Death of CDs?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I own an Apple iPod Nano and I'm not that impressed with it and it's collecting dust as we speak.

Nyah! Our dishwasher collects cassettes!!!

MG

It does? Well you better throw it out!

'Fraid you missed the joke, BN82.

By the way, why 82? There surely can't be 81 other people wanting to be called bluenote ahead of you?

MG

[randyhersom]

Vinyl is proof that no matter how "outdated" a technology may be, there will always be enough people to keep it afloat.

Shellac is proof that outdated technologies do indeed die as the medium for transmission of new content. It's a question of time.

[porcy62]

Vinyl is proof that no matter how "outdated" a technology may be, there will always be enough people to keep it afloat.

Shellac is proof that outdated technologies do indeed die as the medium for transmission of new content. It's a question of time.

ERGO vinyl is NOT outdated.

ARISTOTLE, De Interpretatione

[Guest bluenote82]

Have you guess seen these record players that use a laser to read the records? They haven't been out long and they look really awesome, but unfortunately, they're extremely high right now.

[porcy62]

Have you guess seen these record players that use a laser to read the records? They haven't been out long and they look really awesome, but unfortunately, they're extremely high right now.

Did you mean the TT that read vinyl with an array of lasers?

I heard a demo some years ago, forgot the brand: awful sound and totally unable to track even the slightest imperfection/flaw of records. A 'pop' was a "BOOM", a 'click' was like a gunshot at the Carnegie Hall during a performance of classic music.

Maybe now they are better.

[riverrat]

More teenagers ignoring CDs, report says

George Frey / Bloomberg News

"Joe Allred browses through a rack of CDs below a display of iPods at the BYU Bookstore in Provo, Utah. Apple Inc.’s iTunes music store jumped ahead of Best Buy as the No. 2 U.S. music seller as consumers switch from CDs to digital downloads. 48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006. Music downloads continue to grow, though, with iTunes leading the way...."

LINK to full story in LA Times

[Alexander]

Vinyl is proof that no matter how "outdated" a technology may be, there will always be enough people to keep it afloat.

Shellac is proof that outdated technologies do indeed die as the medium for transmission of new content. It's a question of time.

That's because shellac sucked, frankly. It was very fragile AND highly flammable. I know that the Joe Bussards and Dick Spottswoods of the world adore them, but there was really nothing the 78 could do that the LP couldn't do better. And the technology was exactly the same (except the change in speed and the change-over from steel needles), it was simply a question of creating a more durable format. A record is a record.

[captainwrong]

Have you guess seen these record players that use a laser to read the records? They haven't been out long and they look really awesome, but unfortunately, they're extremely high right now.

Did you mean the TT that read vinyl with an array of lasers?

I heard a demo some years ago, forgot the brand: awful sound and totally unable to track even the slightest imperfection/flaw of records. A 'pop' was a "BOOM", a 'click' was like a gunshot at the Carnegie Hall during a performance of classic music.

Maybe now they are better.

I'm assuming he's talking about the ELP. I got the demo CD from them and it sounds very impressive. Of course, I don't have $17K+ to spend at the moment...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006.

That's a most interesting thing.

It's not CDs that suck, it's albums. And if you mainly want individual songs, no point in buying CDs.

This is a bit of a paradigm shift.

MG

[porcy62]

Have you guess seen these record players that use a laser to read the records? They haven't been out long and they look really awesome, but unfortunately, they're extremely high right now.

Did you mean the TT that read vinyl with an array of lasers?

I heard a demo some years ago, forgot the brand: awful sound and totally unable to track even the slightest imperfection/flaw of records. A 'pop' was a "BOOM", a 'click' was like a gunshot at the Carnegie Hall during a performance of classic music.

Maybe now they are better.

I'm assuming he's talking about the ELP. I got the demo CD from them and it sounds very impressive. Of course, I don't have $17K+ to spend at the moment...

Yep, that's it. I heard it at an hi-fi show, the one and only I attented in my life (too much people and no way to hear properly a gear, the worst thing was the music they played, lots of impressive stuff that would make sound impressive even your clock radio.

About the LT, after reading things like these:

Q: Is it important to clean my records?

A: Yes, it is very important since the laser reads everything it "sees." We recommend the vacuum record cleaner to clean vinyl records. The sound quality will be much improved if you clean your records.

and these

Q: How do scratches on the records affect the sound produced by the laser?

A: Light scratches have little impact on the sound compared with records played with a needle. However, the noise from deep scratches is markedly reduced compared to what is reproduced on a conventional turntable.

http://elpj.com/about/qa.html#company

I am still suspicious, why there are still dozens of 'old way' analog stuff (TT, arm, cartdrige) that cost much more then 14 K? A product like this should have had wipe all the TT producers off.

Or we, vinylists, are all nuts, fetichist and masochist: we love to see with our own naked eyes our precious BNs plowed by the expensive cartdrige handmade by Hattori Hanzo.

