Michael Fremer podcast: Wow!!!!
- Thread starter Andre Marc
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Then Alan how do work around the "instant gratification" generation?
This is NOT a hobby about instant grat. I had to wait a month for my Harbeths. I had to wait three weeks for my Thiels.
It takes time to properly set up a system.
Heck, I order import CDs from the UK that sometimes take a month to get to me.
I'm sorry, but "we" are not being sold anything. Anyone who has to have a song on their phone 30 seconds
after using Shazam is hopeless.
Not of this opinion . Headphones and amps can provide this "instant gratification" the younger generation is used to. Download play though a good pair of headphones and an amp... can be instant gratification. Moving to a room-based system is a different animal and will/may take time. . .One could nudge them toward variable bit or 320 mp3 or 256 ...
We may have to look at ourselves and our journey through audiophilia. It took us also a while to get to be this picky and recognizes the differences. Why do we expect them to just jump on it instantly? For the most part on this forum we have been at it for at least 20 years ...
Sorry, I should have made myself more clear. I believe we are increasingly being sold a lowest common denominator solution, because the last couple of generations bought that convenient solution. The stealth disappearance of CDs from the catalog is an interesting phenomenon (there's a benchmark three-disc collection of Duke Ellington that I wanted to get recently; new CDs were discontinued, second-user CDs were the equivalent of $90, there is no hi-res version available in my country... leaving interested parties with a choice of paying for an iTunes version or paying through the nose. This is not the first, nor will it be the last such recording to have wandered off the catalog). In fairness, the iTunes version of said recording is perfectly acceptable (although I don't have the original to compare), but to many audiophiles buying through iTunes is ideologically unacceptable.
The net result is sooner or later, those who buy CDs (or SACDs, or hi-res downloads) will face a dilemma - the music they want is only available on a format they don't want. What happens then?
There's also a sweeping generalisation here; for a variety of reasons, the vast majority of music lovers have always been unconcerned by the way music sounds. But 'the vast majority' is not 'all'. There have always been a subset of music lovers who engage with the sound quality of the music and build a life-long passion for music and the way it sounds in the process. The very fact that the Head-Fi revolution has happened suggests this drive still exists in those so-called 'lost' generations, but they are still hugely resistant the the charms of the loudspeaker. I believe that comes down in part to the format-snobbery endemic to traditional high-end brands. Look at something like the CANJAM at RMAF - there is a group of people, the majority of whom still have their original knees and hips, who are passionate about music, have tens of thousands of dollars worth of audio equipment and yet are made entirely unwelcome in many traditional audio rooms in RMAF because they have the wrong files or the wrong music. This is functionally insane, and in-part derives from that sweeping generalisation that there are no newcomers, so any newcomers with high-grade, but non-audiophile-approved music files stored on a portable source are just trouble makers.
The music industry forced mp3 on the consumer? How quickly Napster and other P2P networks were forgotten! If the industry had had its way CD would still be the primary medium and not lossy. Everything happening today is a reaction to illegal downloads.
iTunes, Amazon et al was a way to monetize IP in a market that already existed but was not paying anything. Industry leaders tried to counter with better quality but found only a small niche. They had no choice to go with lossy really. Remember that the capacity of the original iPod, while not the first mp3 player, was only 5GB. By that time people had already been used to having thousands of lossy titles at their fingertips. Why lossy anyway? Given the bandwidth of the day, small was simply better. Fast forward to today where memory is cheap. The biggest iPod is 160GB. I think now we will be seeing another branching off. The consumer hardware manufacturers/online music retailer push for bigger files because this will push hardware sales for the home on one side while cloud streaming handles the other lossier need (mobile access/portability). The threat would be subscriber based on demand services that are comparable in quality. With that, you don't have to own anything at all.
iTunes, Amazon et al was a way to monetize IP in a market that already existed but was not paying anything. Industry leaders tried to counter with better quality but found only a small niche. They had no choice to go with lossy really. Remember that the capacity of the original iPod, while not the first mp3 player, was only 5GB. By that time people had already been used to having thousands of lossy titles at their fingertips. Why lossy anyway? Given the bandwidth of the day, small was simply better. Fast forward to today where memory is cheap. The biggest iPod is 160GB. I think now we will be seeing another branching off. The consumer hardware manufacturers/online music retailer push for bigger files because this will push hardware sales for the home on one side while cloud streaming handles the other lossier need (mobile access/portability). The threat would be subscriber based on demand services that are comparable in quality. With that, you don't have to own anything at all.
