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In Reply to: Since 2000 the sales down between 10-20% a year posted by Gordon Rankin on March 28, 2007 at 07:26:15:
"The writing is on the wall.... Since 2000 the sales down between 10-20% a year.
As soon as we get rid of DRM then full content will be easily available for download by more companies and that will be just the future."But I don't want to buy lossy compressed MP3 or AAC music for anything other than an iPod. If the lowly CD is going to be the better sound format, I'll take it. It's also a lot easier to make a few clicks on Amazon.com than to download an entire CD's worth of data in no-loss format.
And then again, I don't want to load my hard drive with lossless music - there's too many titles and then what happens when the hard drive crashes? CD's only go bad all at once in a fire or some disaster like that. I need the CD's at least as a backup if I ever decide to go to PC-based music.
For these reasons, some percentage of people will be around supporting residual CD sales. Maybe not like it used to be, but something will give to people who care about sound quality and convenience combined. A hard drive and mass downloading effort is not necessarily all that much a convenience. CD sales are losing to the pop music industry where only hit songs are taken, one at a time. For classical and jazz music, whole CD's are still going to have some demand. The hardware for making CD's is all out there and not going to be destroyed soon I hope.
Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I think CD's demise is not imminent.
Follow Ups:
> But I don't want to buy lossy compressed MP3 or AAC music for anything other than an iPod.>You can buy hi-rez downloads from sites like MusicGiants.
You can buy used CDs from Amoeba Music in the Bay Area, record what you want, then sell them back for 70% of what you paid.
> And then again, I don't want to load my hard drive with lossless music - there's too many titles and then what happens when the hard drive crashes?>
You can get an external hard drive for less than $100 to back up all your files.
> For these reasons, some percentage of people will be around supporting residual CD sales. Maybe not like it used to be, but something will give to people who care about sound quality and convenience combined>
CDs will become like vinyl and be purchased by collectors and we audiophiles.
> A hard drive and mass downloading effort is not necessarily all that much a convenience.>
I agree - I've never downloaded music. I've recorded it all on my PC from CDs.
Unfortunately, it's the way of the near future.
> Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I think CD's demise is not imminent.>
Demise? Perhaps not completely.
Like my teenaged kids have never heard a record play, yours probably won't hear CDs.
I actually do not know any teenagers that have not heard a record play? Or at least none that would admit to it. Maybe it is because I live in the Bay Area(San Fran)? Actually teenagers seem to understand fidelity better than most of us working schmucks. Remember when it was all about being cool, and music is cool?
...my daughter is 16, loves music as much as I do, has hundreds of CDs, thousands of songs on her iPod, but has never heard a record or even seen one played.I sold my turntable and all my records when she was about 3 because I wasn't listening to them anymore. She thinks that was a crime because she would love to have them - they are retro and cool now.
Go to craigslist and look under event services and see how many DJ companies there are. A restaurant we go to has a 2 turntables (DJ) amongst the only 7 tables in the place on Thursdays and Fridays. My wifes hair place has a guys spinning records on saturday afternoon. I took my three year old to a free kids drum circle, 2 turn-tables going in the back. According to my nephew all his junior high dances had one, and it was always one of the students doing it with their own equipment. My wifes Pilates teacher put on a dance, with music, which was a DJ, guitarist, bass and cello player ~ sounded great. Over half the audience was kids.
...between living in San Francisco - and living in the Bay Area white bread upper middle class suberbs.
While i agree with the intent of this post, I am not sure I agree with this:You can buy used CDs from Amoeba Music in the Bay Area, record what you want, then sell them back for 70% of what you paid.
I don't think that is legal.
...IIRC, it is also illegal to record your own CDs on to your computer.
It is not illegal to burn a CD that you own for use, for example, in your car. Nor is it illegal to copy a CD that you own on to your hard drive.However, copying someone else's CD or buying a CD, copying it (on to whatever media), and then selling the "used" CD to someone else is illegal.
Ultimately, all of this is kind of self-defeating. If the typical CD is copied, say, three times by three different people, then the sale price of the CD will begin to reflect that expectation.
I don't think the experience of software and DRM is necessarily a model of what should happen with music. A lot of software has a much shorter useful life than a CD . . . until release 2.0 comes along.
I think DRM for digital music is going to happen, sooner or later; and, personally, I think it should if it can be implemented without degrading the audio signal. Otherwise, the price of digital music is going to reflect the seller's expectations that it will be used by multiple users.
