I own around 60 CDs and only 1 sounds crappy. And that's buying them without having to do a multi hour analysis of which pressing, year, engineer, label, plant etc like when I bought my vinyl records.
Had about 225 CDs from the 80s/90s…. Got back into vinyl during covid… issues with shit pressings on new copies and used vinyl often having its own issues…I have gone almost all back to CDs…. I’m up to about 675 CDs now …and they sound amazing every time
I can buy a second-hand CD that was made 40 years ago, put it in my player and, as long as it's in decent condition, it will sound 100% identical to when it left the factory. What other medium can do that?
This RIGHT here…I just picked up a copy of Pink Floyd’s Pulse …. 1995 release to replace a copy my dog ate…seriously…. Had looked for a great copy with the blinking red light that still worked for years…. Sounds like it just came out of the shrink.
@@jnnx No, they didn't. Since their manufacturing began in the early 80's, there have always been CD's produced to date. Selling less does not equate to going away.
Benefits of CDs: 1. I get a physical ownership kick, I can hold it. People like stuff. It is part of your identity. 2. You get an informational booklet with art 3. You can replace the CD holder 4. They are cheaper than vinyl 5. They are much easier to store 6. The absense of surface noise, no clicks and pops 7. Streaming services monitor and track your listening. CDs are completely private 8. CDs stream gaplessly 9. The artist gets more money when you buy a CD. You are supporting the artist more 10. CDs sound better than streaming 11. You always have the CD to play. Streaming services sometimes have music pulled 12. When an artist's music is remastered, often the original master is pulled from the streaming service. The original master often has more dynamic range. 13. They are a great source of more obscure content such as bonus content and b sides 14. CD playback does not require an internet connection 15. A CD forces us to commit to listening to the whole thing 16. Longevity. A CD does not wear out by playing it. 17. You can play them in your car 18. You can lend a CD to a friend 19. You can rip a CD to a lossless format 20. You can create your own mixes CDs are more environmentally friendly than vinyl
The Vinyl industry will self-implode because of the greed of Record companies. The prices pitched up as Vinyl has become popular again are getting absurd- the desire to own a specific release because of the sound quality being soooo much better than originals, and the FOMO that companies are trying to portray is complete BS!!! Everybody should simply enjoy the music however you hear it.
I been consistently purchasing newly released albums on CD for more than 30 years and it's only increased over time. I don't use streaming services. If I want to listen to the album, I buy the CD; if the album does not get released on CD, I don't listen to the album and I don't complain - simple as that. As long as CDs continue to be released, I'll keep buying them.
Just bought a new CD transport, still like playing records but stopped buying new records due to the ridiculous cost of new records, so dug out out my hundreds of cd’s.
@ I’d love to hear your takes fellas! Also it’s worth mentioning that printing CDs as an artist like me is way cheaper than having the records pressed on vinyl!
That Japanes cds are a sure shot to be better is WRONG. I've compared enough Jap cds with US cds to know. Maybe 6 times out of 10 they are. but 4 times out of 10 they are not, and sometimes the US cd beats them for sound quality by far.
I still buy around 4 or 5 new cd's a month & around 1 Vinyl LP, I've been doing this since the birth of the cd, I have around 3500 cd/sacd & around 1500 LP, physical media to me still sounds better than streaming, I hardly stream at all, I love the thrill of going to my record store & looking through the cds & LPs, great video guys👍
What's happening in vinyl is the same thing that happened with CDs. The boom in both formats came not so much from new music but from reissued/remastered back-catalog stuff that people were buying in a new format. Why would you want to buy an LP of a digitally recorded, mixed and processed album that was never meant to be played on a turntable, one side at a time? How many records can people (those who have turntables, anyway) even buy? After a while, the novelty wears off. I still buy used records occasionally, but other than that all I'm interested in are fancy-schmancy (and expensive) all-analog "audiophile" releases, mostly of acoustic jazz titles from the '50s-'70s. And I've already lots of them (either earlier pressings or the remastered new ones), so how many more do I really feel I absolutely have to buy? The only thing I "stream" is my own CD collection, burned losslessly to hard drives and played through Roon into my vintage two-channel audio equipment from the '60s and '70s. That has never sounded better...
New music seems to be MIA, period. An age of vinyl shortage or otherwise (artificially) limiting supply seems to be the way to make a sale... for a short window. I suppose repackaging and re-repackaging catalog appeals to us old farts.
I'm an old fart and have purchased records in their day and CD's later. I went to mostly Classical music about 30 years ago and the availability of great music for a minimal price is outrageous. Either new or used cd's are priced right.
If CDs do somehow come back, it will be due to one towering reason; Price. You can’t keep asking people to pay 35, 40, 50, 60, 75 dollars for vinyl…and still going up, without the floor giving way at some point. Add in the fact there are no cut-out remainders anymore of things that simply don’t sell (which gave a second lease on life to 60’s & 70’s acts back then), and you have a recipe making for more music fans leaving the vinyl table. It can’t continue.
Another interesting dynamic is the cost of streaming - it's creeping up and starting to become less of a 'good deal' especially if you are not necessarily interested in hearing new stuff
CDs never went away for me. I find it incredible that people will pay as much for MP3 downloads, or in some cases more, than a CD. Rip the CD, then you can even sell it if you want. As for streaming - only a fool rents everything.
A few months ago a local bookstore had a gently used but well built 1990s Sony 50-CD changer player for $10. At that price I took a chance and it has played like a champ and sounds amazing. I can't believe people just let it sit there long enough for me to snatch it up. The contempt for CDs is so irrationally insane now that you can still find good CD components cheap out there. But don't wait.
@@dungareesareforfoolsHow do you know that it sounds like “a great piece of kit”? All you know about it is: the approximate age of manufacture, the manufacturer, and that it takes 50 CDs.
The vinyl and analog movements are more like cults than real movements. They are waking up to find out that a new CD at $15 or used at $5 or less is a much better deal than $30 or more for an LP whose pressing quality is not near what it should be for that cost. I have owned vinyl, tape, and digital for decades, and there are excellent examples of high quality in each format. I never bought in to the "one is superior to the other" BS.
