Comments on: Digital music gains, but CD losses a pain

Internet users are giving up on CDs, undercutting overall music demand, says NPD. The good news: they're increasingly willing to pay for downloads.

[Pete Bardo]

News flash! Music labels are having a hard time selling their overpriced cd offerings. Go figure!

[HlLLARY CLITON]

No need to buy cds anymore, so easy to buy and download them online. Great that you can listen to sample tracks, buy just the songs you want.

[john55440]

I prefer the superior sound quality of CDs, and on Amazon.com they don't cost that much. In addition, when you buy an album, you often get lesser known songs that turn out to be real gems. Another bonus is that CDs don't disappear when your hard drive crashes. (grin)

I have no interest in the compressed lo-fi of digital downloads. Speaking of overpriced, 99-cents a track for lo-fi downloads is the real rip-off.

[Sausagebiscuit]

Uhh, what? Most amazon mp3s are encoded at 256Kbps, which is more than 'near cd quality'. Many people can't notice 128Kbps (though I think it sounds bad) and most don't care. Read any test and you will see that 192Kbps and higher are really considered 'near cd quality' and 256Kbps is probably even better.

One example: http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/mp3quality.html

Besides, not many mp3 players ship with quality earbuds anyways. I guess I shouldn't feed the troll/pirate, but I hate seeing false information being tossed around.

[badasscat]

Sausagebiscuit:

What false information? CD's have superior sound quality: that is a quantifiable fact. We are talking about digital bits here.

Whether YOU can hear it, or whether even MOST people can hear it, is irrelevant. The fact is CD's have better sound quality. If someone prefers CD's for that reason, that is a perfectly valid stance to take.

What you're saying is akin to arguing that you think TV looks fine with your analog rabbit ears, so it's false information that HDTV looks better.

[Sausagebiscuit]

'badcat':

I never once said that CDs didn't have superior sound quality. I was defending the mp3 from being called "lo-fi" and particularity defending the quality from Amazon which was mentioned above.

In fact I always said "near cd quality". I never said an mp3 was better, or that a CD was worse. The false information is the bashing of mp3s "... compressed lo-fi of digital downloads." Maybe if they were 128Kbps then I could agree that they were lo-fi. Anyway, if you want to carry around portable CD players forever, then so be it. I'll be with everyone else sporting several gigs of lo-fi music in a device that fits in my pocket and has little or no moving parts.

[DaveMcLain]

What are you talking about MP3 IS LOW FI! You are throwing away information from a source that doesn't have any extra information to throw away to begin with 16bit 44.1khz is about the minimum you need for good sonic reproduction. And that's assuming that it's the final delivery format with NO additional manipulation afterward.

Personally I really think what most people hear when listening to low bit rate audio is the hard brick wall filtering that's done to the signal to reduce bandwidth and conserve bits.

It's a shame when people choose to listen to a lower quality source for music when it's just not necessary.

Go to Bob Katz site at Digital Domain to learn more about digital audio. Or read his book, "Mastering Audio". Good info.

[thelemurking]

I will often buy a used CD on Amazon or Half.com. Tons of great CDs under $5. I've snagged a lot of CDs for 75?¢ where shipping was more than the actual CD.

I don't mind using Pepsi Points to purchase DRM free MP3s from Amazon, but I'll avoid buying music from iTunes until they are completely DRM free.

[sythara]

iTunes DMR is easy to remove. Just burn a CD with the music from iTunes and then rip it into MP3. Use CDRW if you're stingy with disks.

[DrtyDogg]

@sythara: But why bother in the first place when there are options that are often cheaper, better quality and DRM free?

[Sausagebiscuit]

Not to mention the serious loss of quality from decompressing, burning, and re-compressing again.

[Heebee Jeebies]

It is high time for the audio CD to die. It is past it expiration date. It is now time for the record companies to embrace online and in store digital file sales with no copy protection. They are either going to embrace this willingly and have some say and control over it or it will happen without them and they will have no say or control.

The cr@p factory known as the RIAA is also something past its expiration date. Both they and the music studios are desperately clinging to a sales and business model like a small girl clings to her recently deceased pony. Both stink and both need to be put in to a hole.

Robert

[karpenterskids]

I just wish album art was downloadable...

[ElmoKajaky]

I prefer to buy CDs and rip them to my hard disk for the best of both worlds (the convenience of MP3s plus the backup of physical media if the hard drives die).

[El_Mikee]

Kudos to that!!!...
Yeah, i buy music on iTunes from time to time, but then , i burn the music to a CDR; and miss the cover art...
Another thing i miss, is liner notes and booklet design or pictures. Not every album on iTunes have them, so.... :-(

[dctech08]

i only own a handful of cd's that are worth listing through every song. online i can get the tracks i like and leave the junk behind.

[magicmaster]

Actually, muic labels are more difficult to withhold details of music until the consumers purchased them and play it on compatible devices...now, consumers have plenty ways of listening to either full or sample length of any individual song they so desired. Sad but the truth.

[J5Chicago]

I don't want to pretend that I know the entire manufacturing or supply chain process, but why don't music stores and big box retailers start selling CDs at a competitive price point? If all retail CDs were offered at, oh, I don't know, $9.99? Wouldn't that at least make actually purchasing a CD worthwhile? I would guess that the record industry would rather take a hit up front than have to take a hit on the back end and not move as many units.

[kyle5434]

I'm one of the people who CAN hear the difference between MP3s (even high bit rate) and the original CD - especially in cymbal crashes and some overtones created by vocal harmonies. Now, in many cases - driving in the car, having music in background during a party, etc. - I honestly don't care about the quality difference. I've also purchased some MP3s from Amazon. But for more intentional listening, I like having the non-lossy-compressed songs.

If Amazon and other download services offered an option for a non-DRM'd lossless compression format, like FLAC (along with some album art and info), I'd be more OK with bypassing the CD.

[zeldathez]

One benefit that we don't hear too much about is that downloading is the greenest way to buy music, music, movies, and software. There's no driving to the store, no delivery vans, and no plastics or packaging. Driving to a store and buying a physical CD uses up almost three times the amount or resources compared to a digital download.

[darkr]

cd covers are downloadable

www.cdcovers.cc