> It is not illegal to burn a CD that you own for use, for example, in your car. Nor is it illegal to copy a CD that you own on to your hard drive.>I was told that even though you may own the CD, you don't own the music or the rights to it and may not legally copy it - which is why some CDs are copy-protected.
> However, copying someone else's CD or buying a CD, copying it (on to whatever media), and then selling the "used" CD to someone else is illegal.>
So which is the 'illegal' part?
Buying a CD and copying it - which you say is ok above.
Or selling it?
From what I understand it is ok under the fair use act to make a copy for your own personal use and as a back up.THis is similiar to making a copy of software for back up purposes. My Adobe software allows use on 2 computers if one is a laptop, but no more.
Where it is illegal, is if you sell the cd. Since you are no longer an owner, the fair use act doesn't apply.
But, from what I understand copyright law is not that cut and dry.
Lawyers like to make angels dance on the head of a pin, so bear with me. ;-)There is something called the Home Recording Act that provides that making a personal copy of a sound recording (regardless of the media used) for personal use is "not infringement." That means you can't be sued for filling up a music server with music from the CDs that you own (but not with your friends' CDs!) or burning a copy of a CD so you can have it to play in your car.
That is not, however, defined as "fair use." "Fair use" is a judge-made doctrine that allows limited use of portions of copyrighted works for certain limited, non-commercial purposes. The most obvious example is scholarly treatises that include quotations from other copyrighted works as part of the discussion or commentary. Without the fair use doctrine, this copying whether attributed or not, would be an infringment unless the author received express permission from the copyright holder of the excerpted work.
The significance of this distinction -- that permitted home recording is not infringement but also is not "fair use" -- is that copyright owners are permitted to take measures (like copy protection) to prevent such copying. If it were defined as "fair use," they would not be permitted to do so.
The Home Recording Act originally referred exclusively to sound recordings, so it does not legitimize making copies of software or recorded video. Of course, the software maker is free to define in the terms of the license that you acquire when you buy the software, what kind of copying you can do, how many machines you can run the software on simultaneously and so on. With respect to "time-shifting" video devices like VCRs and, now DVRs, there was a Supreme Court decision in the 1980s that held that the Betamax was not an infringing device, even though it could be used for infringement (i.e. making unauthorized copies of video programming). This is because the VCR has substantial non-infringing uses. I do not know whether current manufacturers of DVRs operate under that decision or whether there is a special statutory provision that exempts them from being classified as infringing devices. The difference, of course, is that VCRs can play pre-recorded tapes, an obvious non-infringing use; but DVRs can not play pre-recorded media.
And, by the way, to my knowledge, "fair use" never permits the reproduction of the complete work, but only a part of it.
Bruce,I am late to finding this, so I may have missed your attention, but I have a follow-up question. If I make an allowed copy for my car of a CD I bought new, and also put it on my computer, if I later sell the CD (some time has passed here, as I did not in this case buy to copy, to sell like 1, 2,3) am I legally obligated and expected to destroy all copies I had made?
Well, I knew I was out on a limb with all the pseudo lawyer talk.But, it is good to know that you CAN make copies of your disks!
I am guessing you don't have a music server. Too many titles?? The computer is designed to handle hundreds of thousands of files pretty effortlessly, and I can get to my songs and albums way faster than with cds. To say this is not convenient is crazy.Why anyone would want to deal with missing disks, scratched disks, skipping songs, polishing disks, little green pens, cd mats, etc. is beyond me.
Sure it is prudent to back up your drives, but not having to wonder why this disk isn't in its case, and where are all the disks going to go, is well worth the time it takes to back up.
Also, with band width the way it is these days the potential to down load whole cds in even hi-res form is here.
Recently I down loaded some 24/96 classical files, and if I could have, I would have downloaded the recent cds I purchased if given the option.
WIth a pc based system, the sound quality and convenience is better than it has ever been, and the cd demise can't happen too soon IMHO.
I have not tried to make music from my PC. The thing takes a long time to boot up, for one thing, and it's not even in the same room as my music system. So I need answers to questions as to how this is better than filing through physical discs. I do it all the time with records as well. That's not an issue for me.
