[Laundrew]

Perhaps I am somewhat old fashioned, I want to hold in my hand what I purchase whether it be a CD or record.

 

[turkey]

I was reading an interesting article (for the life of me, I cannot remember where) a long time ago about Electronic Books. This article was discussing that you could only purchase a “license” for the book you wanted to read. This meant that you could not sell the E-Book as you did not own it - you own a conventional book and if wish to sell it, you may do so.

As you own a music CD or record, because you own it and if you wish to sell it - you can. If we go the digital download route, will we only be allowed to purchase the license and not own the music? This would mean that you could never legally sell your copy.

Be well…

A lot of software also works this way. You pay for a license to use it, not for the software itself. (You may own the media it came on, or not.)

Some licenses are transferable and some are not. If they're not, you can't sell the product to someone else. You may not even be able to give it to someone else.

I have even seen software where you only get the right to use it for a period of time, like a year. After the year is up you have to re-license it.

The question is whether music, video, or books should have similar licenses. (Although libraries or rental places essentially license you to use something for a period of time, so it's not really a new idea.)

Let's say a book is $8 for a paperback. I probably wouldn't then pay $8 for a digital copy that I didn't really own. But I might pay $2-3 for it. I get convenience and a lower cost, and in return I lose the ability to sell the book.

[turkey]

Perhaps I am somewhat old fashioned, I want to hold in my hand what I purchase whether it be a CD or record.

I buy CDs too, and I prefer having a physical copy. However, a lot of people don't feel that way.

Do you ever rent videos, or do pay-per-view? In both cases you would be paying just for watching, not for owning. (I guess watching a movie at the theater is similar too.)

[JRace]

Cds will always be around, hard drives fail to often and will create too much of a noticeable market nuisance. Imagine having all your stuff on a single hard drive that fails or gets run over by a virus. Too risky, There are preventable techniques of backup but nothing that the mainstream public will buy into.

At least with hard drive based system you can back up. I have had more cd's fail than hard drives...which reminds me...I need to go home and backup

[droht]

I predict that the CD will be replaced by the vinyl record

Have you noticed that the vinyl section in various music stores is slowly expanding? 

Be well…

Very interesting thought.  Vinyl's niche grows; downloads kill the CD.  If you demand physical media the LP certainly is more satisfying than the CD. 

[Daniel Datchev]

Hi boys,
regarding the death of CD/DVD we may think about the death of LP proposed almost 30 years back when the CD was introduces to the public. By now there shouldn`t be any LP or turntable left. Look at al audio magazine and ask yourself is that true. I personaly subcribbed for Stereophile digital because it cost me 12$ against 144$ for paper version and I can frankly say I don`t like reading a magazine on PC. I like choosing a CD from the shelves and placing it on the drawer of the player. Reading paper sleeves for additional information. I don`t know what be the future. I would like to have 24bits CD. I have in my collection a few DVD-audio, but my DVD player can`t reach the hights of Bryston Cd player.
So I decide to wait until it is clear which way the audio industry will stream in audio formats.
Daniel

[droht]

At least with hard drive based system you can back up. I have had more cd's fail than hard drives...which reminds me...I need to go home and backup

i-Tunes backs up your purchases.  That would seem mandatory for any service to be successful. 

[brucek]

The success of Apple with the iTunes Store says that the general public _will_ buy into this.

Yeah, I don't think the physical medium (specifically CD's) have much longer to live. Certainly the only reason I purchase them myself is so I can immediately rip it into a lossless format and put it in my digital library. There's no concern about losing the material if it's backed up. Disk size use to be a somewhat limiting and restrictive factor, but not today.

Probably the only lifeline left for CD's in my opinion is digital bandwidth. When the time comes that all music is available in high resolution (24/96) for download, then I suspect that will ring the end of the CD.

I personally can't reliably distinguish the difference between my digital playback and the CD playback. Perhaps I'm just getting old, but with decent equipment the lossless playback seems as good as my CD.

brucek

[Laundrew]

I like choosing a CD from the shelves and placing it on the drawer of the player. Reading paper sleeves for additional information.

Well said

[Don_S]

After using a music server for three years I hate the process of hunting for a CD and loading it.  But I love the idea of owning the CD and knowing I could find it if I needed it to reload it or check the literature that came with it.  A music server provides so many more options than single disks do.

