CD Availability Nearing It's End And The Consequences

[TubeLover]

11 hours ago, Summit said:

 

If it was just Millennial's that streamed music and had stopped buying physical records, it wouldn’t have that big of an impact on the music business.

 

The sale of vinyl is probable much larger because of the big second hand market which I don’t believe they have accounted for.

 

For the record (hehe) am no Millennial.

God points,but my comments never linked Millennials to streaming. If you look at the number of subscriptions to Tidal and Qobuz, they clearly aren't streaming in any meaningful way. Possibly except the essentially mindless free streams of Pandora and Spotify (although at least Spotify apparently offers supposedly better audio quality for a fee). 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

10 hours ago, Norton said:

It’s too big a leap from CD sales declining to an inability to own digital music.

 

Firstly, I’ve not noticed the music I’m interested in, at least, disappearing  from CD.  On the contrary, there’s been something of an explosion in the works of 19th and 20th c English composers on CD which suggests it’s a medium well suited to low volume niches (just how many copies of an Arnell symphony CD  does Dutton sell for example?).

 

So I would suggest that providing there is some market for it (which your preferences suggest there is) CD will continue.  Maybe after sales have plummeted it will arise as an artisan product, on audiophile quality polycarbonate?

 

I don’t  get though why a CD is in any way better to a download in terms of provenance, reliability, mastering?  The medium is not the music and in effect, a CD is just a download burnt to disc.  Not that the download market is that healthy though either.

You may have missed a major part of my point. The particular music I am afraid of losing access to is not available digitally, only on cd. And 

to this point, has not proven of enough interest to enough people for Tidal and Qobuz to ofer it. I'm talking about some outstanding but little known Celtic, golf, and indie performers that have never had an opportunity to offer their music on anything but cd's. 

 

For that matter, as cd sales fall like a rock, you also won't have access to the great boxed sets such as the recent Beatles anniversary editions of which cd's are a large part. And, to my knowledge, no box set, complete with the usual books, paraphernalia etc. has ever been offered with solely digital content?

 

JC

[TubeLover]

9 hours ago, Iving said:

On the stats I would reinforce what has been said about the hidden s/h market - there's a lot of trading and collecting still going on.

 

Like others I rue the cultural expiry of the Album.

 

Vinyl is and always will be sacred unless it is infected with digits. I listen to the music not the noise. It is indeed the most "natural" sounding medium. [I mean just look at the lengths we go to in order to mitigate digititis.] An expensive record deck is only needed for resolution or Hi-Fi. There's plenty of fun and goose bumps to be had even playing 45s on a mid-range player thru sympathetic amp and speakers. Wear and tear as such (cf. scratches etc) is irrelevant except for the most battered records. 

 

That said I listen to my computer-based system for both convenience and enhanced excitement. Recently I discovered Sandy Posey playing a trashed 7". Of itself that revelation was exquisite. But I just had to go buy a CD to sustain the thrill. Nowadays my main system is engineered for playback from an Optane drive.

 

All my digital music is ripped CDs. I never download or stream music.

 

I have more music from ripped CDs than I can listen to in my lifetime.

 

I agree that I can get most anything I want on CD. In the case of exceptions I'm willing to accept I must buy the 78 or the record. The only significant drawback to listening to ripped CDs is offensive, loud (re-)mastering.

 

I do fear I may end up with tons of shellac, vinyl and CDs that nobody will want when I am gone.

 

Even so I hope I never succumb to any online or subscription-based music source. CDs will continue to be vital to me and that's my main appreciation of the OP.

 

You never know. Most s/h (house clearance) shellac and vinyl is worthless. But there are gems, and the collector's market has always been there. Perhaps in time many CDs will remain appreciated if for no other reason than the commercial peddlers charging too much for online delivery or messing up the masters. Is MQA a case in point - although I have no experience and don't need to turn over those stones. Plus as has been mentioned the risk of hard drive failure etc.