> I am guessing you don't have a music server. Too many titles?? The computer is designed to handle hundreds of thousands of files pretty effortlessly, and I can get to my songs and albums way faster than with cds. To say this is not convenient is crazy. <No, I don't have a music server, so I don't even know what those look like. I say too many titles because if I own 1000 CD's, each with about 500 MB of data, that's 500 GB of memory needed. That's a large disc drive, even though they do exist. So do you use compression to shrink that? Probably. How do you back up 500 GB of memory? With another 500 GB drive? And how long does that take to back up? How long does it take to load up all 1000 CD's on this hard drive and set it up to begin with? And then link one room with my PC over into the next? And move back and forth to change the song? So I have to have the computer in the same room with me taking up space that I don't have in there?
> Why anyone would want to deal with missing disks, scratched disks, skipping songs, polishing disks, little green pens, cd mats, etc. is beyond me. <I don't have any of these problems. My careless wife has problems like that with her discs she buys for her car, but I am more organized and don't take discs out of the room. And I never bother with CD tweaks, I never heard a difference with those things. My discs are not scratched. It's easy not to scratch them.
> Sure it is prudent to back up your drives, but not having to wonder why this disk isn't in its case, and where are all the disks going to go, is well worth the time it takes to back up. <Is it worth all the time to download all those 1000 discs in the first place? That's not a convenience to me at all.
> Also, with band width the way it is these days the potential to down load whole cds in even hi-res form is here. <
I have to have satellite high speed that has a fair use policy whereby I can download only 175 MB of data per day before it slows down to dial-up speed. Where's the potential for me? I am having the satellite system from Hughesnet installed this Friday.
> Recently I down loaded some 24/96 classical files, and if I could have, I would have downloaded the recent cds I purchased if given the option. <
You must have more than the 700 kbps high-speed than I am going to get.
> WIth a pc based system, the sound quality and convenience is better than it has ever been, and the cd demise can't happen too soon IMHO. <
You mean, for you, you don't care. To wish for the demise of an option seems ludicrous to me. It's like saying "Thank God I don't have the option of 78's anymore!" Okay, whatever.
No, I don't have a music server, so I don't even know what those look like. I say too many titles because if I own 1000 CD's, each with about 500 MB of data, that's 500 GB of memory needed. That's a large disc drive, even though they do exist. So do you use compression to shrink that? Probably. How do you back up 500 GB of memory? With another 500 GB drive? And how long does that take to back up? How long does it take to load up all 1000 CD's on this hard drive and set it up to begin with? And then link one room with my PC over into the next? And move back and forth to change the song? So I have to have the computer in the same room with me taking up space that I don't have in there?
I figured you didn't. ANyhow, even if you did uncompressed wav files, a 500g drive is about $144 so say $300 for 2 . If you used Flac to compress, you may get it down to say 300g. Back up should be fairly easy and not too long after the initial hard drive copy (not necessary if you just want the files). YOu can set up a raid system to do this automatically, but I haven't had to resort to anything that fancy.
I am not saying that there isn't some time investment up front, but ripping goes pretty fast. Originally I was doing rips that were super paranoid and took 20-30 minutes per disk. But now, I think I could rip a lot faster and more accurate (things are better on this front than they were 3-4 years ago). It took me about a month for 200 cds using the super slow method, and only working on weekends. So far, I have ripped my collection twice, and may do so a 3rd time. Remember that I did this a long while ago, and made some decisions that were right at the time, but things change. The info is there, so those starting now, will not make the same mistakes I did. Not that I think I made any mistakes persay, just some unenlightened decisions.
While this seems like a lot, short term it is, but if you factor the time saved by not having to get up to change disks and organize things, it will definately save time over the long haul. ALso I listen to more music because I can. With a simple click, things are changed, or I can do playlists and let it random. It used to be that I would listen to the same cd for weeks because I had to get up and change disks. Now it is super easy.
As for the computer, there are 2 routes you can take:
1. "Music COmputer". THis basically involves making a silent computer and placing it in the room. Treat it as you would a regular cdp...it only plays tunes, no games, e-mail, and maybe no internet. I went this route, and the PC looks like a cross between a high end cdp, and a class A amp. CLick on the A by my moniker to see my system and picts of the pc. THe control and display is done by a wireless touch screen monitor. SO there is no running to the computer. SInce it is fanless, it is perfect in the room, and it looks like a piece of audio gear. I added a high end sound card that studios use. It has 3 balanced analog outputs, and I can use the pc as an active crossover for Bi/ tri amping. I can even do room correction and upsampling if I want. It also has a digital in and out as well as an analog in so I can connect a tuner, etc. The trick with this route, is not using it for anything but music.
