The Further Demise of Physical Media
July 17th, 2008 Posted in music, technology
Continuing the saga of the slow demise of CDs is this poll of the online readers of Stereophile magazine, indicating that only 45% use CDs or SACDs as their primary method of listening to music, compared to 50% who use either an MP3 server or iPod.
I was previously unaware of Stereophile magazine, but it’s one of those magazines targeted at people with more money than sense audiophiles, which reviews things such as these $2999 interconnects using language like:
Silences and spaces between notes and sonic “images” weren’t even black: They were just dead-empty. Tunefulness, rhythm, and musical flow were all superb.
Although to be fair, the author does blatantly point out that it is a ridiculous price.
Regardless of how prodigal the publication is with their praise for expensive audio, the point is that their readership is well-biased toward the audio snob — not the casual top-40 downloader — and these guys are now more inclined to play via hard-disk than CD. I think with both of these ends of the audio listening spectrum covered, storable-audio is well on the way to completely wiping out physical formats.
In fact, the only time I use CDs these days is in my car stereo… and those are only for storing MP3s on. I kinda miss the collection browsing, but don’t miss the dust and taken up space. How about you? Do you still have a collection of CD jewel boxes cluttering up the shelves?
July 17th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I’ve thought of trying to switch to downloads, but a few things I think are holding me back. One is my limited success with downloads so far. I have trouble transferring them to CD successfully and that has soured me a bit on the process. Second, I’m not sure what hardware to get so I don’t have to transfer them to CD at all . I don’t want to leave them on my computer, which is not in the same room as my favorite listening chair. I have an mp3 player of the ‘shuffle’ type which I would need to upgrade, but to what, I don’t know (and how much will it cost?). Third, I’m worried about technical issues such as gaps between tracks in an opera recording, for example. Finally, aesthetically, I like holding the CD case with the cover and booklet and texts, etc.
What does appeal to me is the lower cost of downloads, and the instant access rather than hoping Borders has what I want or ordering and waiting for the mail.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
My iPod died a few days ago; I sent it off to Apple for a replacement, which will arrive in a few days. In the meantime, I’ve gone back to CDs and a portable CD player as a substitute, but it’s certainly a lot more to carry around!
I still have about all of the CDs I’ve ever bought (got rid of the vinyl years ago), but seldom use them except when the iPod’s not working. I ordered a CD online a few days ago because the sound of this particular recording should be spectacular and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t stuck with a compressed download. Otherwise I usually use downloads these days when they are available.
BTW, on burning mp3s to CDs, iTunes does it very easily (at least on a Mac; some Windows users seem to have trouble with the Windows iTunes). But there are plenty of other applications for that purpose also. Upgrading from a Shuffle to a more fully-featured iPod will cost you, that’s for sure, but the prices are publicly announced. About other mp3 players I have no idea.
On the gaps between the tracks, iTunes handles that issue with no problems in my experience. But I realize that the owner of this blog, and probably a great many other readers of it, have an intense dislike for Apple, so I’ll quit my free advertising herewith.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Haha, I honestly don’t hate Apple products as much it might seem sometimes… The practical reason for me not digging them is because I’m a huge linux geek so don’t like the closedness of their hardware/software. The non-practical reason for my dislike is because tonnes of my friends are devout followers of the Church of Steve, and their smugness can get annoying.
I totally agree with your suggestions. I think an iPod is an excellent choice for a newcomer (or anyone who doesn’t want to fiddle around with stuff very much) as one of the main selling points is the ease of use and smoothness of the user experience. It also has the widest range of accessories available for hooking it up to other pieces of audio equipment (although in my experience the quality of a lot of these is seriously lacking).
The easiest way to move music around is probably to hook the iPod up to your stereo. I don’t know how the sound will, err, sound like this but it’s probably not terrible.
Home servers (i.e., a unit designed to play all of your saved media files which is constructed more like a appliance than a PC) are going to be the next big thing I think. Some of the early options are things like Soundbridge or the MediaSmart home server. Both of these plug directly into a stereo. The former connects to an existing computer over the network to play MP3s, while the latter actually stores everything on itself. There are other options, but I’m not terribly familiar with the tech yet, as it’s still in its infancy.
Personally I do most of my listening either at the computer or walking around with my portable MP3 player. I also can use my laptop, but the quality ain’t so hot. If I had my own living room I’d probably put in a low profile, quiet computer with tonnes of disk space running as a media server.