CDs are super easy to rip to WAV to listen to on a DAP or harddrive attached to streamer or/and quality DAC. Or even a cd player attached to a decent DAC. Unbeatable.
CDs are amazing and the best bang for the buck. Half the rooms at HiFi shows are digital now but they’re pushing streaming because it’s endless revenue for many companies.
The price of vinyl is crazy. CD's are about the right price IMO. Older, used CD's from the late 80's and 90's are better mastered before all the hyped EQ and brick wall limiting.
15 to 20 years of people looking at me and laughing like I'm a lunatic for continuing to collect CDs as I scarfed them up for as cheap as 5 cents for top shelf and often rare stuff while the vinyl crowd are paying $50 for albums they already own. Who's getting the last laugh? If you got into the cheap vinyl game 20 to 30 years ago when you could get them for 10 cents at Goodwill and thrift stores, then you were smart, but that boat has long left the dock.
I agree with your points. Just one issue, dacs will not increase the bit rate or depth if you wish, they simply convert a digital signal feed in and output an analogue signal to your amp. Generally the dac in the player is fine its just the flexibility of a better dac.
Vinyl is a nostalgic experience...but it's very inconvenient at this fast paced age tho..I seldom play vinyl for just the experience, no one wears out Vinyl since CD came into existence, especially since the discogs era, I seldom play them ...always with care considering the " value"
I bought just over 1,000 CDs back in the day and never left them. The new Teac CD transports and new Denafrips R2R Dacs are great. For "streaming" in order to discover new music, I use that world famous service called youtube.
For me, The vinyl resurgence bubble had truly burst with the release of Adele 30 triple vinyl in 2021 with a massive 500,000 album pressings and strong media fanfare along with hefty pri$e tag, and then,,,, they just kinda,,, gathered dust unsold. Adele 30 was the last new vinyl album restocked at our local Walmart with 20 copies and none of them sold over the next year until Walmart's (in Canada) phased out new vinyl and CD's from their stores altogether in January 2023 (bummer) Few knew it then, but the vinyl rot had already begun, in my opinion.
For me, picking up some special favourites that I owned and sold back in the '70s has been fun but once that wishlist was fulfilled then that was that! I have kept most of the CDs I started buying when the format was introduced but that hasn't stopped me from checking out some Re-Mastered versions and, in particular, the new updates from Giles Martin & the Abbey Road team of the Fabs. With certain artistes whose work I respect I'll buy the CD because generally they have released 'a body of work' that is a time capsule of where they are currently at and the CD is, one would hope, designed to be played in the order they finalised when compiling the album for a coherent 'performance' . . . I don't go to Spotify or whatever to listen to stuff, my background is in recording so every other day I am listening to final mixes of stuff we do in WAV format in the studio and it's hard to reconcile that as my 'standard' with mp3s.
Most music I want, especially older DJ mixes are ONLY available on CD. So I buy the CD, but I don't play the anymore. Instead I rip the disc (ALAC) and play the files. I'm very choosy about what I buy though, I have to really like it to buy it as I want a physical copy .
It’s the ebb and flow in sales of the formats over the past forty years. Will CD ever reach the popularity it garnered in its heyday? Probably not. But, just like the vinyl ghost, the death of CD is neither eminent or predictable. A revolutionary format born in 1982 that continues to capture the interest of music lovers and audiophiles worldwide. Long live the incredible silver disc!
Or at least for a very long time. I started my collection back in 1985, and only one that I'm aware of has succumbed to the dreaded disc rot that so many have scaremongered us about.
I personally don’t give a rat’s ass whether the vinyl boom has peaked, CDs are experiencing a revival, or whatever. I’ve been collecting records, tapes, and CDs for decades without regard to what’s trendy or fashionable, and will continue to do so. All this goofy hand wringing and brow furrowing is amusing. Who cares 😂
I have a theory. It goes like this. In order to boost the sales of vinyl records, the record companies decided to create this narrative that cds' are inferior, and no one was buying them any longer. Why sell a cd for $12.00 - $15.00, when you can sell a vinyl record for $35.00 -$45.00 and higher. Now, I realize Best Buy stopped selling CDs and car manufacturers discontinued putting cd players in new cars, but that is a result of the assault on cds'. But people were still buying cds' as well as vinyl records. Neither format is a huge as they once were in this age of streaming services. Nevertheless, Amazon, Target, Walmart and others aren't stupid, (well, they are, but not in this regard) and they all still sell cds' and vinyl records. I hate streaming. It cheapens the listening experience as well as diminishes the soul. Gentlemen, thank you for this interesting discussion.
I'm not inclined to conspiracy theories, but the corporate media are lazy effers who will report anything that's fed to them by Hollywood publicists, soft news packagers, and entertainment media PR agencies. So if the industry is pushing a narrative it will work its way into the reports and be passed off as "balanced." So in a sense, you are probably largely correct.
I think that the reason people are having second thoughts about vinyl is that its disadvantages are becoming apparent to new users. For people who grew up with it, it was the best easily available format (reel-to-reel was better but was far too expensive and also inconvenient) and people knew and just accepted its disadvantages, doing their best to deal with them.
The thing that bothers me about vinyl are the noises, the popping, the ticking etc, for me these noises break the hypnosis of listening to a good album. So for me it's CD'S, my collection has exploded in the last years, during the Christmas holiday alone I purchased about a 100 second hand cd's. Problem with the playback of cd is, that most players or transports are not up to the job, they don't meet redbook standards. So I decided to invest in a good transport and purchased a belt driven transport by CEC and had it upgraded with a faster clock and a more hefty power supply. Now I get the most out of my collection, I couldn't be more happy! Atb, Gerlach Sven.
Happy New Year guys! Over the last 40yrs+ I’ve mostly bought CDs although I will still buy vinyl. For me it’s never really been about sound quality but the cost. I definitely think CD sales are on the rise overall and particularly with the younger generation. If you compare the price of new releases in the UK, CDs are way cheaper to buy. They are easier to store and quite often contain bonus tracks compared to the vinyl version. However I’ve noticed that as vinyl prices have risen over the last few years so have CD prices. It’s becoming a more and more expensive hobby so I can see the streamers cashing in on this particularly if high res becomes the norm.