I also hate the on-line download process. I want to have the ability to hold a CD in my hand--to have and to hold til death do us part.  How long will a factory CD remain usable?  I checked my butt in the mirror yesterday but I could not find an expiration date. 

I like choosing a CD from the shelves and placing it on the drawer of the player. Reading paper sleeves for additional information. Daniel

[perose]

After using a music server for three years I hate the process of hunting for a CD and loading it.  But I love the idea of owning the CD and knowing I could find it if I needed it to reload it or check the literature that came with it.  A music server provides so many more options than single disks do.

I also hate the on-line download process. I want to have the ability to hold a CD in my hand--to have and to hold til death do us part.  How long will a factory CD remain usable?  I checked my butt in the mirror yesterday but I could not find an expiration date. 

Agreed!! Though I didn't check my butt.

With a 1 TB hard disk in the $100 range there are easy solutions to backing up and disaster recovery. I run a HP Windows Home Server (WHS) and have file duplication enabled which makes exact duplicates of critical files on two physically different hard drives. I also have my music files on my main computer that gets backed up daily by the server so there are a minimum of four copies at any time on the system(s).

Instant access to my collection is amazing and the ability to play random mixes has me hearing songs that I haven't heard in a long time. I have ~500 CDs loaded in lossless FLAC format and used ~145 GB of disk space.

[Mike Nomad]

The article talks about the loss of business for _one_ manufacturer, not the _whole_ industry.

That said, CD is on it's way out. Blank DVD prices continue to drop, and a DVD transport/player can read/write CDs. The number of companies making blank CD media & CD transports/players continues to shrink, year after year. 10 years down the road, I'll be saying the same thing about DVD, because Blu-Ray prices will have become reasonable.

[1ZIP]

.....well after all the talk about the death of CD's I went out and bought another CD player.  A used CD-36 for my second system to replace my trusty Sony CD67SE.  It's paired with a Bryston B-60 and my Paradigm Studio 20's v4.  It's a sweet sounding setup.  I had heard that the Arcam's tended to be a little dry but at least in this case not so.  Very listen-able and non fatiguing.  I'm happy!!

[rob80b]

Agreed!! Though I didn't check my butt.

With a 1 TB hard disk in the $100 range there are easy solutions to backing up and disaster recovery. I run a HP Windows Home Server (WHS) and have file duplication enabled which makes exact duplicates of critical files on two physically different hard drives. I also have my music files on my main computer that gets backed up daily by the server so there are a minimum of four copies at any time on the system(s).

Instant access to my collection is amazing and the ability to play random mixes has me hearing songs that I haven't heard in a long time. I have ~500 CDs loaded in lossless FLAC format and used ~145 GB of disk space.

Hard to believe that a Seagate 5 megabytes  drive cost $1700US/$2300.CAN   in 1981 when the CD first came out so it would have cost the consumer $221000.00US/$299000.00Can  to copy 650megabytes or one CD.

Robert

[Mad Mr H]

..........Circle of life..........


As a pre teenager I had a cassette player, 8 track was on the decline.

As a teenager I had a VHS collection 200 ish tapes.

Computers were new to schools but 2 of us worked on a digitizing system, it was originally a "speech" system for a computer, But could be used in reverse to digitize audio for later replay - So we looked at turning vinyl records into digital data on disks, took (from memory) about 10+ discs per record, so that was not going to be of use - IF ONLY WE HAD CONSIDERED a compression algorithm..........and called it mp3...........Man would I be living a different life!
......Back to vinyl.

When DVD came out I had the first Sony component out and a 42" plasma - The quality of DVD was a clear step forward, the quality of first plasma was way behind that of CRT TV, but plasma was bigger.
......Back to CRT.

I DJ'd for 17 years and had/have a massive CD collection, vinyl as well but mainly singles. So cd playback was easy due to weight of items to carry. These days laptops seem to be the tool for the DJ.

With this large collection I ended up with a Mark levinson transport and DAC, Also bought my first Bryston amps at the same time.

As people went for HTPC's I also went down that route, server with 16 hard drives and 850+ movies uncompressed, from my own DVD collection. Then came HD DVD / Blu Ray and I left my DVD server/discs behind as HTPC's were unable to cope at the time.

The one thing with PC's was the lack of stability - even playing audio back you would get the occasional click or stop etc.....