 

The combined tonnage of all my 78s, records and CDs does sometimes cause me to stop for reflection.

 

In my early days, an honest Hi-Fi dealer told me I should spend more on music than equipment. Perhaps doing so is the hallmark of the true music lover.

 

Edit: I nearly forgot to mention nostalgia. Many folks regretted jettisoning their records - years after-the-fact. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

I truly never thought it was possible that this discussion would yield a Sandy Posey reference. Well Done. 

And yes, the loss to the millennial generation of what an "album" is, and means is very sad. Perhaps a sing that they simply don't care about art, the view of the artists in creating a whole suite of music, and only want a quick hit from a single song that caught their ear. The ADD generation indeed.

 

JC

[TubeLover]

5 hours ago, firedog said:

It simply shows the contempt the recording industry has for it's customers, especially it's best ones. The cost to providing that info is next to nothing, yet it isn't done in most cases, even in expensive audiophile or deluxe versions. Few businesses treat their customers with such lack of respect. 

Well said, and disgraceful in the way we have been treated by the recording industry! 

 

JC

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, NOMBEDES said:

 

One wonders how a industry which has "contempt" for customers has lasted for 100 years. The sins of the industry are an outrage.  From the theft of recording revenue from the founding Black blues artists and other, perhaps unschooled young stars....it still goes on today.

You would think that at some point someone would be driven to extreme retribution.   

For all practical purposes -- they had been a kind of monpoly -- we had to accept what they give us.  People listen primarily to music, and sound quality is secondary.

 

Some people who especially love the music are the most disrespected, because the major negative characteristic of commercial recordings has been the historically poor quality reaching the consumer.

 

The 'digital revolution' hasn't fixed the quality problem.  It didn't fail because digital couldn't provide the quality requested by people like me -- it is because the suppliers to the consumer had decided to provide poorer quality source recording  for one reason or another.

 

With digital, there was an implication of better quality, but the the result was VERY GOOD technical representation of the signal, but the recording itself was not of the same quality that the digital transport could provide.   The recording itself was not the same mastering that was cut onto vinyl -- because if the mastering was the same, I doubt that vinyl would still exist at the levels that it does today -- there was strong motivation to keep access to the original, correct mastering.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, JoeWhip said:

Do we really need another cd v. Vinyl thread? 

I don't see it as CD vs vinyl, but why aren't CDs as compelling as they should be?   Will the more limited versions likely availabe to download provide the best of the CDs, or are we going to be stuck with the more mediocre versions.  Wtih CDs, at least we can search around for one that had been properly mastered.

Vinyl only comes in because it is part of the CD history, not that vinyl might/might-not be better than CD...  I think that even the most ardent pro and not-pro vinyl advocates -- IF THEY UNDERSTOOD EACH OTHER, don't really disagree all that much.  IT IS ALL ABOUT THE MASTERING & quality of the recording.  (and it is about the Benjamins also :-)).

 

John

 

[JoeWhip]

John, I was referring to posts like number 3.

[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. 

[Rexp]

6 hours ago, TubeLover said:

I owned turntables and vinyl based systems exclusively from 1968 through 1990, and have been involved with vinyl in one way or another, for 50 years? How about you? 

 

JC

I only got into digital in the 90's when my hi-end store sold both CD Players and Turntables. About a year in, I realized I wasn't spending as much time listening to music and figured it was because I was doing demos for clients, but in fact the real reason was I was listening to CD's. Soon after I closed the store, as I couldn't justify selling CD Players any longer. 

[Rexp]

6 hours ago, TubeLover said:

I truly never thought it was possible that this discussion would yield a Sandy Posey reference. Well Done. 

And yes, the loss to the millennial generation of what an "album" is, and means is very sad. Perhaps a sing that they simply don't care about art, the view of the artists in creating a whole suite of music, and only want a quick hit from a single song that caught their ear. The ADD generation indeed.

 

JC

You're blaming the younger generation for the sins of the record labels and audio industry. 