Happy new year! Interesting that there has been effectively a lost generation used to sub-standard audio via streaming and mp3s - haven't said that I'm big on not having the cluster of lots of CDs lying about - but if there is something I really like I tend to purchase the fully uncompressed digital download
CD's are my main format. I refuse to listen to crummy sounding streaming and vinyl takes too much maintenance that is WAY too expensive. I'm actually scared that people want to switch over to CD's. Then I will have to deal with the "hipsters" who will cause used CD's to get jacked up in price.
I still have my CD collection, sounds exactly the same as 20 years ago. Vinyl cost $80 at jbhifi 😬, it's gotten too expensive that's probably contributed to it's decline.
I think CDs combine the best of both worlds. You can get a good digital version of the music. And you also have everything around like the album cover, the booklet and a physical medium. A lot of points the vinyl fans always mention. And with CDs you can choose if you want to buy just the albums, which have very low prices, or deluxe versions with all the B-Sides, demos etc. I was and I will ever be a CD fan.
I agree with the guy below. CD's never went away. However, in terms of sales, I hope vinyl always continue to outsell in droves to all the people enraptured with the fad. This way I will always be able to find cheap CD's in abundance.
Bottom line is CDs and CD players are WAY cheaper than vinyl and record players.I still like my vinyl collection but mainly for nostalgic rather than practical reasons.I really think common sense will prevail and because of the desire to own musical as a physical item as opposed to listening on spotify etc as evidenced by the recent popularity of vinyl, the CD will eventually make a comeback.
You don't have to pay a fortune to get a good CD player either. I'm an electronics engineer by trade and considered investing in restoring my vintage Philips CD150 CD player from 1985. It was a highly rated player with great specs at the time, but the RCA outputs on a £20 secondhand Sony DVP-NS430 DVD/CD player outperform it in every way possibly imaginable. Despite what many self-professed "audiophiles" would have you believe, there have been plenty of excellent sounding DACs around costing relative peanuts for 30+ years. It's the quality and design of the analogue filter stages AFTER the DACs that makes by far the biggest audible difference, and Sony seem to have nailed it in this case.
if the prices of cd starts rising the way vinyl has... then no. The ever growing greed is disgusting any way you slice it. 30 bucks for a new release cd is insane...
CD's especially when played from a quality transport and DAC sound incredible. You need to unplug your ears if you think otherwise. Also, owning your music in a hard format is SO much better. Being a studio owner, I have to stream music from various platforms. I'm sent many demos. My studio records at 24bit 96kHz but master to DSD. I keep a digital copy on high performance SSD and an analogue copy on tape. CD's sound remarkable using Red Book mastering standards and even better Raw to DAC.
From around when the first came out I have been collecting them & I hope there's not a comeback like LPs as in the price that is way too high. Plus, for they never went away.
I buy records for the "musicality", not because of the artwork, not to collect. not to pick-up and handle. Records can sound as quiet as CD's, but you have to put in some work to achieve this, which for me is no problem. This is part of the joy of listening to records. Most young people have never heard what the sound of a record played back on top quality equipment can really produce. The best quality records were manufactured in the 60's and 70's when quality control was very high. I have a record that was pressed in 1960, called .Percussive Vaudeville - The Big Theatrical Sound. There is no other record to equal or surpass the sound quality of this recording.during the last 65 years.
If you're talking about background noise, records can't sound anywhere near as quiet as CDs unless they're recorded in dbx and played back through a suitable decoder. That idea has already been tried many decades ago and was a commercial failure due to lack of uptake. Without it, the noise floor of the best vinyl is typically around 70dB versus 96dB for CD. That's a factor of 400 difference. There is no such thing as "musicality". Something is either an accurate reproduction of the source or it isn't. In the case of vinyl, the laws of physics dictate that it isn't. If you prefer the sound, good for you, but please don't confuse feelings with facts.
@@MrSlipstreem I listen to the music, not the background noise. Do you know what is responsible for the sound of the "clicks" and "pops" that can be heard on a record ?
CD of course. A no-brainer. If you like that gooey sound of vinyl, it can be closely reproduced with modern analog/digital gear (tube amps, R2R dacs, etc.) without all the downsides of vinyl.
The main reason for me for CD's is cost, even new ones are about max £15 in the UK, Dont get me wrong do love a vynl but for a new one £45 I don't think so, only listen to my old collection on disc now and CD for the win, Yes I do stream but does not come close to FLAC of your own stuff
The latest 2nd hand CD I picked up is 4KQ Hits & memories. - a rare radio station compilation music CD. Quite collectable. Radio stations did release the occasional CD album
Vinyl is trendy and now super expensive. So i dont buy much vinyl anymore. I still buy cds from JB or amazon, and i love going to a local salvos and getting cds for $2 each. Cheeeep!
Second hand vinyl was fun in the 80s and 90s. The hunt for good records and the price was great and the qual;ity if a good mastering was better than a poorly mastered CD. Massively overpriced vinyl nowdays is just boring and too expensive. I still played ripped music on the ipod clasc.. very convenient and good sound if using the right connection.
What observation(s) is leading to these estimations? I would imagine if there is data to show an increase in cd sales, it would be more impactful to streaming services than vinyl sales. 50% of all new vinyl sales are to consumers who do not own a turntable...ex: Taylor isn't dropping "cd variants", its the vinyl lp her fans instantly consume. The rest of us are listening and collecting...ex. Rhino drops Black Sabbath or Doors box and its gone. I recently bought Belly's "Star" x2 lp re/rm and it came with a CD...I spin at home and in the car...Wilco's Summerteeth, Seal I, etc...I own multiple examples of 'combo media' and I love when I can find these.
You need a much more expensive analog kit to get close to the cd level of sound. Vinyl prices are way too expensive for good quality records. Cd's won't go away since the digital to analog converters and and recording equipment to support digital has improved. I prefer to own the media rather than renting it. Spotify needs to get with it for cd and above quality options.
