[Closed] will the CD die out or will it always be king for sound quality

Drac - Moderator
Because I can rip a CD but I can't make a CD out of an MP3.
I can.

Roach makes a good point, I listen to stuff on Spotify unlimited more than anything else at the moment. £5/month you can't go wrong!

big clubs get vinyl delivered by the crate

is that true - most DJs have their own vinyl/digital collection?

Including the sleeve and booklet printing?

You said the CD but yeah you can get those too.

Drac - Moderator
Including the sleeve and booklet printing?
You said the CD but yeah you can get those too.

TBF we are being pedantic - we both know what the other is saying 😉

I've discovered that £200 gets you an OK needle for a record deck definately not as good as £500 though.

try the Denon DL304 - about £200 but performs at a higher level and is very neutral.

TBF we are being pedantic - we both know what the other is saying

Well kind of but to claim you can't make a CD out of MP3s is wrong.

The vast majority of stuff I listen to is MP3, but I virtually always buy CDs rather than downloads- as pointed out above, it's not really any more expensive and then I've got the MP3 and the CD, so I can use it in the car and I've still got the original if my computer dies.

On top of that, there are other intangible aspects to it rather than just owning the tracks. Getting a new CD reminds me of getting a new album when I was a kid and poring over the artwork and any liner notes. Even though getting a new CD isn't such an event there's still a little bit of that you don't get from MP3s, and some artists have raised their game in terms of the packaging in the last few years I think.

And CD is still my format of choice for those occasions when I just want to sit down with a drink and listen to music- there's something about browsing through them and sitting down with the notes that an MP3 just can't give you.

Or maybe I'm a luddite and I can't get my head around music not being attached to some physical artefact. Anyway, I know what I like and it's still CDs 😀

big clubs get vinyl delivered by the crate

is that true - most DJs have their own vinyl/digital collection?

Yes/No/depends on the club.

All DJ's wil have their own stuff, but the clubs I worked in had huge collections as well, mainly because they get sent a lot of stuff for free or before it's release date, there were even subscriptions you could take out which sent you pre-release stuff.

Happy memeories of listening to someone playing Galvanise before it was released, then stoping halfway through to appologise as it was sh**.

Glad there are some CD lovers out there. 😀
The day I'm forced to buy music by download only, will be the day I stop buying music. It's not that I necessarily think the CD reigns supreme, but I want some sort of physical media to store music on.
I still love the excitement of getting hold of new music with the sleeve notes, cover art and that new album smell. I must buy probably about 12 to 15 Cds on average a month and would buy more if a) I could afford it and b) I had more time to listen to them!
I find CDs far more convenient and reliable quality than downloads and my hifi is far superior soundwise than my pc.

Many of my CDs are at least 20 years old, so I don't know where the 10 year lifespan idea comes from???

The problems I see for the CD, is that many people these days seem to have a really short attention span and flick from tune to tune all the time (sometimes before they've finished!) rather than sitting down and committing to an album's worth and many can't tell how crap most mp3s sound, because they've never heard how incredible music can sound form a better source, played through a reasonable hifi with good speakers.

[i]The day I'm forced to buy music by download only, will be the day I stop buying music[/i]

dont get this attitude

I dont ever want to stop buying/listening to music. the artist/music is waaaaay more important than what you listen to it on.

emsz wrote:

dont get this attitude

I dont ever want to stop buying/listening to music. the artist/music is waaaaay more important than what you listen to it on.

Yeah, you're right of course - I do feel that way though. 🙁
I've downloaded the odd album or EP, (maybe half a dozen, I reckon), but I have to burn them to CD to listen to properly anyway, which is a ball ache and even if I print off the sleeve and box them up, thay still feel "dirty" like a pirated album... 😆

Can I ask how old most of CD lovers are? I can only see the CD dying it has to. The DJ's I know now use a thing called "vinyl scratch??" where you have a record that you can scratch/play with then all the music is on a laptop, although they still have large vinyl collection, they certainly aren't carrying huge record bags around so much!

I'm 41, so vinyl and tapes were king when I was getting into music, and doubtless that colors my view.

Still, I don't see CD dying out anytime soon any more than I see DVDs being replaced by Bluray. They're (relatively) cheap, durable, portable, can be transformed into other formats, and everybody has the equipment to play them on. And audiophiles aside they have all the sound quality you need. What's not to like?

tails - over 50 CD lover here. 8)

I think one difference is that music is treated as 'background' whereas this old girl prefers to be enveloped in it and it has my full attention.

You won't even "own" any files before long it will all be streamed from the cloud ala spotify on our uber wireless internet connections.

think we're a ways off this yet. tried listnening to FM on the move recently? still not very good, despite the ubiquity of FM transmission. OK - you can do a lot with buffering, but bandwidth through mobile networks is going to have to go up a lot before that's effective, and look how happy they've been to help out with decent bandwidth for smart phones in the past few years...

anyway - i still like cds. even if i get given a copy of an album i'll often still buy it, in the end. an anonymous ripped cd on the shelf doesn't get much play. i need artwork to help an album stand out in my mind. it's just the way my brain works. or doesn't! 😀

I'm more worried about the concept of an album dying out than the format they are transported on.