I have no idea how we compete with this, but I suspect the answer lies with 'use it or lose it'. If we don't, we risk handing our musical future over to those who Shazam their music. Many big labels think CD has an 'uncertain' future in the West, and while the drive toward hi-res is growing, it's not growing fast enough to justify the cost of dual inventory.
Case in point: DG addressed the requests of its mainstream consumers by providing music at 320kbps MP3 on its site a few years ago. It also addressed the requests of audiophiles by providing the same files in ALAC and FLAC for a small premium. However, it dropped the lossless versions after a year or two, giving the rights of some of these albums over to hi-res audiophile providers (for a considerably larger premium), because of absolute lack of interest.
That potentially spells the worst of all possible worlds; the record label will not bother with the expense of making a CD run (because it's an ever-decreasing market that no longer pays for itself), nor will it bother with the hi-res in most cases (because there aren't enough hi-res enthusiasts to justify the cost of hosting) and we end up with having to rely on lossy downloads as a fait accompli. This isn't some spooky Sky Is Falling proclamation about future events, it's already happening - try and find a copy of the Beecham/de los Angeles version of Bizet's Carmen now. There is one remaindered stock new sample on Amazon for $50, Archiv* claim it's available but as a 'special order' for $45, or it's a $28.49 MP3 download from Amazon. If you want a higher-res download, you have to go to a bittorrent site and go illicit. That's one of the best versions of Carmen ever recorded, fading from the CD memory. Ditto many of the down-the-catalog Blue Notes - Sabu Martinez's Palo Congo for example.
The conclusions are not entirely palatable to all, however we shake them down.
1. We have to start becoming very editorial in our musical choices, if we want them in better than MP3
2. We have to start showing those in the 18-49 music-buying demographic why better quality is important
3. We have to stop worrying and learn to love iTunes. And Spotify
*Archiv is currently providing perhaps the most interesting take on this, by offering a custom CD making service for those who want a discontinued disc in its catalog. It will be interesting to see how popular this proves as it winds down new CD pressings, especially as it comes at premium price.
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Not necessarily. In the 1990s, Sony was trying to move people into a ATRAC-related MiniDisc future, while Philips was trying to push people toward PASC in DCC. I remember sitting through endless dull Philips press conferences where they were bullish that pre-recorded DCC would replace both the compact cassette and the CD. I think I've still got a few DCCs in a box somewhere (unsurprisingly, IIRC I've got tapes of Alfred Brendel and Bernard Haitink and the BSO).
That failed dismally, but the wheels to move to a lossy format were already in motion before Napster, not simply as a reaction to Napster.
Alan, I have tell you that I am not sure how you can conclude that "The stealth disappearance of CDs from the catalog is an interesting phenomenon.."
I can't think of a single title that I have purchased over the past 5 years that was not available on CD. Not single one. And I have insanely eclectic taste.
I buy music at a pretty steady rate, and 90% of my purchases are on CD. Let's not lose perspective, it is the NUMBER ONE form of physical consumption.
Because I have encountered this problem several times already, and my sources tell me this is going to get a lot worse. Sources such as the former head of one of the major record labels, who showed me a 2012 route map that put CD off that map before the end of the decade.
Because currently record companies are struggling to break even on CD sales.
Because it doesn't really matter if it's the number one form of physical consumption now; when sales drop, they fall away fast. Everyone seems to view CDs long term future as some kind of rehash of LP. What if it's more like VHS, or compact cassette? And if we are talking about perspective, CD sales are conservatively estimated to be one-third what they were in 2000, and falling. Some of my concern may be locally-derived (CD sales in the year from 2011-2012 dropped by 9% in the US, and 30% in the UK), but that might be down to the UK catching up with the trend in the US.