2. Noisy computer in the other room. Use any old noisey computer, and a device that is wired or wirelessly networked to get audio into the hifi room. THere are some affordable devices that allow you to get your tunes accross the house to the audio room. Most people use these devices to feed a dac or just take the analog outs. THese devices usually have a display and control built in. Here is an example of such devices that start as little as $300:
http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html?
If you have a dac, just spend $600 on drives and the squeeze box, and you are in business.
Another version of this route is to connect the PC to the DAC via usb. YOu can do really long runs with a USB amplifier, and put the noisey computer in the basement. Many use pdas with blue tooth to control the PCs that are in the other room.
Many people have all the files stored on a network and just access the files from individual computers.
Either way, you save space by getting all those 1000cds out of the room. They take up way more space than a pc.
I don't have any of these problems. My careless wife has problems like that with her discs she buys for her car, but I am more organized and don't take discs out of the room. And I never bother with CD tweaks, I never heard a difference with those things. My discs are not scratched. It's easy not to scratch them.
Neither do I now that I have them stored in the music computer. But kudos to your organizational skill. I could never keep it all straight. Cds would be stacked and fall or placed in different cases.
I have to have satellite high speed that has a fair use policy whereby I can download only 175 MB of data per day before it slows down to dial-up speed. Where's the potential for me? I am having the satellite system from Hughesnet installed this Friday.
NOw, that is a problem. But, if the cd disappears, internet companies will have to start offering higher band width as everyone will need it.
You must have more than the 700 kbps high-speed than I am going to get.
Yes, I think I remember my comcast supporting speeds above 8 mbps maybe even as high as 12mbps.
You mean, for you, you don't care. To wish for the demise of an option seems ludicrous to me. It's like saying "Thank God I don't have the option of 78's anymore!" Okay, whatever.
If you have seen the future and it is better, you too would wish for things that bring the demise of the present. WHen you go the PC route, and you will one day ( there are more and more audio companies making products that are really purpose built audio computers like the Cambridge piece or the Olive or the VRS Revelation) you will remember this and ask yourself why you didn't do it sooner.
Like those paintings at the mall that change after you stare at them for 20 minutes, you can't know until you have seen it. But once you do, it is blatantly obvious. This is why I am taking the time to post.
I will have to keep this post for future reference. Thanks for the valuable information.Right now I have a new computer that I HATE. It has Windows Vista and is currently incompatible with ALL peripherals I have to go with it. It has a surround sound card (like why, I wonder? Am I really expected to sit at my computer chair to watch a surround sound movie on my 17" monitor?). The computer is fast and the operating system is slow. But you get to watch it do pretty graphics (as if I care). I just want it to work.
I had to go to satellite high speed because I could not find a Vista compatible modem, believe it or not. I was dumb enough not to buy the optional built-in modem (after all, I already had a modem), and the sales folks at HP can't even tell me what modem they use in there that really IS Vista compatible. Ah heck, time to dump my dial-up anyway.
I found out I could get Comcast high speed and all their cable services for the modest installation fee of $3900! They have to modify a telephone pole to get the cable to my house (aerial extension over a tree in my neighbor's yard). Everyone in my neighborhood gets Comcast except me because they can't string a cable to my nearby telephone pole without engineering an expensive solution. No wireless DSL in the hills where I am. The lots are one acre and bigger where I am, and full of trees in the way. Ah, but the views are nice.
I truly despise working on PC's. They should just be configured at the store to plug and play and you just go. This is never the case, it's plug and pRay. And Windows Vista (their latest beta version for all new PC owners to have) isn't ready for prime time. It doesn't even load my old Microsoft "Picture It" software, from their own damn software line! So far I have little working on that computer and am using my old Windows 98 computer until tomorrow when I change over to an Ethernet connected modem high speed. They promised they could make Vista work with their high speed satellite modem to the Ethernet connector. I'll be amazed if there's no problems.
So you can see I am not excited by the future of digital music from a computer. I am a DIY'er, and build my own amps and sometimes speakers, but PC DIY is for 8th grade geniuses. I'm just an 46-year-old EE still using vacuum tubes, some from the 1920's. (They don't make them like THAT anymore.) Whiz bang computer technology never really impresses me. I just want good sound and good music and can actually still get up to turn over a record every 20 minutes.
I think the Wintel conspiracy of speedy technological obsolescence for the sake of making max dollars is just a scam. It doesn't make my life any easier, really.