Forget Condoleeza with boots and high heels, look at my japanese stylus tracking your record, you filthy slave! :rsmile:

[Alexander]

I am still suspicious, why there are still dozens of 'old way' analog stuff (TT, arm, cartdrige) that cost much more then 14 K? A product like this should have had wipe all the TT producers off.

Or we, vinylists, are all nuts, fetichist and masochist: we love to see with our own naked eyes our precious BNs plowed by the expensive cartdrige handmade by Hattori Hanzo.

"Why do you need Hattori Hanzo's steel?"

"I have records to play..."

"You must have biiiiiiiig collection."

"Huge."

[porcy62]

[mmilovan]

Have you guess seen these record players that use a laser to read the records? They haven't been out long and they look really awesome, but unfortunately, they're extremely high right now.

Did you mean the TT that read vinyl with an array of lasers?

I heard a demo some years ago, forgot the brand: awful sound and totally unable to track even the slightest imperfection/flaw of records. A 'pop' was a "BOOM", a 'click' was like a gunshot at the Carnegie Hall during a performance of classic music.

Maybe now they are better.

And it can't read anything exept black vinyl or shellac, lateraly cut. No reproduction of colored vinyl, picture vinyl or vertically cut records.

[porcy62]

Have you guess seen these record players that use a laser to read the records? They haven't been out long and they look really awesome, but unfortunately, they're extremely high right now.

Did you mean the TT that read vinyl with an array of lasers?

I heard a demo some years ago, forgot the brand: awful sound and totally unable to track even the slightest imperfection/flaw of records. A 'pop' was a "BOOM", a 'click' was like a gunshot at the Carnegie Hall during a performance of classic music.

Maybe now they are better.

And it can't read anything exept black vinyl or shellac, lateraly cut. No reproduction of colored vinyl, picture vinyl or vertically cut records.

Yep, I forgot it, no ESP Ayler on the LT.

[Guest bluenote82]

Jazz musicians will continue to put cds out because right now it's the best medium we have right now.

[Aggie87]

right now it's the best medium we have right now.

Prose worthy of Sammy Hagar.

"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time"

[GARussell]

Here's the LA Times' report regarding teenagers' failure to buy CDs in 2007:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-musi...;vote36101458=1

More teenagers ignoring CDs, report says

George Frey / Bloomberg News

Joe Allred browses through a rack of CDs below a display of iPods at the BYU Bookstore in Provo, Utah. Apple Inc.’s iTunes music store jumped ahead of Best Buy as the No. 2 U.S. music seller as consumers switch from CDs to digital downloads.

48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006. Music downloads continue to grow, though, with iTunes leading the way.

By Michelle Quinn and Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

February 27, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO -- Going to the mall to buy music may no longer be a rite of passage for adolescents.

For the first time last year, nearly half of all teenagers bought no compact discs, a dramatic increase from 2006, when 38% of teens shunned such purchases, according to a new report released Tuesday.

Your Vote

What's the primary way you buy your music?

23.1%

CD

28.9%

Digital download

33.2%

I get them free from file-sharing

14.8%

8-track

7333 total responses

The illegal sharing of music online continued to soar in 2007, but there was one sign of hope that legal downloading was picking up steam. In the last year, Apple Inc.'s iTunes store, which sells only digital downloads, jumped ahead of Best Buy Co. to become the No. 2 U.S. music seller, trailing Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

That could be hopeful news for the music industry, which has been scrambling in recent years to replace its rapidly disappearing CD sales with music sold online. The number of CDs sold in the U.S. fell 19% in 2007 from the previous year while sales of digital songs jumped 45%, Nielsen SoundScan said.

The number of people buying music legally from online music stores jumped 21% to 29 million last year from 24 million in 2006, according to the study by NPD Group, a market research firm in Port Washington, N.Y.

NPD declined to release figures on individual retailers' sales or their market shares, so it is impossible to know how close iTunes sales are to Wal-Mart's. The NPD market ranking of music retailers is based on a study of the music habits of Americans 13 and older over the last week.

The report, which involved 5,000 people who answered questions online, highlighted a generational split. The increase in legal online sales was driven by people 36 to 50, the report said, giving the music industry an opportunity to target these customers by tapping into its older catalogs.

That's not to say iTunes is not popular with the younger set. Mallory Portillo, 24, an executive assistant in Santa Monica, said she hadn't bought a CD in five years, but typically spent more than $100 a month buying music online. She will turn to illegal music sharing sites only if she can't find new releases or more obscure music on iTunes, she said.

Buying online saves her the step of having to load a CD onto her laptop so that she can then transfer the files to her iPod.

Her most recent purchase came two days ago, when she spent $19.99 on iTunes for Michael Jackson's 25th anniversary edition of "Thriller."

"Hopefully it doesn't come back to haunt me one day that my 'Thriller' CD is on my computer and therefore not a collector's item," she said.

The increase in online spending didn't offset the revenue lost from the drop in CD sales and from illegal downloading. Last year, about 1 million consumers stopped buying CDs, according to NPD.