My point is I don't think we have much to gain from pretending everything in the CD garden is lovely. We should be preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
At some point in the future LP sales will take over CD sales. I agree with Alan that music CDs are a doomed format. CDs started disappearing from brick and mortar stores years ago and the amount of space that retailers are willing to give CDs continues to shrink. It won't be too much longer and cars will no longer be made with CD players.
Alan, this drum beat about the death of the CD is old. I have issues of TAS and Stereophile from 2007 that proclaim that "discs" are dead
and have 5 years max. Here we are in the year 2013, six years later, and in the USA alone 193 million units were sold last year.
I have no doubt there is a decline, and the CDs fate is clear, I don't have my head in the sand. But fact is, again, it is the DEFAULT form of physical consumption.
When there is a new release I want to purchase, my first notion is to look for a FLAC download to purchase. I can find it around 10% of the time. Then I purchase the CD if my search turns up short, which is 90% of the time.
A label head? That is probably the worst source of information. When have record companies been right about anything in the last 15 years???
Adele sold over 4 million units in 2012, Gotye 3 million units. Etc. Having a few monster hits subsidize lower selling releases has been the reality for 50 years. Struggling to break even? Screw 'em. They sign dozen of clone bands that mirror a hit maker..they have no one to blame when they spend millions upon millions signing and recording Radiohead, Nirvana, and Adele clones and they fall flat.
Again, no doubt the trend is down..but we have a LONG way to go.
Interestingly, a friend of mine who lives in Westchester emailed me last night and said he took the train into Manhattan
to head downtown to buy some music. He bought $150 of CDs, and he said the store he was in was packed with folks doing the same.
He had long wait to check out, with patrons mostly buying CDs, and some Blu Rays.
Units are still being scanned daily, in large numbers. In much smaller numbers than ten years ago, but units are still moving.
That's not saying much since it is basically the only physical form of music to purchase outside of LPs. Selling only 193 million CDs last year in the U.S. is also quite telling. That is less than one CD for every person in this country. Maybe one day there will be a CD renaissance and people will think that actually playing a CD sounds better than the downloaded version and it will drive up sales of used CDs. And maybe someone will have the foresight to buy up the machines used to manufacture CDs for pennies on the dollar and when all of the CD pressing plants have gone out of business, they can go into the CD reissue business.
Nope, I'm not joking. There will come a point in time when CDs won't be made anymore and LPs will continue to be pressed and sold.
IIRC Alan, the Minidisc was meant to be a digital replacement for cassette tapes as a recording (mixed tape) making medium more than anything else, definitely not a delivery medium from the get go. It was the cheaper to market alternative than DAT. Not too sure about prerecorded DCC. On the other hand, prerecorded compact cassette (lossy
) did supplant Vinyl as the main medium in terms of units sold and later in monetary terms (It wasn't the CD folks) so maybe they were hoping to do the same. Still, looking back, it makes no sense how they could have done so from a cost of goods sold perspective. On one hand you had polycarbonate that could be stamped and on the other, mediums with casings and moving parts. One (DCC) would have required dubbing machines. What I think is that they didn't see the dark side see computer audio coming. They should have the day the first 16bit sound card was launched especially since companies like Philips were providing chips! Convergence had happened. No amount of law suits could turn the tide back so they simply hopped on the bus.
IIRC Alan, the Minidisc was meant to be a digital replacement for cassette tapes as a recording (mixed tape) making medium more than anything else, definitely not a delivery medium from the get go. It was the cheaper to market alternative than DAT. Not too sure about prerecorded DCC. On the other hand, prerecorded compact cassette (lossy
What I think is that they didn't see the dark side see computer audio coming. They should have the day the first 16bit sound card was launched especially since companies like Philips were providing chips! Convergence had happened. No amount of law suits could turn the tide back so they simply hopped on the bus.
I think you are correct in that the minidisc was seen as a replacement for cassettes etc. It was also seen as a possible portable medium in regard to prerecorded commercial releases. Never as a replacement for CD or LP. I was big on mini disc and I used it to make mixes for my portable player.