CDS never went away, but most stores that had aisles of them now have less than a 4 ft section. At least here in the US. We don't have many if any at all big named record stores. Best buy got rid of CDs altogether , Target does consignments onn only mainstream and Walmart mostly has low budget old CDs. Most of the indie stores made more room for vinyl so the CD selection is scarce and they don't tend to stock more than 1 or 2 copies of any new CD. So with that said, online stores are the only way to find the majority. I myself buy a few CDs a year because I've been buying more vinyl since 2012.with the rise in cost my buying has slowed down 50% . I don't mind if the CD makes a full return but keep vinyl around yet drop the cost if they wanna keep selling it.
You’re probably right but unfortunately I’m piss poor and will never again be able to afford to buy everything I want to hear. Streaming is the only way I will ever hear anything. Especially where I live everything in life is overly expensive. Buying food and basics is hard. Never mind buying cds. I wish I could
CDs have dropped dramatically in cost, over the last few months leading up to Christmas. I was able to purchase a bunch for family, NEW releases for $8 AUD also many of the major music shopfronts have reduced the stock JB almost 50%. I think its a cost thing. I don't have a specific type. I just like to own my music.
I’m no collector, but I understand that an endgame for some is a wall of physical media. To me it’s just packaging of a streaming license. CDs are great, but they aren’t best at anything. And isn’t ripping a CD “illegal” in Oz?
My understanding is that it is OK to "format shift" for personal use (but I'm no lawyer..) ... But if I want a full lossless experience I do tend to purchase the digital download copy these days and have it all accessed via a NAS ... I like to not have to worry about the clutter of storing CDs - but everyone is different
Completely with you. However due to my dire discretionary funds, I do resort to streaming. Packaging is nice, but there are substitutes (here is a gratuitous plug for something like Roon).
With the rise of boxsets and CD/Blu ray audio offerings from a pure fidelity perspective, no wonder CDs and even Blu ray audio offerings are becoming increasingly popular. Streaming? Let’s not go there. lol.
The best sound for little money is achieved with cd’s from the 80’s and early 90’s. They are great, with lots of good titles available, often still cheap in thrift stores, if you keep trying. Which is not the case with vinyl records anymore. And is it advised to buy them second hand, as the best fidelity sound is no doubt released in the eighties and early nineties, before the loudness war kicked in. You should check that because if you buy a post 2000 remaster chances are it will sound much worse than an earlier release. From the late nineties till now, with the exception of specific niches, popular music is sounding like crap, on every format, due to bad production values, awful mastering and streaming services. While these services are ok in many use cases, very little people still value quality sound and take the time and focus to really listen.
Another video that tries to convince us that vinyl and CDs are in competition. There are enough reasons why people buy vinyl, e.g. the haptic experience. The discussion about which is better is pointless, because in both cases it depends on the equipment, the room acoustics and personal listening preferences. Of course, vinyl is also much more expensive than CDs because the manufacturing process is much more expensive. Furthermore, there is great-sounding vinyl and CDs, but there are also crappy-sounding ones. Just be happy that both are available and buy the one you prefer. I like both and hope that both will continue to exist for a long time to come, because Spotify and its ilk are the gravediggers of music culture, because only the really big artists earn anything from it.Cheers
I don't want them to come back , I can get them for 5 for a quid second hand , very rarely find 5 I want but no.they will start charging more and the odd occasion I buy new they will start ripping us off
Vinyl is dying because the hipsters are getting old. And CDs are rising because people are tired of streaming and everything about it. Own it. Why tf are we renting our music?! Its dumb and artists are getting shafted.
The arguments about CDs sounding better than vinyl are purely scientific. To my ear, vinyl sounds better - it's more natural in its frequency response. Science doesn't work a lot of the time when it comes to audio - e.g. a valve amp with more measurable distortion than a solid state amp can sound better to most people.
Many other people these days find that vinyl sounds unnatural and distracting and enjoy the clarity of sound only possible from CD/digital. Others are just relaxing listening to the music/ running around after their kids/ washing their hair etc.
Nah, mate. Vinyl can sound amazing on a proper system. In addition, there are many of my favorite music releases which are only available on Vinyl and no other format. So there's that. And you and I know that will never happen, at least not for many, many years, as long as we humans are nostalgic and carry on traditions. In addition, because of the special attention and care that must be taken when mastering a release specifically for vinyl, there are many releases from the 1990s to 2000s that were overly compressed and bricked-walled on CD, but are much better on vinyl.
Greed will kill the vinyl industry and analogue systems manufacturers. Greed and stupidity of consumers. DDD marked cds sound unnatural. Especially on drums. Best cds are old ones marked AAD or ADD. Vinyl sounds better than digital medium when played on good equipment. You don't need to spend thousands
C'mon let's just admit that CDs are a fantastic format.
If mastered well they sound amazing
100%
I own around 60 CDs and only 1 sounds crappy. And that's buying them without having to do a multi hour analysis of which pressing, year, engineer, label, plant etc like when I bought my vinyl records.
Had about 225 CDs from the 80s/90s…. Got back into vinyl during covid… issues with shit pressings on new copies and used vinyl often having its own issues…I have gone almost all back to CDs…. I’m up to about 675 CDs now …and they sound amazing every time
I can buy a second-hand CD that was made 40 years ago, put it in my player and, as long as it's in decent condition, it will sound 100% identical to when it left the factory. What other medium can do that?
This RIGHT here…I just picked up a copy of Pink Floyd’s Pulse …. 1995 release to replace a copy my dog ate…seriously…. Had looked for a great copy with the blinking red light that still worked for years…. Sounds like it just came out of the shrink.
CDs never went away
Yes, they did.
@@jnnx No, they didn't. Since their manufacturing began in the early 80's, there have always been CD's produced to date. Selling less does not equate to going away.
Benefits of CDs:
1. I get a physical ownership kick, I can hold it. People like stuff. It is part of your identity.
2. You get an informational booklet with art
3. You can replace the CD holder
4. They are cheaper than vinyl
5. They are much easier to store
6. The absense of surface noise, no clicks and pops
7. Streaming services monitor and track your listening. CDs are completely private
8. CDs stream gaplessly
9. The artist gets more money when you buy a CD. You are supporting the artist more
10. CDs sound better than streaming
11. You always have the CD to play. Streaming services sometimes have music pulled
12. When an artist's music is remastered, often the original master is pulled from the streaming service. The original master often has more dynamic range.
