CD Availability Nearing It's End And The Consequences

[gmgraves]

Just my opinion, mind you. But I don’t see CDs going away. Now, they might disappear from the pop music scene, especially that section of the pop music market aimed at youngsters. But for more “serious” and/or “mature” music genres, unless some more convenient firmware format comes along, I just don’t see the little silver disc going away anytime soon. 

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, ARQuint said:

 

I agree with George. And, IMO, the format at risk is the download, especially the high-resolution variety. For me, the first indication that this could happen came  over a year and a half ago when Primephonic launched their classical music streaming service and abruptly discontinued downloads—and they'd been an excellent source of HD material, PCM and DSD, stereo and MC. Though Primephonic's service is more user-friendly for classical than any other, I was still disappointed, as I'd rather own than rent. And, as we've seen with popular genres, content can suddenly become unavailable on a particular streaming service.

 

George is right about another aspect of this. It's the younger market that will determine the fate of CDs or downloads. And this includes  serious/mature genres (as GG describes them) that often  become of greater interest to music consumers as they get older.

Obviously, by serious/mature, I meant classical and jazz, BUT, I also meant older Rock music like Grateful Dead, The Who, Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Beach Boys, etc. in other words, the kind of rock and pop listened to by the more “mature” aficionados of “album rock” (IOW, Geezers, also known as Baby Boomers)!

[gmgraves]

15 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Elitist !

 My experience with many of the Classical recordings that I have heard doesn't live up to your claims of being anywhere near what the CD medium is capable of revealing .

 (Please check your PMs shortly)

I don’t remember saying anything about quality, and my comments about serious/mature vs. the kind of listening younger listeners engage in was not about quality of either the recording or the music genre. Sure, in this context, “serious” meant classical and jazz, but I was careful to note that older “more mature” listeners of the kind of “album rock” that they “grew-up” with, would likely still stick with the silver disc as would listeners of “serious music”. Hardly elitist.

[gmgraves]

On 4/11/2020 at 4:44 PM, John Dyson said:

I agree -- Alex (you) have recentlly impressed me with the best CD that I think that I have heard -- it was so good that I wasn't prepared for the quality.  It was classical, but not typical of what I have seen.

 

Perhaps of maybe 10 classical CDs that I have encountered recentlyin the last 5yrs - I do believe that it was the only one (maybe the 2nd, if I might have made an error somewhere) that was NOT improperly mastered.  In fact, I just checked one of my early Mozart collections, alas I ripped it mp3 over a decade ago when I cared about disk space - alas, just as I expected, it had all of the characteristics of latent DolbyA, benefitting from FA decoding.

 

As you know -- the sound of poorly mastered material actually bugged me so much that I dropped the audiophile hobby 20yrs ago.

 

EDITED:  30yrs ago.

John

 

 

John, 

Try one of the Play Classics titles from our friend Mario Martinez. I highly recommend “Angel Cabrera’s Plays Debussy”. It is, without a doubt or exception the finest, most accurate and realistic sounding piano recording that I’ve ever heard. I think Mario will let AS members download it for free. Ask Mario.