Are CDs going the way of vinyl now that we have Ipods?

[Ozzy]

There will always be a pre-recorded medium for Jazz and Classical music, and for anything else that wants to be released in an audiophile format. It may not be released as CDs, some other format may have taken their place (pre-recorded SD Cards?) but it will be in a format where there is control over the quality of the recording. Also, can you imagine downloading Wagner's Ring Cycle? Even with broadband, that would take a chunk of time and a significant amount of room on your hard drive.

As I said.. it's all about access and portability.....

The ability to shop from home is already a proven success and major hurtin to retailers since websites and channels like Amazon and HSN started popping up. The fact you can download even huge MP3 files (100mb) 20 minutes still beats having to fight traffic and fellow shoppers and waiting in lines to purchase something you can have in a few minutes or so. Not to mention you don't have to worry if the store just sold the last copy of Wagner 15 minutes before you walked in.


And from the start I said the downloading business will never the best access to music until the quality of the downloads (compression, bit-rates etc...)improve and match that of a CD.
They also now make 10 and 20 gig iPods.... I think everything Wagner ever wrote will fit on one of those iPods.

 

[fumpton]

I think we're up to 80 gigs these days... At the very least 60.

the new ipod nanos just doubled in size to 8 gigs, approx 2000 songs. i think it's been mentioned here before but either sirius or xm has a portable music player which you can download songs to.

 

[Bandaid]

Justme makes good points about the fragmentation of the industry, but the problem of finding an audience is still there. The big gatekeeper, radio, is still a problem.

People are hungry for something new. Once in a while a movie will come along with a great soundtrack that gets people excited for a while (Brother, Where Art Thou?, for example) that turns people on to something they haven't heard before, which obviously is what I mean by "new". The soundtrack sells hot for a while and then it fades, because people don't hear any more. If people are exposed to more, the audience will get bigger.

Example: Boston at least used to be a big blues town because of the late Mai Cramer and her "Blues After Hours" on WGBH Radio. There were several blues venues in the area as far north as New Hampshire. Washington DC was always a big bluegrass town because WAMU played bluegrass. Clubs like the Birchmere draw from that audience.

Now, radio playlists are so narrow that new music that doesn't fit in will be ignored. I don't think satellite radio will make a big difference because it's many narrow format stations in one place.

The bottom line is that new bands still have a barrier to finding an audience, even if their distribution is easier.

 

[justlooking]

But fumpton, 8 gigs is only 2000 songs at the lossy 128 bit rate. You can't let them define capacity when they're starting from an unacceptable starting point.

 

[justlooking]

Also, "songs" are defined as 4 minutes. If you don't mainly listen to pop music, that's kind of a meaningless designation.

 

[benisbig]

Hmmmmm I still have my reel - reel and krell tube amps. I don't think MP3's will completely displace CD's the way transistors didn't stop production of tube equipment. However I do think that CD's like LP's will become more of a niche market when and if the record companies find a way to secure MP3's.

 

[Ozzy]

There are still some needed improvements/advancements before technology can replace CD's as the number one purchased media. But those advancements aren't very far off... prob within 2 years we'll see a changeover from CD to download.. And after that whats the over under for DVD's... blu-ray or not.

 

[justlooking]

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm sure you're right. I just wanted to make clear that 8 gigs on a Nano isn't anywhere near the answer.

 

[fumpton]

But fumpton, 8 gigs is only 2000 songs at the lossy 128 bit rate. You can't let them define capacity when they're starting from an unacceptable starting point.

just using the 2000 songs as an approximate number for some of the older guys here. my 4 gig nano holds just shy of 1000 songs, I'm always updating my playlists and adding and removing songs so song lengths do affect the capacity.

it's more advertising B.S. anyways, give the consumers a nice big round number that they can go ga-ga over. Much like the battery life and talk time on ipods and cell phones.

 

[justlooking]

But my point is, you're storing just shy of 1000 songs at a bit rate that some of us find unacceptable sounds-like-shit. You can up the bit rate that you transer music at, but then the 4-gig capacity becomes woefully inadequate. If I tried to store things at a lossless bit rate on 4 gig Nano, I'd probably be able to fit no more than something like three or four album's worth.

Now Ozzy points out that they're gonna fix this, sooner rather than later, either by grossly increasing the storage capacities or coming up with some kind of acceptable compression method. I'm just saying that they haven't yet, and that even when they do, it's not gonna ever permit a 4 to 8-gig unit to provide serious listening.

 

[justlooking]

But I think it's interesting the way you're not understanding me. Cuz it demonstrates that the great majority of people don't give two shits about bit rates or even serious listening. That's the only reason I wonder whether they're gonna rush to fix these problems. Sometimes I fear that they'll think they don't have to bother.

 

[justme]

But fumpton, 8 gigs is only 2000 songs at the lossy 128 bit rate. You can't let them define capacity when they're starting from an unacceptable starting point.

A couple of years ago I A/B'd an Ipod using it's analog out into my home stereo system.