[TubeLover]

4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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. 

I sincerely hope you are correct. Thanks.

 

JC

[TubeLover]

3 hours ago, Rexp said:

You're blaming the younger generation for the sins of the record labels and audio industry. 

No, they all have their sins to account for. I am blaming the younger generation for greed, and lack of respect to artists. 

[John Dyson]

4 hours ago, Rexp said:

I only got into digital in the 90's when my hi-end store sold both CD Players and Turntables. About a year in, I realized I wasn't spending as much time listening to music and figured it was because I was doing demos for clients, but in fact the real reason was I was listening to CD's. Soon after I closed the store, as I couldn't justify selling CD Players any longer. 

I 99% quit my audiophile hobby back in the late 80s because CDs didn't sound 'right' to me, and I didn't want to mess around with turtables & ticks/pops anymore.  I gave up because CDs sounded so bad -- but the problem wasn't witih 'CDs', 'digital' or anything WRT the transport.  The problem was with the demonically bad mastering, which was plausible, but still terrible because it sucked people in.  It got people used to the woody midrange, the swishy/compressed highs, and distorrted lows.  But, those defects were NOT because of digital by itself as vinyl could sound just as bad, if they mastered the vinyl in the same way as CDs had been all along.

 

John

 

[Rexp]

9 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I 99% quit my audiophile hobby back in the late 80s because CDs didn't sound 'right' to me, and I didn't want to mess around with turtables & ticks/pops anymore.  I gave up because CDs sounded so bad -- but the problem wasn't witih 'CDs', 'digital' or anything WRT the transport.  The problem was with the demonically bad mastering, which was plausible, but still terrible because it sucked people in.  It got people used to the woody midrange, the swishy/compressed highs, and distorrted lows.  But, those defects were NOT because of digital by itself as vinyl could sound just as bad, if they mastered the vinyl in the same way as CDs had been all along.

 

John

 

Most digital recording & mastering still sucks. 

[John Dyson]

13 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Most digital recording & mastering still sucks. 

Digital mastering AND vinyl that uses the same mastering -- which is more and more, does suck.  That is the WHOLE REASON fo rmy project.  (Yes, I have heard/seen even have rips of FeralA vinyl.)

 

My project has sometimes gone slowly, because reverse engineering a proprietary design can be tricky -- ask the most picky audiophles now, the FeralA decoding is coming along very nicely -- maybe never perfect though, unless the recording wasnt molested.  Unmolested FeralA recordings (that is, just encoded from the DolbyA tape) -- they can be fantastic.  The decoded copy of  'Crime of the Century' is probably as good as the best vinyl now, without the vinyl impairments.

John

 

[Rexp]

5 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Digital mastering AND vinyl that uses the same mastering -- which is more and more, does suck.  That is the WHOLE REASON fo rmy project.  (Yes, I have heard/seen even have rips of FeralA vinyl.)

 

My project has sometimes gone slowly, because reverse engineering a proprietary design can be tricky -- ask the most picky audiophles now, the FeralA decoding is coming along very nicely -- maybe never perfect though, unless the recording wasnt molested.  Unmolested FeralA recordings (that is, just encoded from the DolbyA tape) -- they can be fantastic.  The decoded copy of  'Crime of the Century' is probably as good as the best vinyl now, without the vinyl impairments.

John

 

As I already have vinyl copies of the old stuff, I'm more interested in what you can do for modern recordings. 

[John Dyson]

1 minute ago, Rexp said:

As I already have vinyl copies of the old stuff, I'm more interested in what you can do for modern recordings. 

Some modern recordings are 'interesting'.   On a lark, I tried decoding Taylor Swift's 'Shake it Off' and Carly Rae Jepsen 'Call me Maybe", and oddly they decode cleanly with no artefects.  WTF...  Are they using feralA now for 'the expected sound'?