There are several ways for consumers to expand a digital music collection. They can buy music at online stores such as iTunes and Amazon.com's MP3 store. They also can convert their CD collection into a digital format.

What concerns the music industry is illegal Internet file-sharing on websites where people pick up a digital song or album that others have uploaded. They can also do what is known as peer-to-peer file sharing, when people download music while temporarily opening up their computers to others to pick up music. The music industry says people who obtain music free online are breaking the law.

Rachel Rottman, 14, says she hasn't bought a CD in a year. The Santa Monica High School freshman says she downloads five or six songs a day, using paid services such as iTunes and social networking site MySpace, where bands post songs for free download. Rachel said she had about 2,600 songs stored on her computer.

Before getting a computer in the seventh grade, she always bought CDs. But now it's too much trouble, she said.

"You have to go to the store and then you have to pay -- I don't know how much, $12, I'm guessing? -- then you have to put it on your computer," Rachel said. "When you download it, it's right there."

Hunter Conrad, an eighth-grader at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, says she downloads about 80% of her music from iTunes, "but when it's an artist I really like, I'll buy the original CD."

Out of her group of friends, she's "one of the few" who still buy CDs, she said. Most of her buddies download for the convenience, to save money and to get only the songs they like.

"Nobody really wants the other songs [on an album]," Hunter, 14, said. "They just want the hits."

In the last year, consumers paid for 42% of the music they obtained, the report said. That was down from 48% in 2006 and more than 50% in 2005.

"The trend is continuing but it will flatten because there are people who will always want the physical," said Ted Cohen, managing partner at TAG Strategic, a digital media advisory firm.

Over the last year, the music industry has pushed back. Some companies now permit online music stores to sell songs without copyright protections in hopes of making it easier for consumers to move digital music to different computers and devices, and thus remove the temptation to download it illegally.

Some music companies have thrown support behind Amazon's MP3 store, which competes with iTunes. The music industry has also sued fans to stop them from downloading and sharing music without paying for it.

The legal efforts may have had an effect. The report said that the portion of survey respondents who shared music on sites that facilitate illegal downloads was 19% in 2007, the same as 2006. But those who do it are doing it more. Some said they got more than 3,000 songs a year this way.

Two years ago, teenagers accounted for 15% of CD sales. In 2007, the figure was 10%. The digital music world has yet to completely capture the attentions of Isaac Kahn and his friend Charlie Williams, both 14. They buy music online but prefer to go to the Amoeba store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and thumb through the CDs. "I like to look at CDs and see if there's anything else I might want to buy," Isaac said.

Charlie, who recently bought a device to transform his father's 300 records into digital files, said many teens download music illegally because they are on computers. But he doesn't have a computer. And besides, he said, "I'm a musician myself; I prefer to just buy it."

[user0815]

you still can buy new pre-recorded 8-track tapes in the us ?

i always thought pre-recorded 8-track tapes had been pushed out of the market by pre-recorded audio cassettes in the early 1980s ...

[user0815]

48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006.

That's a most interesting thing.

It's not CDs that suck, it's albums. And if you mainly want individual songs, no point in buying CDs.

This is a bit of a paradigm shift.

MG

well, i guess you could also call it the return of the "single" ...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006.

That's a most interesting thing.

It's not CDs that suck, it's albums. And if you mainly want individual songs, no point in buying CDs.

This is a bit of a paradigm shift.

MG

well, i guess you could also call it the return of the "single" ...

Yes, except for one thing (well, I think so). Now there is so much more to choose from. Back in the day, you were more or less limited to what your local shop stocked.

Though I suppose the main thrust of most people's buying was (and still is) governed by peer pressure.

MG

[Alexander]

Though I suppose the main thrust of most people's buying was (and still is) governed by peer pressure.

MG

T'was ever thus...

Edited February 29, 2008 by Alexander

[Chalupa]

Costello skips CD format on next album

By Jonathan Cohen2 hours, 45 minutes ago

Elvis Costello's next solo studio album, curiously dubbed "Momofuku," will arrive April 22, and plans are for the set to be released only on vinyl, with a digital download code included in the package.

No other details are available about the Lost Highway release, which follows 2004's "The Delivery Man," Costello's debut on the label with his band the Imposters.

Since then, Costello recorded "The River in Reverse" with pianist Allen Toussaint and supervised the first wave of his back-catalog reissues through Universal. The most recent of those, "This Year's Model," arrived March 4.

Costello will open the Police's summer North American tour, beginning May 10 in Chicago. He also has headlining dates on tap beforehand, starting April 22 in Memphis.

Reuters/Billboard

[connoisseur series500]

right now it's the best medium we have right now.

Prose worthy of Sammy Hagar.

"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time"

[Aggie87]

right now it's the best medium we have right now.

Prose worthy of Sammy Hagar.

"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time"

It took you three weeks to get that?

[Free For All]

right now it's the best medium we have right now.

Prose worthy of Sammy Hagar.

"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time"

It took you three weeks to get that?

Hey, Sammy Hagar has made some great conn-tributions to society....