(Antique Sound Labs Orchid Integrated 2A3 SET Amplifier and Triangle Zephyrs)

The difference between 128 and 196 was obvious through the stereo, but not quite as big as I would have imagined. The difference between 196 and 256 was almost imperceptable, to me. Going through the I-Pod, there was no difference between 256 and Apple lossless. Now, Apple lossless vs. my Ah Tjoeb CD player revealed a lack of dynamics, compressed soundstage, and a bit of digital glare in the IPod. Still, comparing a $300 portable hard drive player to a $700 dedicated CD player seemed a little unfair. When I realized that, I figured that the fair comparison would be to a portable CD player. The IPod at 128 smoked a cheap Panasonic portable that I hooked up to the stereo. The Panasonic was basically unlistenable and I was amazed at the crap I had been subjecting my ears to.

I walked away really impressed with the sound of the IPod in comparison with what I consider to be a very resolving stereo system. More to the point, I realized the IPod was much better than my then portable music solution - even when compressing the music to hell.

Last year I bought a 4G Nano. Although limited in size, I prefer not to use a hard drive based approach.

Anyways, I paired it with Shure Ec2's. I spent a week each listening to music compressed at 128, 196, and 256. While my home stereo revealed significant differences between 128 and 196, the Shures failed to reveal much of that difference. There was less tightness in the bass and less sparkle on things like high hat hits, but the sound was pretty close. I couldn't hear any difference at all between the 196 and 256.

Unless you're going to spend some pretty serious money on the tranducer part of the equation (speakers / headphones), after 196 the bottleneck to good sound is going to be the built in amplifier and the headphones.

I'm not doing serious listening when I'm walking to school, riding the bus, or in my office grading papers. I just like to have a little bit of background music for that. I think that 196 through the IPod into the Shure's is perfect for that and leaps and bounds above a portable CD player.

 

[justme]

There are still some needed improvements/advancements before technology can replace CD's as the number one purchased media. But those advancements aren't very far off... prob within 2 years we'll see a changeover from CD to download.. And after that whats the over under for DVD's... blu-ray or not.

The transitions already happened. We're just to old to know that it has.

I know a lot more people under the age of 23 than I did a year ago and very, very few of them are still buying music on CD's. And many of them aren't just stealing music. A good number use I-Tunes.

 

[justme]

If I tried to store things at a lossless bit rate on 4 gig Nano, I'd probably be able to fit no more than something like three or four album's worth.

Nah, A CD-Rom holds something like 640 megs, right? So a 4 gig nano would hold at least 6 albums. And there are lossless compression schemes which could probably get you up to 10. An 8 gig pushes you to 20. Are you really going to need more than 20 albums in a given day? maybe even weekend?

But like I said in my post above, there's no reason to run uncompressed on a Nano. I get something like 30 albums on my 4 Gig. When I was in Belize a couple of months ago, it was very nice to hook my Nano up to a Henry Kloss PAL and have toons on the outdoor deck. Even inside the sound was pretty good for something that fits in a briefcase.

 

[justlooking]

Just to be clear, I think the iPod is a wonderful device. I love my iPod.

(FWIW, I also use a Nano cuz I prefer a flash drive.)

 

[Ozzy]

Putting the technology of a Nano aside... You can still purchase a hard drive with a several hundred gig capacity and store a lot more than a few thousand songs or all pretty much all you'll ever need and play it thru your PC sound system. You can always update play lists on your smaller Nano or iPod drives when you go mobile. But this brings me back to regular radio's of the near future which may be built with drives of their own to store music as it's played... And this would be at a higher bit rate than a download. And if these radio/tivos are loaded with large enough drives to store all the media you'll ever need... it could be enough to bury CD's even before the download or compression technology advances. And if you ever use up a 'built in' radio drive, I'm sure the ability to add on external drives will be a standard feature.

 

[Bandaid]

I can buy a 120 GB drive the size of a pack of cards that powers off the USB port alone for $140. My collection, which is fairly large, is about 14 GB. You can buy a 500 GB external drive for $300. Lossless compressors like FLAC compress files 30 to 50 percent. It's thoroughly possible to store huge collections for not much money.

 

[justlooking]

PLAY IT THROUGH YOUR PC SOUND SYSTEM?????????????????????????

Ozzy, have you taken leave of your senses?

 

[justme]

If I were building my stereo from scratch today, there is no way I'd buy a CD player. Instead I'd invest money in a RAID network storage device with a TB of storage. Then I'd buy one of the many wireless digital music servers with digital out. Paired with a decent DAC, I think the convenience factor would more then compensate for any shorcomings in the "transport".

And I'd have a record player.

The only pain in the ass part is that I'd have to digitize a lot of music. I really wish that record companies would give you some kind of electronic voucher allowing you to download whatever you buy on LP. I'd probably be willing to shell out an extra dollar or two for the right....

I think the Serius model isn't the long term solution. As wireless broadband gets cheaper, the real radio option will be streaming directly from the web.

 

[justme]

PLAY IT THROUGH YOUR PC SOUND SYSTEM?????????????????????????

Ozzy, have you taken leave of your senses?

I suppose it depends on what he means by PC sound system.

An Apple airport, or a Slingbox, or (there's another company whose name I'm forgetting) will deliver a standard digital stream to whatever Mark Levinson DAc you want to hook it up to...