13. They are a great source of more obscure content such as bonus content and b sides
14. CD playback does not require an internet connection
15. A CD forces us to commit to listening to the whole thing
16. Longevity. A CD does not wear out by playing it.
17. You can play them in your car
18. You can lend a CD to a friend
19. You can rip a CD to a lossless format
20. You can create your own mixes
CDs are more environmentally friendly than vinyl
Right on.
All great points.
12 & 19…all day…
The Vinyl industry will self-implode because of the greed of Record companies. The prices pitched up as Vinyl has become popular again are getting absurd- the desire to own a specific release because of the sound quality being soooo much better than originals, and the FOMO that companies are trying to portray is complete BS!!! Everybody should simply enjoy the music however you hear it.
I agree 100%. They are using this audiophile crap to charge 100s of dollars because suckers are willing to pay for it
I been consistently purchasing newly released albums on CD for more than 30 years and it's only increased over time. I don't use streaming services. If I want to listen to the album, I buy the CD; if the album does not get released on CD, I don't listen to the album and I don't complain - simple as that. As long as CDs continue to be released, I'll keep buying them.
Just bought a new CD transport, still like playing records but stopped buying new records due to the ridiculous cost of new records, so dug out out my hundreds of cd’s.
Happy new year guys! The quality supremacy of Japanese CDs is unbeatable!
Happy new year Kurt! Japanese CDs in general are a well we need to go down!
@ I’d love to hear your takes fellas! Also it’s worth mentioning that printing CDs as an artist like me is way cheaper than having the records pressed on vinyl!
That Japanes cds are a sure shot to be better is WRONG. I've compared enough Jap cds with US cds to know. Maybe 6 times out of 10 they are. but 4 times out of 10 they are not, and sometimes the US cd beats them for sound quality by far.
Amen. When I was in Tokyo and Osaka I thought I was heaven when I visited there CD stones.
INCREDIBLE...
I still buy around 4 or 5 new cd's a month & around 1 Vinyl LP, I've been doing this since the birth of the cd, I have around 3500 cd/sacd & around 1500 LP, physical media to me still sounds better than streaming, I hardly stream at all, I love the thrill of going to my record store & looking through the cds & LPs, great video guys👍
What's happening in vinyl is the same thing that happened with CDs. The boom in both formats came not so much from new music but from reissued/remastered back-catalog stuff that people were buying in a new format. Why would you want to buy an LP of a digitally recorded, mixed and processed album that was never meant to be played on a turntable, one side at a time? How many records can people (those who have turntables, anyway) even buy? After a while, the novelty wears off. I still buy used records occasionally, but other than that all I'm interested in are fancy-schmancy (and expensive) all-analog "audiophile" releases, mostly of acoustic jazz titles from the '50s-'70s. And I've already lots of them (either earlier pressings or the remastered new ones), so how many more do I really feel I absolutely have to buy? The only thing I "stream" is my own CD collection, burned losslessly to hard drives and played through Roon into my vintage two-channel audio equipment from the '60s and '70s. That has never sounded better...
New music seems to be MIA, period. An age of vinyl shortage or otherwise (artificially) limiting supply seems to be the way to make a sale... for a short window. I suppose repackaging and re-repackaging catalog appeals to us old farts.
And the answer is YES.
Inevitable as more and more discover the pitfalls of vinyl.
I'm an old fart and have purchased records in their day and CD's later. I went to mostly Classical music about 30 years ago and the availability of great music for a minimal price is outrageous. Either new or used cd's are priced right.
If CDs do somehow come back, it will be due to one towering reason; Price. You can’t keep asking people to pay 35, 40, 50, 60, 75 dollars for vinyl…and still going up, without the floor giving way at some point. Add in the fact there are no cut-out remainders anymore of things that simply don’t sell (which gave a second lease on life to 60’s & 70’s acts back then), and you have a recipe making for more music fans leaving the vinyl table. It can’t continue.
Another interesting dynamic is the cost of streaming - it's creeping up and starting to become less of a 'good deal' especially if you are not necessarily interested in hearing new stuff
Just like Rock n Roll, CDs will never die!! 🤘🏻 💿
When CD manufacturers stop making CD players (and trust me, it WILL happen one day SOON) then CDs days are numbered. . .
CDs never went away for me. I find it incredible that people will pay as much for MP3 downloads, or in some cases more, than a CD. Rip the CD, then you can even sell it if you want.
As for streaming - only a fool rents everything.
A few months ago a local bookstore had a gently used but well built 1990s Sony 50-CD changer player for $10. At that price I took a chance and it has played like a champ and sounds amazing. I can't believe people just let it sit there long enough for me to snatch it up. The contempt for CDs is so irrationally insane now that you can still find good CD components cheap out there. But don't wait.
@OuterGalaxyLounge that sounds like a great piece of kit!
The problem with buying downloads, is they take away your rights of First Sale.
@@dungareesareforfoolsHow do you know that it sounds like “a great piece of kit”? All you know about it is: the approximate age of manufacture, the manufacturer, and that it takes 50 CDs.
@@jnnx the last part.
The vinyl and analog movements are more like cults than real movements. They are waking up to find out that a new CD at $15 or used at $5 or less is a much better deal than $30 or more for an LP whose pressing quality is not near what it should be for that cost. I have owned vinyl, tape, and digital for decades, and there are excellent examples of high quality in each format. I never bought in to the "one is superior to the other" BS.
.Most vinyl records are digital anyway. What's the point of that? If it's digitised it's cheaper just to get the cd.
CDs are super easy to rip to WAV to listen to on a DAP or harddrive attached to streamer or/and quality DAC. Or even a cd player attached to a decent DAC. Unbeatable.
CDs are my life
Why does everything have to be either or? I buy both. And
CDs are amazing and the best bang for the buck. Half the rooms at HiFi shows are digital now but they’re pushing streaming because it’s endless revenue for many companies.
... Not to mention revenue where they have control over pricing
The price of vinyl is crazy. CD's are about the right price IMO. Older, used CD's from the late 80's and 90's are better mastered before all the hyped EQ and brick wall limiting.