 

John

 

[Rexp]

3 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Some modern recordings are 'interesting'.   On a lark, I tried decoding Taylor Swift's 'Shake it Off' and Carly Rae Jepsen 'Call me Maybe", and oddly they decode cleanly with no artefects.  WTF...  Are they using feralA now for 'the expected sound'?

 

John

 

Shake if off, sounds awful, are you saying you got it to sound good? 

[John Dyson]

5 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Shake if off, sounds awful, are you saying you got it to sound good? 

Actually, by decoding it - you can hear the background details more cleanly.

I didn't spend much effort on the 'decode' because it isn't worth wasting time trying to adjust the EQ filters -- but you can hear the background better.  The stereo is better also.   Of course, I started with a crap digital copy from a kid -- never know the provenance. 
Call me maybe" actually comes out pretty well.

Also, I have vinyl rips of certain groups, and the digital decoded versions are INFINITELY better -- because vinyl was also meddled with also and vinyl aging/ticks/pops.   The CDs just started off bad mastered, and seldom were done correctly.

 

 

shakedemo.mp3

[sandyk]

34 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Shake if off, sounds awful, are you saying you got it to sound good? 

 

 The Taylor Swift clip is heavily clipped, but FWIW, here is the "higher resolution" hidden audio as 24/48 LPCM.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/faoar46rbynijsp/Taylor Swift - Shake It Off.wav?dl=0

[Rexp]

Probably beyond help then.. 

[John Dyson]

15 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Probably beyond help then.. 

 

Yea -- I wasn't decoding it to show that it could be recovered, but instead that they JUST MIGHT be doing the 'feralA' sound for the sound effect -- because peoples hearing is now conditioned to hear the 'woody' midrange, swishy highs, distorted lows, messed up stereo image of FeralA encoding.

 

I wasn't claiming that the results were 'good', but instead more details were revealed -- because tof the natural effect of undoing all kinds of weird modulation effects further obscuring the sound.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

What makes me fearful of losing CDs -- those will be the last chance of getting pristine copies of the older recordings.  The downloads will necessiarly be limited in scope, limited in versions and we'll be stuck with whatever nonsense that the companies want to give us.

 

John

 

[Iving]

20 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I know this is somewhat off topic, but might be of interest to those who aren't into my 'fringe' interests :-).  Further discussion might best be private or refer to my 'FeralA' commentary in the 'General' area of the forum.  Most of my communications in AS, but also I pop up in other forums from time to time -- but I 'live' here most of the time.   Below is a general & rambling discussion about FeralA and a working solution for it:

====================================================================

 

There has been an experimental decoder of such recordings, and it is moving from 'experimental' to being 'usable' for motivated indvidiuals.  It is NOT commercial, and it is NOT 'snake-oil', but fairly sophsticated DSP software that runs on Windows and/or Linux.

 

1) The 'sound' of the compression can be subtle, and I am not 100% accurate detecting it, even with my long experience working with the decoding methods, but here are some hints:  1) a 'swishy' high end, high hats/cymbals having a rather strong sense of HF compression/too soft.  2) A woody lower midrange, almost like a boost in the 500-1kHz freq range.  It is almost repulsive when not use to it, and encourages turning down the level.  3) Hiss...  Older recordings REALLY needed DolbyA for NOISE REDUCTION, and without full decoding, tends to push the hiss up on older stuff.  4) On a spectogram, you can sometimes see a noise band that gets stronger above about 12kHz -- more than what tape noise would by itself.  5) Distorted stereo image, I notice a 'hole' in the image between 90deg and 45deg (0deg being straight forward, 90deg being left or right.)  6) Strange bass sound.

The compression is 10dB below about 100Hz, 10dB from 3k to 9kHz, 15dB from 9kHz to 20+kHz, and there is active compression at lower levels in the 80-3kHz range, where it is pinned at no compression down to -20dB or so in the midrange.  DolbyA compression is NOT active much above -10dB, so doens't give the 'ducking' quite like a normal compressor might.

