I think we might want to project into the future on this. The kids that are 15 today will have lived with ''downloads'' for 10 years when they get to be 25 in 2016. It is not that far away. How many of them will have become ''audiophiles'' to the point where they will spend for a 5 inch plastic disk only to be transferred to a pea-sized I-Pod in their ear canal? The cd will probably keep improving as the LP records have also been improving. But it is irrelevant. Cd's and LP's will be in niche markets dedicated to relatively few audiophiles who will kid themselves that music is more important than audio-lust and audio jewellery, the only reason left to fuel purchases of expensive cd players and turntables and insanely priced cables and the like. Music SHOULD be more important than the gear of course, but I feel that this is not what high-end audio is about. And there is nothing wrong with that. There can be immense pleasure in the pride of owning electro-mechanical works of art (okay let's call this your average kilobuck amplifier or cd player). Same goes for photography, boating, or antiques. The rest of the world will be enjoying good sound quality, if maybe not the absolute best, but certainly good enough, with infinitely more convenience, on equipment that will cost an infinite fraction of what is being spent today. Given the choice between listening to music and artists that I do not enjoy on cd's or LP's that produce spectacular sounds on a megabuck system, and the choice of listening to music that moves me on an I-Pod, I'll take the I-Pod any day. And this is where, by natural choice and just the sheer amount of music out there and the ease with which it can be readily enjoyed anywhere, most are heading, I feel. There will still be, for some time to come, the warm glow of tubes, a record or CD of your favorite music that you can actually hold in your hands, for us to enjoy with a glass of beer or wine or whatever. But only if we have time to enjoy it. But we will be like audio-dinosaurus on an exressway, so you WILL grab that I-Pod most of the time. |
In response to some questions regarding LPs. The album is the only musical medium that has been increasing in market share of almost five years now. Music sales are down across the board except for the LP. I have a hard time believing that the CD would have ever really caught on if it were not for the fact that record companies pulled ALL the vinyl off the shelves and force-fed a gullable public this inferior medium! There were more rooms using vinyl as their main (or in some cases, ONLY) source at RMAF last weekend, yeah I know, that's ancient history. That wasn't just the TT manufacturers either. There were dozens of new TTs shown for the first time too. SOTA is working on a redo of almost their entire line which will bring them to the next level too. Teres showed to completely different designs than anything they've done before. What do they know. There were few new CDPs. I didn't notice anyone selling CDs their, but there were about 12,000 LPs for sale... BWDIK... |
The EMI President's comment is taken out of context here, and unless one reads the full article it's easy to get the wrong intent. What he said was that the CD "as we know it" is dead, but there is a need for physical content versus downloads. This is a significant difference. Here is a more compete quote from the article. The CD as it is right now is dead," Levy said, adding that 60% of consumers put CDs into home computers in order to transfer material to digital music players. |
My pet peeve about CDs (OK, and cassettes too), from the very beginning, wasn't to do with the disc itself, or even the sound per se, but the fact that there was no way to included additional (printed) content/lyrics/notes/artwork -- at least that could be enjoyed with the naked eye! And we who had come to enjoy that content as an extension of the album itself felt cheated of the missing info, photos, and liner notes. Where do young people today get all the backup info on their favorite artists/albums? Don't they care? I'm sure it's online, but do they actually slow down long enough to take the time to go get it? Anybody? (I don't have kids.) I would be very happy if CDs came packaged in 10x10 booklets that had some real content. Could that be what Mr. Levy was referring to. I hope so. I remember how much fun it used to be to buy a new LP and sit reading the lyrics and liner notes while listening to it for the first time. I just bought the new Dylan CD. It took about ten pages to print out the lyrics, which I first had to find online (no photos or production notes of course!) before I was ready to settle down and listen -- so NOT classy!! . |