Now we need a dvd and BD comeback!
Surely too soon!
15 to 20 years of people looking at me and laughing like I'm a lunatic for continuing to collect CDs as I scarfed them up for as cheap as 5 cents for top shelf and often rare stuff while the vinyl crowd are paying $50 for albums they already own. Who's getting the last laugh? If you got into the cheap vinyl game 20 to 30 years ago when you could get them for 10 cents at Goodwill and thrift stores, then you were smart, but that boat has long left the dock.
I agree with your points. Just one issue, dacs will not increase the bit rate or depth if you wish, they simply convert a digital signal feed in and output an analogue signal to your amp. Generally the dac in the player is fine its just the flexibility of a better dac.
Vinyl is a nostalgic experience...but it's very inconvenient at this fast paced age tho..I seldom play vinyl for just the experience, no one wears out Vinyl since CD came into existence, especially since the discogs era, I seldom play them ...always with care considering the " value"
I bought just over 1,000 CDs back in the day and never left them. The new Teac CD transports and new Denafrips R2R Dacs are great. For "streaming" in order to discover new music, I use that world famous service called youtube.
For me, The vinyl resurgence bubble had truly burst with the release of Adele 30 triple vinyl in 2021 with a massive 500,000 album pressings and strong media fanfare along with hefty pri$e tag, and then,,,, they just kinda,,, gathered dust unsold. Adele 30 was the last new vinyl album restocked at our local Walmart with 20 copies and none of them sold over the next year until Walmart's (in Canada) phased out new vinyl and CD's from their stores altogether in January 2023 (bummer) Few knew it then, but the vinyl rot had already begun, in my opinion.
If the artists you are buying are at Walmart, then the vinyl revitalization was never for you anyways. . .
Since I got a CD player I haven't bought a single vinyl album. Back in the 80s CD's were more expensive than vinyl .
For me, picking up some special favourites that I owned and sold back in the '70s has been fun but once that wishlist was fulfilled then that was that! I have kept most of the CDs I started buying when the format was introduced but that hasn't stopped me from checking out some Re-Mastered versions and, in particular, the new updates from Giles Martin & the Abbey Road team of the Fabs. With certain artistes whose work I respect I'll buy the CD because generally they have released 'a body of work' that is a time capsule of where they are currently at and the CD is, one would hope, designed to be played in the order they finalised when compiling the album for a coherent 'performance' . . . I don't go to Spotify or whatever to listen to stuff, my background is in recording so every other day I am listening to final mixes of stuff we do in WAV format in the studio and it's hard to reconcile that as my 'standard' with mp3s.
Most music I want, especially older DJ mixes are ONLY available on CD. So I buy the CD, but I don't play the anymore. Instead I rip the disc (ALAC) and play the files.
I'm very choosy about what I buy though, I have to really like it to buy it as I want a physical copy .
It’s the ebb and flow in sales of the formats over the past forty years. Will CD ever reach the popularity it garnered in its heyday? Probably not. But, just like the vinyl ghost, the death of CD is neither eminent or predictable. A revolutionary format born in 1982 that continues to capture the interest of music lovers and audiophiles worldwide. Long live the incredible silver disc!
CDs forever...
Amen..😊
Or at least for a very long time. I started my collection back in 1985, and only one that I'm aware of has succumbed to the dreaded disc rot that so many have scaremongered us about.
I personally don’t give a rat’s ass whether the vinyl boom has peaked, CDs are experiencing a revival, or whatever. I’ve been collecting records, tapes, and CDs for decades without regard to what’s trendy or fashionable, and will continue to do so. All this goofy hand wringing and brow furrowing is amusing. Who cares 😂
Very well put, same here...
I have a theory. It goes like this. In order to boost the sales of vinyl records, the record companies decided to create this narrative that cds' are inferior, and no one was buying them any longer. Why sell a cd for $12.00 - $15.00, when you can sell a vinyl record for $35.00 -$45.00 and higher. Now, I realize Best Buy stopped selling CDs and car manufacturers discontinued putting cd players in new cars, but that is a result of the assault on cds'. But people were still buying cds' as well as vinyl records. Neither format is a huge as they once were in this age of streaming services. Nevertheless, Amazon, Target, Walmart and others aren't stupid, (well, they are, but not in this regard) and they all still sell cds' and vinyl records. I hate streaming. It cheapens the listening experience as well as diminishes the soul. Gentlemen, thank you for this interesting discussion.
I'm not inclined to conspiracy theories, but the corporate media are lazy effers who will report anything that's fed to them by Hollywood publicists, soft news packagers, and entertainment media PR agencies. So if the industry is pushing a narrative it will work its way into the reports and be passed off as "balanced." So in a sense, you are probably largely correct.
I think that the reason people are having second thoughts about vinyl is that its disadvantages are becoming apparent to new users. For people who grew up with it, it was the best easily available format (reel-to-reel was better but was far too expensive and also inconvenient) and people knew and just accepted its disadvantages, doing their best to deal with them.
You with the dark beard you look great and sound great
The thing that bothers me about vinyl are the noises, the popping, the ticking etc, for me these noises break the hypnosis of listening to a good album. So for me it's CD'S, my collection has exploded in the last years, during the Christmas holiday alone I purchased about a 100 second hand cd's. Problem with the playback of cd is, that most players or transports are not up to the job, they don't meet redbook standards. So I decided to invest in a good transport and purchased a belt driven transport by CEC and had it upgraded with a faster clock and a more hefty power supply. Now I get the most out of my collection, I couldn't be more happy! Atb, Gerlach Sven.
Happy New Year guys!
Over the last 40yrs+ I’ve mostly bought CDs although I will still buy vinyl.
For me it’s never really been about sound quality but the cost.
I definitely think CD sales are on the rise overall and particularly with the younger generation.
If you compare the price of new releases in the UK, CDs are way cheaper to buy. They are easier to store and quite often contain bonus tracks compared to the vinyl version.
However I’ve noticed that as vinyl prices have risen over the last few years so have CD prices. It’s becoming a more and more expensive hobby so I can see the streamers cashing in on this particularly if high res becomes the norm.