 

(NOT ALL SIGNAL MODIFICATIONS ARE MANIFEST STRONGLY -- but the recordings do have those characteristics.)  'FeralA' is a 'stealthy' form of damage esp if one is accomodated to it!!!

 

2)  I have been working on a true, high quality DolbyA compatible decoder which is essentially complete and incredibly accurate/smooth/clean.  'Correcting' or 'decoding' these mismastered recordings requires a corrective EQ back to raw DolbyA, and then do a proper DolbyA decoding.

 

The FeralA  'decoding' software combination is just starting to be plausibly full quality, even though the results had been significantly improving the FeralA sound for several months.  Perhaps the best description is that the decoding results have gone from 'better than original FeralA material', to 'accurate, near master-tape'.

 

The decoding software for the 'FeralA' recordings is free-to-use, but is unfortunately a Windows (or Linux) command line program.   It takes CD .wav file input and creates an 88.2k/FP .wav file output (can also create 24 bit unsigned .wav file also.)   The FeralA decoding software is NOT commercial and money does not change hands for use as the consumer recording converter.

 

So -- the internal operations in the software to correct the recordings is:

From CD ->  corrective EQ -> DolbyA decode -> Ideally, hopefully, more clean sounding recording.

 

================================

As a base, there is a DolbyA decoder, which ALONE  is NOT intended for consumers.   However, I have added some EQ which does the corrective EQ so that the DolbyA decoding mechanism can finish the correction.   When running the professional DolbyA decoder in the 'FeralA' mode as I call it, then it becomes a piece of software that is free to use.

================================

 

The 'FeralA' decoding software is still experimental, but is getting VERY CLOSE to fully working.  Originally, it was a 'science project' to use it, because the decoding required EXTERNAL EQ and using the DolbyA decoder separately.  Now, it is all built in, and I offer the software for free use in 'FeralA' mode.

 

When the '--fa' command line switch is used, it is NOT commercial software and is intended for anyone to use responsibly.   Even though there might be commercial software in the future, the FA decoder that I wrote is NOT commercial and there is zero motive for any direct profit.  It is a learning tool and a technology platform where a plug-in developer in the future might be motivated to develop a 'FeralA' decoder and/or high quality/complete DolbyA compatible decoder.  (It is higher quality than the original DolbyA HW, not because of 'precision', but instead it is improved algorithms.)

 

So -- that is the jist of it...  If anyone needs a DolbyA decoder also (effectively a real product, paradoxically a part of the non-commercial FeralA decoder), the DHNRDS DA mode can produce almost astonishingly clean and beautiful results -- it must be VERY VERY good at decoding DolbyA, because the FeralA decoding is necessarily working with damaged recordings, and the DolbyA decoder must be very tolerant and able to ferret out the distortions that would otherwise be created...

 

John

 

 

This is my first appreciation of your work and, so, please forgive me if I've not got on track.

 

May I address the main idea as I see it. The remedy you describe does not seem to be calibrated. It is an algorithm or process which is applied to recordings which are contaminated. Diserning whether a recording has been contaminated is not always straightforward - even for accustomed ears such as yours. Indeed, the tells you list 1) thru 6) convey the possibility that contamination is a matter of degree rather than category. Whether this is true seems vital. 

 

The simple/best scenario would be the identification of recordings contaminated or not contaminated. I wonder whether records exist even assuming the publishers mightn't want to confess. Otherwise we punters have to decide - and will we agree. The database would be simple - yes or no to a given recording. I feel I have seen the the same barcode used for different masterings of the same Album, so I'm not sure how that would work.

 

The loudness wars database as I read it is more sophisticated in that different recordings are affected by degree - both quantitavely and qualitatively. If the same applies here then the application of your process-remedy will have to be a great deal more sophisticated.

 

Again - apologies if I have misunderstood. I guess I am just interested in the potential for improvement of the valued medium under discussion in this thread.

[ARQuint]

10 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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. 

 

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.