But okay, some day I will go kicking and screaming into the future! They force us. Right now I look at the PC Audio forum and everyone is talking alphabet soup. It looks like I need to go to college again to be able to hook up a modern PC audio system.
Now I'm down from my soapbox. :-)
Kurt
Kurt,I've been on DirecPC/Hughes for 7 years. If you have any questions I can probably help. You will have no problem with Vista on this setup. The satellite device is a modem/router which does DHCP (handles the in house IP addresses). Your limit is 175mb in an 4 hour sliding window. For $10 a month more you can double that. You need to get a download manager so you can either control the baud rate of the download or pause it when you get near your limit and then continue it a couple of hours later.
We do some software development here. With a couple of audio streams running,two people surfing and 10 machines running the automatic services, etc. we only hit FAP once. That was when one of the machines had gotten a piece of something that called home every couple of seconds and that traffic went over the limit. When you go over you get slowed down to 56K for the next 4 hour period. The 7000 series modems work well but with the FAP it is not suitable to download much music or video.
The reason Vista supports surround sound is the same reason for this thread, there is way too much dark fiber out there for things to go any other way.
Yes, living where you can't get good access is a pain in some respects. If I were you I would cook up a deal with a neighbor and setup a wi-fi or wi-max connection and pay part of their cable bill. If you bought the latest Hughes offering then you are tied up for 15 months. By then there might be a real public wi-max systems running in your area. I have and 1800 foot ridge between me and I-5 which is 5 miles away as the crow flies. I will be able to get DSL this summer.
Hey Kurt,I feel your pain. WHile I am competent on the computer front, I am not a genius there, and would never never never buy a 1st addition of a microsoft OS. I won't adopt it until service pack 2 shows up. I was given a mediacenter pc (1st edition) and it crashes all the time...not going that route again.
The really cool thing about a music computer is that the hardware needs are very basic. ALl this thing is going to do is run a few audio programs, and that is it. Hell, mine is not even connected to the web...it just plays music.
FWIW, Gordon Rankin of Wavelength audio has a really easy solution. BUy a mac and his usb Dac. Macs are easy to use and set up, and his Brick or Crimson has gotten great reviews. I Tunes is very easy to use they say, and you don't have any of that PC complication. I mention this because Gordon is a tube guy too, and routinely runs his pc system into highend tubes and efficient speakers.
Or you could buy a mac and use your EE skills to build a usb dac as there are kits available.
Or, here are some links to a few other products where all the heavy lifting has been done by someone else and all the benenfits of a pc based system can be realized without having to go to college:
http://www.vrsaudiosystems.com/
http://www.zerooneaudio.com/product_Ti48.htm
http://www.wavelengthaudio.com/
http://www.empiricalaudio.com/frComputer_Audio.htmlHell, if a ba in philosophy can make a pc based system, an ee is a shoe in. ALso, here is a post you might enjoy:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/19055.html
...hang out over on the "Digital-PC Audio" Asylum and see what people are talking about.> Is it worth all the time to download all those 1000 discs in the first place? That's not a convenience to me at all.>
I recorded my favorite 2100 songs from about 500 CDs (oldies, blues, classic rock, pop, some disco) to my PC in Apple Lossless and have them all loaded on my 60Gb iPod.
Took a couple of weeks.
I play it in 'shuffle' mode and never know what will play next.
I can take all the music wherever I go now - to the gym, on an airplane, outside to read, use it as a source with a smaller room system, or put the iPod in a boombox and take it to a different room as background music.
Or I can listen to it while I'm on the computer.
I still listen to CDs - usually new music - on my main system.
I agree with this. The New York Times continues to review classical CDs, and one of its reviewers noted in a recent review of a CD of music by a French composer (who teaches at Columbia University in New York) that the CD was not available for sale in the United States at all(!) I suspect the demise of Tower made this situation even more common. No problem - the reviewer simply mentioned a couple of French web sites where it can be ordered (though with significant shipping costs, I'm sure).Downloads are poised to replace CDs, but technical limitations remain. A good alternative right now is a seller who will burn a CD-R for you. Many of these are popping up on the internet.
Custom made CDs - great idea. I can see going to a website, picking out from a catalogue exactly what you want on the CD, and then having it made for you (by the producer and then mailed to you as a regular CD). To me this sounds much better than just downloading to a computer - you wouldn't have to deal with formats, hard disc crashes, broadband disruptions, etc. A lot of people still like to collect those shiny plastic discs.
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