Happy new year! Interesting that there has been effectively a lost generation used to sub-standard audio via streaming and mp3s - haven't said that I'm big on not having the cluster of lots of CDs lying about - but if there is something I really like I tend to purchase the fully uncompressed digital download
CD's are my main format. I refuse to listen to crummy sounding streaming and vinyl takes too much maintenance that is WAY too expensive. I'm actually scared that people want to switch over to CD's. Then I will have to deal with the "hipsters" who will cause used CD's to get jacked up in price.
I still have my CD collection, sounds exactly the same as 20 years ago. Vinyl cost $80 at jbhifi 😬, it's gotten too expensive that's probably contributed to it's decline.
Chances of cars having cd players again... a generation of kids who never bought a cd... dream on guys
I think CDs combine the best of both worlds. You can get a good digital version of the music. And you also have everything around like the album cover, the booklet and a physical medium. A lot of points the vinyl fans always mention. And with CDs you can choose if you want to buy just the albums, which have very low prices, or deluxe versions with all the B-Sides, demos etc. I was and I will ever be a CD fan.
I agree with the guy below. CD's never went away. However, in terms of sales, I hope vinyl always continue to outsell in droves to all the people enraptured with the fad. This way I will always be able to find cheap CD's in abundance.
I buy lots of CDs, vinyl is kind of a collectable gimmick. My setup favours CDs though.
Physical media, cant be taken away or edited. You buy it you keep it.
Bottom line is CDs and CD players are WAY cheaper than vinyl and record players.I still like my vinyl collection but mainly for nostalgic rather than practical reasons.I really think common sense will prevail and because of the desire to own musical as a physical item as opposed to listening on spotify etc as evidenced by the recent popularity of vinyl, the CD will eventually make a comeback.
We must be soulfriends!
You don't have to pay a fortune to get a good CD player either. I'm an electronics engineer by trade and considered investing in restoring my vintage Philips CD150 CD player from 1985. It was a highly rated player with great specs at the time, but the RCA outputs on a £20 secondhand Sony DVP-NS430 DVD/CD player outperform it in every way possibly imaginable. Despite what many self-professed "audiophiles" would have you believe, there have been plenty of excellent sounding DACs around costing relative peanuts for 30+ years. It's the quality and design of the analogue filter stages AFTER the DACs that makes by far the biggest audible difference, and Sony seem to have nailed it in this case.
My vinyl sales increase per annum for 25 years. This year no exception.
if the prices of cd starts rising the way vinyl has... then no. The ever growing greed is disgusting any way you slice it. 30 bucks for a new release cd is insane...
CD's especially when played from a quality transport and DAC sound incredible. You need to unplug your ears if you think otherwise.
Also, owning your music in a hard format is SO much better.
Being a studio owner, I have to stream music from various platforms. I'm sent many demos.
My studio records at 24bit 96kHz but master to DSD. I keep a digital copy on high performance SSD and an analogue copy on tape.
CD's sound remarkable using Red Book mastering standards and even better Raw to DAC.
From around when the first came out I have been collecting them & I hope there's not a comeback like LPs as in the price that is way too high. Plus, for they never went away.
I buy records for the "musicality", not because of the artwork, not to collect. not to pick-up and handle. Records can sound as quiet as CD's, but you have to put in some work to achieve this, which for me is no problem. This is part of the joy of listening to records.
Most young people have never heard what the sound of a record played back on top quality equipment can really produce.
The best quality records were manufactured in the 60's and 70's when quality control was very high. I have a record that was pressed in 1960, called .Percussive Vaudeville - The Big Theatrical Sound. There is no other record to equal or surpass the sound quality of this recording.during the last 65 years.
If you're talking about background noise, records can't sound anywhere near as quiet as CDs unless they're recorded in dbx and played back through a suitable decoder. That idea has already been tried many decades ago and was a commercial failure due to lack of uptake. Without it, the noise floor of the best vinyl is typically around 70dB versus 96dB for CD. That's a factor of 400 difference. There is no such thing as "musicality". Something is either an accurate reproduction of the source or it isn't. In the case of vinyl, the laws of physics dictate that it isn't. If you prefer the sound, good for you, but please don't confuse feelings with facts.
@@MrSlipstreem I listen to the music, not the background noise. Do you know what is responsible for the sound of the "clicks" and "pops" that can be heard on a record ?
CD of course. A no-brainer.
If you like that gooey sound of vinyl, it can be closely reproduced with modern analog/digital gear (tube amps, R2R dacs, etc.) without all the downsides of vinyl.
CD's were always there,in the background,nudging forward
The main reason for me for CD's is cost, even new ones are about max £15 in the UK, Dont get me wrong do love a vynl but for a new one £45 I don't think so, only listen to my old collection on disc now and CD for the win, Yes I do stream but does not come close to FLAC of your own stuff
The latest 2nd hand CD I picked up is 4KQ Hits & memories. - a rare radio station compilation music CD. Quite collectable. Radio stations did release the occasional CD album
Vinyl is trendy and now super expensive. So i dont buy much vinyl anymore. I still buy cds from JB or amazon, and i love going to a local salvos and getting cds for $2 each. Cheeeep!
Smart move because some of those cds will be worth more than $2 soon especially if Spotify continues to increase it's monthly fee
Very good point!
Second hand cds,have less risk than vinyl,and very cheap.
Second hand vinyl was fun in the 80s and 90s. The hunt for good records and the price was great and the qual;ity if a good mastering was better than a poorly mastered CD. Massively overpriced vinyl nowdays is just boring and too expensive. I still played ripped music on the ipod clasc.. very convenient and good sound if using the right connection.
What observation(s) is leading to these estimations? I would imagine if there is data to show an increase in cd sales, it would be more impactful to streaming services than vinyl sales. 50% of all new vinyl sales are to consumers who do not own a turntable...ex: Taylor isn't dropping "cd variants", its the vinyl lp her fans instantly consume. The rest of us are listening and collecting...ex. Rhino drops Black Sabbath or Doors box and its gone. I recently bought Belly's "Star" x2 lp re/rm and it came with a CD...I spin at home and in the car...Wilco's Summerteeth, Seal I, etc...I own multiple examples of 'combo media' and I love when I can find these.