Give it a year and I reckon there will be tonnes of nicely put together options available from the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc.
As for gapless playback and burning, Jon’s right on the money. In my experience most copmuter based software will be gapless, whereas all iPod/portable playback will have gaps. This is rather annoying for attacca stuff, but you do get used to it.
Hope you get your iPod back soon Jon, carrying around CDs sucks!
July 18th, 2008 at 6:51 am
You know, I never understood why people kept listening to LPs once CDs came out, but now I do. I still like my CDs, and ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it.’ But something like the server that I can set on my shelf where the CD player is might be nice, once the prices come down.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Yes, I’ve got CDs, which I play on my enormous, steam-driven Walkman. Ripping them all would be a major exercise and I’m too lazy. Plus I suppose I would need a hard drive to store the files on, plus another one as backup, so the saving in space might not be too great.
I’ve also got vinyl (and cassettes), though they are of totemic significance more than anything else. I think about throwing (or giving) them away but the thought hurts too much.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Yeah, I imagine the total wipeout of CDs won’t happen until home servers are commonplace and cheap(ish). In the meantime I’d definitely recommend a more full-featured MP3 player than the shuffle, maybe you’ll be swayed :)
I also can’t bear to throw out/give away any of my old CDs. I got around this by extracting all of the inlays (even the “back” ones) and keeping the unique CD cases, as well as all of the CDs of course. That way any particular CD can be “remanufactured” but takes up way less space. One of the nice things about having the original CDs is that you automatically have a backup. Of sorts.
Hard drives are pretty cheap these days… :)
July 18th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Another thing I might add about the sound quality of personal computers is that besides the speakers (the less said about the better), the quality of the digital-to-analog conversion done by their sound cards is not too hot. I find that passing the signal from my laptop through an iMic (made by Griffin), and then to my stereo amplifier improves the quality audibly, because that way the signal bypasses the sound card. The iMic is a little circular gizmo less than 2 inches in diameter. I think it should work with any computer.
And about the sound quality of LPs, there is no doubt that (good ones) have a quite different sound from CDs, and some people prefer it, though I think you need hugely a expensive turntable/tube amplifier set-up to really tell the difference. Personally, I’d rather have the freedom from pops and scratches and the greater dynamic range of CDs. (And I can’t afford the analog equipment, anyway).
July 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
“a hugely expensive,” I mean.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:59 am
I keep (some) music on my hard drive, I have an iPod and an external soundcard, and I download music from iTunes and the like when I don’t have time to get to a shop/library or to wait for an ordered CD to arrive, or if I’m mildly curious and just want to try a track or two. I do a lot of listening at the computer. I’m not anti-digital at all.
But… I like CDs and am not about to give them up or stop buying them, and here are some reasons why:
* they’re discrete, portable objects, and so I can lend them and borrow them. Try lending a recording to a friend when it’s only sitting on your hard drive – yes, you could always burn a disc and print off the track listing etc, but it’s quicker to grab a CD from the shelf and it doesn’t feel so “illegal”.
* the design and documentation of CD packaging is an integral part of the presentation and is something that I pay attention to. And the thought of scanning and organising thousands of pages of CD booklets and covers is just too overwhelming. [If iTunes made a point of including pdfs of full booklets with every album, they'd sell a lot more _albums_ vs individual tracks, but that's just my theory.]
* for now, there’s the matter of quality on CD vs download (not an issue when transferring from CD to a hard drive, but that assumes ownership of the CD in the first place).
* My shelves of CDs don’t feel like clutter to me (they’re probably the most exquisitely organised part of my home). And there’s something about browsing shelves of CDs that’s very appealing. Also, in many ways I’m a visual and spatial person – so often if I’m looking for a recording I will remember details about where it’s physically located and what it looks like. (I’m the same with books in libraries.)
July 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Yeah… the lack liner notes thing still bothers me. That’s one of the excellent things about the DG store. What would be really nice is if there were a central repository somewhere online for them. A wiki for liner notes.
Your spatial awareness sounds better than mine. I always ended up being completely convinced that a CD was in an inaccurate location with a totally different colored spine than it really had. Now my MP3s are all nicely ordered by directory :) What I do miss on the browsing side is when I am over at someones house – browsing a music collection is a good way to get to know someone really quickly.
What we need is a nice graphical interface to ones MP3 collection, in a standalone unit.