If you're going to download most yoofs are just picking the singles out. You don't get a chance to construct your album as people just want tracks 1,2,3 and 11.

Didn't Wedding Present release a single every month a few years ago. I can almost see it like that all the time, just bang out a song a week/month ad infitum. You may never get those album tracks that would never be a single (or are frankly actually crap, but you like them for some reason).

i need artwork to help an album stand out in my mind

Maybe you just need some decent music. :p

The CD was only ever the king of convenience for a while.

41 here.
As a side note regarding DJs:
The popularity of the media for dance music DJs to carry their tunes on varies depending on the genre - for example, I listen to a lot of psytrance where the CD is still the most popular medium for DJs (But software based lap-top mixing is on the rise.)
In techno, Cds never caught on at all and you've mainly got vinyl die-hards (who value sound quality uppermost) and those who've embraced lap-top mixing or a combimation of the two.
I can't speak so much for other genres - but I know a bit about these two! 😉

think we're a ways off this yet. tried listnening to FM on the move recently? still not very good, despite the ubiquity of FM transmission. OK - you can do a lot with buffering, but bandwidth through mobile networks is going to have to go up a lot before that's effective, and look how happy they've been to help out with decent bandwidth for smart phones in the past few years...

My mate has Spotify unlimited on his mobile and it's brilliant.

Many of my CDs are at least 20 years old, so I don't know where the 10 year lifespan idea comes from???

I ripped a load of CDs about 10 years ago. 1 of the discs bought in the late 80's/ early 90's had corroded under the polycarbonate and was unplayable. Stored in the dry and warm for it's whole life. TPB provided a back-up copy.

MSP - Member
They would already be dead if the music industry wasn't so eager to rip off the consumer for downloads. Buying a CD from play or amazon is still the cheapest legal way to get music, and its no big deal to rip it into whatever format you want.

Hey? please explain & i will then correct you 😉

Spotify Premium (streams mp3 at 320kbps) is good enough on the laptop / mobile for ease of access to music. Prefer CD for the HiFi, or FLAC - both sound better than Spotify.

No difference between FLAC and CD for me - I do like having physical media around, it's just not the same selecting the music from a screen, no matter how much you customise Foobar or use pretty players. Digital album art is pants.
Wanted a decent phono stage and deck for a while now, listening to music should be an event.

I have a strong dislike for the prevailance of poor quality encoding, people just don't seem to care...

41 here.
As a side note regarding DJs:
The popularity of the media for dance music DJs to carry their tunes on varies depending on the genre - for example, I listen to a lot of psytrance where the CD is still the most popular medium for DJs (But software based lap-top mixing is on the rise.)
In techno, Cds never caught on at all and you've mainly got vinyl die-hards (who value sound quality uppermost) and those who've embraced lap-top mixing or a combimation of the two.
I can't speak so much for other genres - but I know a bit about these two!

That's an interesting point does your genre reflect your media type.

Do the CD lovers still have ipods as there is no arguing a an ipod nano is for more practical than a CD walkman!

I like the idea of having all my digital items in a "cloud" but that's possibly down to me preferring to have fewer possessions, as I also certainly know people who like to sit down with a pile of CD's or vinyl.

I personally love the feel of physically handling the vinyl....

Learning how your records sounded by sight, and then dropping/mixing them without headphones was quite a satisfying skill.

Oh, and the crackle - can't beat that...

Do the CD lovers still have ipods as there is no arguing a an ipod nano is for more practical than a CD walkman!

I had a (non-iPod) mp3 player until it broke, just for commuting and the like. It was full of albums ripped from CD, not downloads, but for portability, yeah, iPods make a lot of sense. I'll probably buy another one at some point.
I couldn't have one as my sole music source, though. (They don't make one that'll hold all my albums for starters.)

Albums are an anachronism - they flourished briefly in the mid/end of the 20th century. we're back to singular songs. This is a good thing, though creators of music are still rather wedded to the idea of an album being greater than the sum of its parts.

On Saturday, I went to the world's best records shop (Piccadilly Records, Manchester). I bought 7 albums. I could have bought all of them on vinyl. Instead, I chose CDs - why?

Convenience - I can listen to them in the car, rip them to my ipod, listen on my stereo at home. LPs would have restricted me to listening at home only, and then ensuring Baby North doesn't wreck my LP12.

Now, were all the LPs to have come with an option for a free download of the album, then I could have had the glories of the music at home and on the move.

[i] we're back to singular songs[/i]

Not yet, we're not

Do the CD lovers still have ipods as there is no arguing a an ipod nano is for more practical than a CD walkman!

Yeah, I have an iPod Nano. 8Gb, and I could do with one with more storage as it doesn't hold anywhere near all my albums. It was a pressie from the other half. It pretty much stays in my work bag so I can listen to music at work, and I also use it sometimes when walking to the shops etc. I am yet to plug it into my stereo & use it as a main source, although I keep meaning to get some ickle speakers to take camping that I can use it with.