I sold my Mark Levinson transport/DAC and moved to PC playback with a logitech transporter that acts as a DAC as well, I missed the levinsons......hard drive playback never the same as my old transport/dac

So a few weeks ago I unplugged the Transporter and installed a Bryston BCD/BDA-1 transport/DAC. Already I am happy again.
....back to CD......

The digital revolution does have a place, for me its still with CD not hard drive, I dont download anything, maybe I should try?

I still use analogue projectors (Barco cine9) and dont think there is a digital to match them.
...back to analogue.......

Where possible its about quality, and often steps forward are based on convienience and not quality.

Bryston would not have recently built a CD player if there was no market for it.

It still has a material feel to it, like vinyl you select the discs and playin a hands on way, digital takes that away, not everyone will enjoy the experience of selection and play in the physicial world, todays new generation are born with ipods great for music on the move but for me lacking the quality I would like.

For the record I hve been trying to restore a 1960's Transcriptor turntable, and lastweek bought a BP26 with MM/MC options.........

So maybe one day I will get back to my roots of Vinyl, Digital playback just does not have the same appeal or lure.........

I have been caught in my own world of HD film playback, but DVD's are still highly stocked in shops and online, times are changing but I think that news is more about the need for a cheaper route than a different one.

Sorry if I bored you!
 

[gerald porzio]

Some are deluded enough to claim LP sales will eclipse CD sales. I'm waiting for the Edison cylinder advocates to come out of the closet.

[Laundrew]

As a pre teenager I had a cassette player, 8 track was on the decline.

A flash back to 8 Tracks, lets see if I still remember the track change....

Music fades...Tttuurr-Tttuurr-Tttuurr -Clunk*Clunk-Tttuurr-Tttuurr-Tttuurr...Music returns

 

[rob80b]

A flash back to 8 Tracks, lets see if I still remember the track change....

Music fades...Tttuurr-Tttuurr-Tttuurr -Clunk*Clunk-Tttuurr-Tttuurr-Tttuurr...Music returns

 

Not to knock them, I repaired and modified a couple of players a month at $20 bucks a pop to pay for LPs while in high school.
I also bought an AKAI 8trk recorder to transfer all my albums so that friends would stay friends. ZZZIPPPPPCCRRRKKK ZIP POP, "sorry Bob".

Robert

[ricko01]

So a few weeks ago I unplugged the Transporter and installed a Bryston BCD/BDA-1 transport/DAC. Already I am happy again.
....back to CD......

Mad Mr H,

I have both a Transporter and an Oracle CD 1000 transport, both of which go via a BDA-1.

I have yet to do any serious comparison between CD and HD, but what about the "downgrade" made you happy again?.

Thanks,

Peter

[Mad Mr H]

........What about the "downgrade" made you happy again?.
Peter

Hi Peter,

I wrote a lot! could you confirm which "Downgrade" you refer to.


Also curious about your transporter, Did you buy that prior to your BDA-1? I did which is why I have two units both with DACS in the system at the mo, For those that dont know the Transporter is a playback unit which replays music stored on  remote PC/Server it also has four inputs into its internal DAC and balanced/unbalanced outputs.  I found issues with the Transporter DAC being unable to maintain correct timing, My Lexicon MC12B v5 was much better and the Bryston BDA-1 better still. Infact so far with the BDA-1 I have not heard any timing issues.

My PC is currently Vista based, what seems to let the Transporter down is the software platform, and this may also be more to do with Vista than the actual platform, Windows that dont open correctly and make it impossible to scroll down lists of music. This is why I went over to a dedicated server to hold the music, But that was not easy to setup and infact now gathers dust 
 
The Transporter is good value for money with its DAC and for most I am sure is an excellent product, I just found the image very flat and lacking in soundstage when compared to CD.

Of course with the Bryston BDA-1 DAC you only need the much cheaper Duet/Classic replay unit which is about the size of a tripple CD case and about 1/10 the price of the Transporter.........and should do the job.

I think there is a clear advantage of CD over Tape, As there is DVD over VHS/Betamax, and hard drive over say 2" 48 track, these all offer a compact solution, higher quaity and increased ease of use - eg forward/backward instant selection.

Peter, Do confirm what you consider to be a "Downgrade" and maybe explain why as well,

Andy.