And that is what some of these vinyl labels are doing. And there are a bevy of defects in manufacture that is really dogging new vinyl and very likely keeping people from it. I still regard RTI as the low rent district of new vinyl where the quality of its pressings are concerned. I know RTI has a long customer list, but I am getting about a 20% defect rate of vinyl pressed by RTI: Classic Records, Analogue Productions, Cisco, Music Matters, Rhino, Warner, etc. The only records that I have not had a problem with that were pressed by RTI is Mobile Fidelity, but I only own about a half dozen of those. I just really wish RTIs customers would take them to task on quality control.

As for CD, well it is already the dominant form of music distribution. The internet has not overtaken it yet. But I think the industry is having problems because it has grown a bit stagnant creatively and artistically, and the labels have not adjusted well to changing market conditions.

Quote:

The problem with audiophile vinyl and even CD now is, the mainstream really doesn't care how true to the recording their copy of this or that song is.... they just want to be able to put it on their iPod. For people like us who care about sonics? As long as the programmers keep working at making higher quality, lossless storage formats that will bring better and better sonics to the market I won't complain too much. I've heard some pretty spectacular stuff coming from my systems and the systems of others listeners that care about sound quality, even using CDs and DVDs, and I think digital download quality is getting better.

What the mainstream is doing is not of any concern to the audiophile vinyl labels. They are not marketing their products to the iPod crowd. Their target audience are the listeners who prize sound quality just as much as the music and already own a good quality turntable. There is no way that someone who's music experience means they pay $1 for a mp3 download is going to mentally justify $32.99 for a 200g LP, let alone a vinyl rig to play it.

For me digital music in certain genres such as jazz and rock is still a gamble. Some labels have done a nice job with their CD releases, such as OJC. Verve has also done a great job with its Master Edition jazz releases. But these are exceptions and not the rule.

--Jerome

 

[Lunchbox2]

I think one reason that vinyl has come back is that there is so much of it, and its cheap. Aside from downloading new songs, paying 15 bucks for a CD isn't really an option. What is an option, is getting a turntable and then pay 20-30 bucks every so often and grabbing a ton of old used records. Its basically the next cheapest thing to free (downloading).

 

[Tridacnid]

I pay $12 at most for a CD, and even less if I get it used. But you are right, vinyl can be much cheaper.

 

[Zanth]

Great post, jsaliga. Some points worth emphasizing:

CD back catalogues: for the most, in local Canadian shops, the vast majority of back titles (unless they are from MAJOR sellers) are usually double the price of a new CD. Yes, double. Take Walmart or Bestbuy, the two largest retailers in Canada as an example. Typical new prices range from 12.99 to 16.99 depending on the release and the prices will stay that way for a few weeks and then bump up to say 16.99 and 18.99 respectively. However, if the item is a low print run or an unpopular artist, the cost will jump to 21.99 or 23.99. Insane! Meanwhile, I can walk down an aisle and pick up 4 DVD's for $25 at any one time, major hits or very obscure films. In fact, unless it is foreign, old films seem to drop to 5-10 bucks ALL THE TIME. It is simply insane how the pricing of CDs goes up in Canada. The only option then is to shop Amazon.com (not even Amazon.ca). One can't hit HMV.com or MyMusic.com etc because the same pricing occurs there too. Outrageous!

The second great point is the cost of LPs. There are so many cheap used lps that it make sense if one enjoys music that is typically available used. For those that like current artists or current (re)releases then going the LP way is an investment no doubt. From the set-up to the albums themselves, quality control, returns, etc... it is a big deal. The prices of LPs, for current pop and rock albums, if they are not 180-200g releases, usually are priced only a dollar or so more than the CD so the difference isn't bad at all, but as soon as one presses to heavy vinyl or worse (but of course better) if one is mastered by someone like Gray or Hoffman, then the price doubles to triples for a brand new release. $50 for a single album is heinous unless the music is precious enough to the person of course, but even so...$50 is a lot. Only diehards are gonna drop that much regularly, but to say it is reserved for audiophiles is disingenuous to those crazy music fanatics who download bootlegs, travel to show after show, buy t-shirts, download free stuff, pay for the albums etc. These are the folks that will buy a limited run of a CD or LP for HUNDREDS on auction sites. They track down every single etc. There are far more of them than there are of the audiophile sinking cash into a Hoffman master.

I think that although LPs are not a strong factor in the market today, they could be again. How? By doing exactly what the industry did nearly 30 years ago with CDs, push them on the people. The spin machine declared CDs perfect, and LPs were no where near it. Now, downloads are heinously lossy 128 at many shops, 192 now is becoming standard with lossless a mere glimmer of light in the future. Yet, if the market machines wanted to they could push LPs again and people would buy them, because lps for many are plainly more fun! That doesn't mean that DAPs will go away, but certainly pairing LPs with downloads or CDs means it is a win win for everyone.

Will this happen? Not likely, but it could. It won't I believe because instead of pushing a physical format the bigwigs are going to push "all you can eat" subscriptions where the person will never possess the music but the industry will push the point that one doesn't need to, because so long as one has a connection, they are "in the cloud and the cloud has all the music in the world."

 

[Brighten]

Amazon.com sells CD's for real cheap... and I'm pretty sure CD's as a whole have gotten cheaper due to a dominant amount of sales going to MP3 (stores are forced to compete with iTunes). Recently, I paid $8.99 at Target for a "Haste The Day" Dreamer CD. I'm pretty sure the MP3 download costs about the same.

 

[troubleshooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsaliga /img/forum/go_quote.gif That depends on what kind of music you are buying. New pop/rock/jazz releases are priced relatively high as they typically retail for $18.99. But catalog titles usually go for about $9.99 to $11.99. In many instances I can buy Philips or Decca 2 CD classical music sets for $12.99. In short, there are a lot of great bargains in music on CD if you are willing to shop for them. There's no real point in comparing how a vinyl record was priced in 1985 to what you pay today. It is 2008 and not 1988 -- and pricing seldom if ever sits still over a long stretch of time. I don't know how that works out in inflation-adjusted dollars, but I'm not sure it is all that much of a difference. -Jerome

I agree Jerome, but my comparison was the fact that the industry made the jump overnight when the CD replaced vinyl. The buyer literally went from $7ish to $15 for the new format. I suppose in their eyes it's become a 'bargain' because the price has either stayed the same or lowered in many cases