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Music CD's to become extinct soon?

sportage

sportage

Lifer
I've noticed music CD prices have taken a nose dive on places like Amazon. Well I should say many different music artists CD's. With everything music going to digital media, and using digital devices to play that media, it would make sense for the hard copy plastic pressed music CD to one day go the same route as the VHS tape. Rarely found.

I prefer to buy an album in plastic hard copy CD form, and then transfer the tracks into iTunes (or whatever) and still have that plastic hard copy for backup. But as I buy more and more music off amazon, I have noticed the mp3 album download is about the same price as the plastic CD. And many times actually less for the plastic CD vs digital download of the same.

I wonder how long it will be until there is no such thing as an actual pressed plastic CD version of an album, only the digital file version?

In the mean time, some great pricing on those pressed plastic music CD's.

Ps...
Just occurred and not to forget, with those digital downloads, you can make your own hard copy plastic music CD (if needed). Every computer and notebook comes with a CD burner now a day. If you need plastic music, just make it yourself from your purchased digital music...?
Could that be the thinking behind the extinction of store sold plastic music?

And will plastic video soon follow?
All those home disc players are about to become useless metal paper weights?
.
 
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As long as digital music downloads cost the same as a plastic CD, I will continue to buy CD's or "steal" the MP3's. I'm not paying the same price and getting less, a CD is still a good storage medium (I have many that are 15-20 years old), and sound quality is retained. You download an MP3 from Amazon or Itunes, who knows how it is encoded, and it almost definitely isn't lossless.

Simply, I'm not going to pay the same to get less.
 
Triumph said:
As long as digital music downloads cost the same as a plastic CD, I will continue to buy CD's or "steal" the MP3's. I'm not paying the same price and getting less, a CD is still a good storage medium (I have many that are 15-20 years old), and sound quality is retained. You download an MP3 from Amazon or Itunes, who knows how it is encoded, and it almost definitely isn't lossless.

Simply, I'm not going to pay the same to get less.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

The whole quality argument aside, if you pay the same, may as well get a physical copy as well.
 
I haven't bought a CD since "subscription" services like Rhapsody, Napster, Slacker, ect have come about. $10 a month and access to over a million artists.

It's legal, easy, and cheap.
 
vi edit said:
I haven't bought a CD since "subscription" services like Rhapsody, Napster, Slacker, ect have come about. $10 a month and access to over a million artists.

It's legal, easy, and cheap.
Click to expand...

Those have piqued my interest lately but I'm not mobile enough to get the most from them. In my car or on my motorcycle, I wouldn't have any way to access them. I don't have a smart phone with a data plan.
 
Triumph said:
Those have piqued my interest lately but I'm not mobile enough to get the most from them. In my car or on my motorcycle, I wouldn't have any way to access them. I don't have a smart phone with a data plan.
Click to expand...

A lot of verizon "dumb" phones made in the last couple years have a Rhapsody service enabled in them. Or a $20 or $30 sandisk sansa would allow them to work.
 
Triumph said:
Those have piqued my interest lately but I'm not mobile enough to get the most from them. In my car or on my motorcycle, I wouldn't have any way to access them. I don't have a smart phone with a data plan.
Click to expand...

You can get unlimited data with T-Mobile's pay-as-you-go plan for $30 a month, and there are decent, cheap android phones available. You can hook up phones to many car stereos. I just use pandora on my phone and hook it up to a front aux input in my car. Hell, I rarely use the saved music on my phone.
 
I just wish they'd upgrade to a higher quality sound format already. It sucks that I can find a super high quality audio while watching a blu ray movie but can't get a higher quality music track to match.

I know that there was DVD-audio, which seemed to flop and never took off.
 
I recently put a new radio in my truck that isn't able to play CDs. All of my music is either live streaming or downloaded so there was no need for CDs.
 
Juddog said:
I just wish they'd upgrade to a higher quality sound format already. It sucks that I can find a super high quality audio while watching a blu ray movie but can't get a higher quality music track to match.

I know that there was DVD-audio, which seemed to flop and never took off.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that's a consumer problem. Most people just want cheap and convenient with "ok" sound quality. Very few people have systems, the ears, or the desire to support high quality sound.

For now it's a very expensive, niche thing that has very little consumer backing.
 
I edited my orig post but worth repeating again, do consumers have a choice?
Do they even make newly released movies on VHS anymore? I don't think so.
So it only follows that plastic video will also become extinct soon, at some point.
Most every tv made today now includes internet connectivity for streaming vudu, netflix, amazon and Hulu. And I bet Im forgetting some streaming services in that list.

People with those analog tv tuner tv's can no longer get analog tv over the air.
You need a digital converter. But I believe they made allowances for those analog tv owners because of not wanting to cut viewers off from important news broadcasts.

Probably will not be the case when it comes to entertainment media.
In the near further, if you want to play a movie on that home disc player, you will have to burn your digital copy of that movie onto a blank disc yourself.
And forget about HD media on disc.
Wow... we all may live to actually see blu-ray plastic come of age.... then become extinct much faster.
Imagine that HD movie on plastic blu-ray disc, nothing more than a dogs frisbee toy...
 
problem with most CDs is that with most albums ~80% of it is garbage filler to try and justify the price of obtaining access to a few hits
 
ElFenix said:
CDs are digital.
Click to expand...

I think we're talking physical vs data-digital.
And I see where you might be going, in that many people still believe music CD's being digital, are inferior compared to those vinyl records. At least when it comes to bass reproduction.
 
sportage said:
I think we're talking physical vs data-digital.
And I see where you might be going, in that many people still believe music CD's being digital, are inferior compared to those vinyl records. At least when it comes to bass reproduction.
Click to expand...

The problem with a lot of music today is the "Loudness war". Producers intentionally limit the dynamic range of the music and compress down peaks and valleys to one garbled mess of LOUD NOISES.
 
I buy CDs and rip them. Been doing it for, god, since 1996 or so. No plans to stop. Don't care for low quality downloads from iTurds or Amazon.
 
I hope not. Lossless tracks aren't nearly as common yet - wish more artists would have a setup like Bandcamp or Nine Inch Nails.
 
vi edit said:
....Most people just want cheap and convenient with "ok" sound quality. Very few people have systems, the ears, or the desire to support high quality sound.

For now it's a very expensive, niche thing that has very little consumer backing.
Click to expand...


True. It's sad how many people have never heard music on a good system. The convenience of the modern delivery systems is great...there's definitely a place for that stuff. It would be nice if everyone would make the effort to sit down in front of a nice system and really listen to an album.
 
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