An mp3 player is infinitely more practical than any other portable music device, agreed.

But I always struggle to decide what to listen to with my iPod. I don't know why. I scroll through the albums back and forth and invariably stick it on random. At home with CDs, I look at them & my mind makes a decision very quick about what kind of mood i am in and what album I should listen to. Weird, I've never understood why that is.

Not yet, we're not

Bunno, bought a few albums recently, all rubbish despite most of them coming off the back of a string of good singles. Chase and Status was good, but only because the tracks are all brilliant, there's no theme or cohesiveness to the album.

Even Masterdon admit their latest album was written as a load of singles rather than arround a story/theme.

The other symptom of this is that albums now seem to have over 50% released as singles, and even more recently the idea of releasing singles mid week to coencide with their playing on the radio thus ensureing the single isn't released on the internet first.

[i]I have a strong dislike for the prevailance of poor quality encoding, people just don't seem to care...[/i]

nope really don't care. I want to impressed by the artistry not the sound quality.

There are atill 1000s of albums released every week, so we're not back to individual songs.

[i] I want to [be] impressed by the artistry not the sound quality[/i]

Absolutely.

I couldn't have one as my sole music source, though. (They don't make one that'll hold all my albums for starters.)

An ipod classic holds 40000 songs apparently, you have a lot of music! ! !

But I always struggle to decide what to listen to with my iPod. I don't know why. I scroll through the albums back and forth and invariably stick it on random. At home with CDs, I look at them & my mind makes a decision very quick about what kind of mood i am in and what album I should listen to. Weird, I've never understood why that is.

That's interesting as on itunes and I imagine the windows alternative you have so many settings you could easily group the genres. Do you think you would use the ipod more if all of the cover art and sleeve info was also on a screen in front of you?

Oh, and the crackle - can't beat that...

Albums are an anachronism - they flourished briefly in the mid/end of the 20th century

nope really don't care. I want to impressed by the artistry not the sound quality.

stumpy01 wrote:

At home with CDs, I look at them & my mind makes a decision very quick about what kind of mood i am in and what album I should listen to

that's what headphones are for LOL

the point is, music isn't made worse (for me) when I hear it through my cheap speakers or on my iphone.

I'm guilty of picking music though, I know I've got albums that I haven't listened to all the tracks. I make playlists to go with the stories I make up in my head. 😳

Soon all my CDs and DVDs will be ripped to a NAS and played through media streamers or synched with my Android phone so from day to day I won't use CDs or DVDs. However I refuse to pay for compressed music or music which has DRM which restricts what I can play it on or how many copies I can take so I'll still buy CDs until I can buy lossless music files free of DRM such as FLAC files available from 7digital or Linn

the point is, music isn't made worse (for me) when I hear it through my cheap speakers or on my iphone.

I don't buy the "good music is good music" deal, at least as far as sound quality goes. O.K. I've got some CDs of 70s / early 80s punk that sound awful on any system, but are still great, but you can get SO much more out of a quality recording played through a decent system and some nice floorstanders.
I don't have an audiophile mega-expensive system, just some reasonable Pioneer seperates, but my Tannoys are the best thing I've ever bought in my life.

tails - Member
That's interesting as on itunes and I imagine the windows alternative you have so many settings you could easily group the genres. Do you think you would use the ipod more if all of the cover art and sleeve info was also on a screen in front of you?

Yeah, I don't really use iTunes to select music as most of the time I am not listening to it from my computer. My computer is generally just the means to get it onto the ipod.

I use that coverflip thing on the ipod to scroll around all the album covers, but it's still not the same although it does help sometimes to make a decision!

With regards to grouping into genres - I never really think of doing that, I just tend to browse by artist or album A-Z and I don't have one playlist on my iPod (apart from the ones that I think it makes by default, which i have never used.). Perhaps I should get myself a bigger capacity mp3 player & become fully acquainted with what it can do.
MP3 players, just don't excite me though......my old cassette walkmans were much more interesting. I used to spend ages comparing walkmans and deciding which one I would buy next when my current one died. I had one of those teeny tiny ones that was barely bigger than a cassette case & loved it.
An MP3 player to me is just a box with a display on it, which is odd as normally I am quite into the geekery of gadgets.

higher quality digital formats will become more common which will make CD's sound like tapes.

Dunno about that, CDs are already uncompressed wav files and very high quality. Yes you can get higher sample and bit rates but unless you have really good speakers and ears you're not gonna hear a difference.

nope really don't care. I want to impressed by the artistry not the sound quality.

They're not mutually exclusive - what's wrong with both decent artistry and a sound that can envelop you?

The last hifi show I went to had rooms chock full of enveloping sound quality: unfortunately most of it from insipid artistry selected by geeky, tech-obsessed blokes.

What I would have given then for a badly copied mix of One In The Jungle...

I'm currently listening to a tape-rip of One In The Jungle! LTJ Bukem, from around 96?

I blame the beards