Matching studios is a nice touch!
All those royalties...
I do enjoy many recordings on vinyl but new vinyl is too expensive! Hopefully used CDs won't do the same being more popular!
The biggest challenge in audio are peoples expectations .
You need a much more expensive analog kit to get close to the cd level of sound. Vinyl prices are way too expensive for good quality records. Cd's won't go away since the digital to analog converters and and recording equipment to support digital has improved. I prefer to own the media rather than renting it. Spotify needs to get with it for cd and above quality options.
CDS never went away, but most stores that had aisles of them now have less than a 4 ft section. At least here in the US. We don't have many if any at all big named record stores. Best buy got rid of CDs altogether , Target does consignments onn only mainstream and Walmart mostly has low budget old CDs. Most of the indie stores made more room for vinyl so the CD selection is scarce and they don't tend to stock more than 1 or 2 copies of any new CD. So with that said, online stores are the only way to find the majority. I myself buy a few CDs a year because I've been buying more vinyl since 2012.with the rise in cost my buying has slowed down 50% . I don't mind if the CD makes a full return but keep vinyl around yet drop the cost if they wanna keep selling it.
You’re probably right but unfortunately I’m piss poor and will never again be able to afford to buy everything I want to hear. Streaming is the only way I will ever hear anything. Especially where I live everything in life is overly expensive. Buying food and basics is hard. Never mind buying cds. I wish I could
CDs have dropped dramatically in cost, over the last few months leading up to Christmas. I was able to purchase a bunch for family, NEW releases for $8 AUD also many of the major music shopfronts have reduced the stock JB almost 50%. I think its a cost thing. I don't have a specific type. I just like to own my music.
I’m no collector, but I understand that an endgame for some is a wall of physical media. To me it’s just packaging of a streaming license. CDs are great, but they aren’t best at anything. And isn’t ripping a CD “illegal” in Oz?
My understanding is that it is OK to "format shift" for personal use (but I'm no lawyer..) ... But if I want a full lossless experience I do tend to purchase the digital download copy these days and have it all accessed via a NAS ... I like to not have to worry about the clutter of storing CDs - but everyone is different
Completely with you. However due to my dire discretionary funds, I do resort to streaming. Packaging is nice, but there are substitutes (here is a gratuitous plug for something like Roon).
With the rise of boxsets and CD/Blu ray audio offerings from a pure fidelity perspective, no wonder CDs and even Blu ray audio offerings are becoming increasingly popular. Streaming? Let’s not go there. lol.
The best sound for little money is achieved with cd’s from the 80’s and early 90’s. They are great, with lots of good titles available, often still cheap in thrift stores, if you keep trying. Which is not the case with vinyl records anymore. And is it advised to buy them second hand, as the best fidelity sound is no doubt released in the eighties and early nineties, before the loudness war kicked in. You should check that because if you buy a post 2000 remaster chances are it will sound much worse than an earlier release. From the late nineties till now, with the exception of specific niches, popular music is sounding like crap, on every format, due to bad production values, awful mastering and streaming services. While these services are ok in many use cases, very little people still value quality sound and take the time and focus to really listen.
Another video that tries to convince us that vinyl and CDs are in competition. There are enough reasons why people buy vinyl, e.g. the haptic experience. The discussion about which is better is pointless, because in both cases it depends on the equipment, the room acoustics and personal listening preferences. Of course, vinyl is also much more expensive than CDs because the manufacturing process is much more expensive. Furthermore, there is great-sounding vinyl and CDs, but there are also crappy-sounding ones. Just be happy that both are available and buy the one you prefer. I like both and hope that both will continue to exist for a long time to come, because Spotify and its ilk are the gravediggers of music culture, because only the really big artists earn anything from it.Cheers
I don't want them to come back , I can get them for 5 for a quid second hand , very rarely find 5 I want but no.they will start charging more and the odd occasion I buy new they will start ripping us off
It's what killed off vinyl in the first place - nasty pressings and shoddy mastering .
What we should do is to eliminate the streaming services all the physical formats are good
That's Obviously NEVER going to happen.
@bbfoto7248 never say never ...real things are making a comeback and fake things like streaming are for losers
Never liked CDs to begin with, dont see why i should second time around.😁
Wax cylinders will be tghe next big thing!
Those people actually died in the ditch years ago 😂
Just go holy trinity. No discrimination 😂
You own the CD or Record. Streaming is good but you rent the music
Vinyl is dying because the hipsters are getting old. And CDs are rising because people are tired of streaming and everything about it. Own it. Why tf are we renting our music?! Its dumb and artists are getting shafted.
Come on, you can't even find a correct illustration and you use that AI crap at 1:13? I'm outta here....
The arguments about CDs sounding better than vinyl are purely scientific. To my ear, vinyl sounds better - it's more natural in its frequency response.
Science doesn't work a lot of the time when it comes to audio - e.g. a valve amp with more measurable distortion than a solid state amp can sound better to most people.
Many other people these days find that vinyl sounds unnatural and distracting and enjoy the clarity of sound only possible from CD/digital. Others are just relaxing listening to the music/ running around after their kids/ washing their hair etc.
"vinyl" belongs in the landfill.
Nah, mate. Vinyl can sound amazing on a proper system. In addition, there are many of my favorite music releases which are only available on Vinyl and no other format. So there's that.
And you and I know that will never happen, at least not for many, many years, as long as we humans are nostalgic and carry on traditions.
In addition, because of the special attention and care that must be taken when mastering a release specifically for vinyl, there are many releases from the 1990s to 2000s that were overly compressed and bricked-walled on CD, but are much better on vinyl.
Goodness, CD's only died 3 days ago !!
Vinyl will outlast cd due to the technical difficulties of making cd transports.
Ha-ha!
Spotify = Theft
Nah
Greed will kill the vinyl industry and analogue systems manufacturers. Greed and stupidity of consumers. DDD marked cds sound unnatural. Especially on drums. Best cds are old ones marked AAD or ADD. Vinyl sounds better than digital medium when played on good equipment. You don't need to spend thousands