Comments on: Do you still buy CDs?

Sales of music downloads won't surpass silver discs for a while--a report projects the year 2012. So fess up: a lot of you are still buying discs, and I want to know who you are.

[delf76]

This past year, I have finally shifted away from buying CD's, thanks to DRM free services such as AmazonMp3. But, there are some occaisional times, I still buy CD's. For example, AC/DC's last album was not released digitally, so, I had to acquire it on CD. But, I rip all of my CD's to my computer when I get them home, and hardly break them out after that.

[rockstarstatus]

I still buy CD's. I want as high fidelity as I can get. Eventually my stereo will catch up with my taste in audio quality. :-)
I only encode in Apple Lossless and if I buy from iTunes, I buy iTunesPlus when I can. On iTunes I usually only buy a song I really want to hear more of. If I really like the band I'll buy their CD.

[Richard Knight]

I buy maybe 100-200 CDs a year still. I would agree that vinyl presents the best sound...but not everything released comes out on vinyl, plus decent turntables (Linn LP12 as a bare minimum) are not exactly cheap. For me CD is the way to go if one wishes to buy new music or is a serious collector.

What bothers me to some extent is that many people (young people?) are increasingly unlikely to have opportunities to hear real high quality recorded sound...mp3s don't even come close, neither do computers. Anyone who thinks an iPod is reproducing the full experience doesn't realize they they're missing a good fraction of the music. Whatever is lost at the source can never, ever be made up further down the chain.

RK

[research1st]

Richard,
You are 100% correct when you say that "that many people (young people?) are increasingly unlikely to have opportunities to hear real high quality recorded sound". That segment of people who have never or rarely been exposed to good sound quality are the ones that are driving the "digital download" craze. The same crowd that walk around with crappy earbuds crammed in their ears playing crappy quality MP3's. My fear is that over time, as that segment continues to grow, we will see a slow death of new audiophile equipment and good quality recordings.
If the majority of buyers do not demand quality then the market will definitely die.

[soundman45]

RK, you couldn't have said it better. I think there is a serious disconnect with the youth buying public and the understanding of what high fidelity is. Unfortunately there is a generation or so of people who have never experienced audio coming from anything other than a computer sound card. How sad. Unfortunately they have driven the audio market into what it is.

[awild1]

No worries guys,
I would consider myself one of the "youths" and I can tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'll be careful to not make broad generalizations, but I feel that the "iTunes" craze is starting to wain, at least with my demographic, who's honeymoon with the iTunes Store is over. I myself feel alienated by it. I think the fact that vinyl has been resurrected and that we are finally going beyond the Apple headphones to better headphones and hooking up to better stereos, we are beginning to discern much better the low quality from the good. I think that if Apple doesn't want the iTunes store to fail in the long run then they will need to upgrade to at least cd quality with their catalog. I think the reason we are turning back to physical formats is that we don't want to repurchase or upgrade music we already own. Its far less stressful to buy the CD than the compressed digital copy that will become obsolete like the rest of our tech in time. Just a few thoughts I've been pondering while reading the article.

[pcfish]

@research1st

I don't think you need to worry about that, like photography, everyone use jpeg, but it will never kill RAW format. Most people, as you said, does not have a good pair of headphones or car stereo to hear the difference (man, those people using FM-transmitter is killing me).

[ucbedge]

"So fess up. A lot of you are still buying discs, and I want to know who you are."

You make this sound like it's a bad thing. If given the choice between downloading a digital album and buying the album CD, I *always* buy the album CD. Why wouldnt you? You dont have to worry about DRM, and you always have a crystal-clear audio copy available if you need it.

The only times I buy downloaded music is if I want just one or two songs from an album. In that case, I'll buy the tracks online. Otherwise, I always buy CDs.

[jefflac]

I'm 50/50. I buy CDs from bands I really like - generally directly through the website. I like to have the physical media around with the jewel cases and (limited) album art. No one can ever put DRM on a CD that I own.

[nicmart]

Until downloads are at least as good as Apple Lossless I shall buy CDs. I rip them to a Mac mini as Apple Lossless and store them away.

[rufustel]

My computer just crashed last month (seemingly from Norton restore software, no less). My electronic music downloads, not yet backed-up, were lost. Fortunately, I had burned it all to CDs.

Physical CDs all the way, one way or another. I am tired of being a music publisher, doing for the download companies what used to be done for me when I purchased a physical CD.

[Leon_CC]

I have not bought a CD in 5 years. from the 1987-2002 i bought all cds over 500 in my collection then i added 228 cds from my wife collection. we had 2 sony 400 CD disk changers. since 2002- present we have add almost 300 Albums all from iTunes. and in the last few days I have been adding all 728 cd to our iTunes library. I am Ripping them all at 256 kbps 48.000 kHz AAC Stereo and do not use VBR option. as for the DVDs i stopped getting them after i got my PS3 to use as a Blu ray player and we have 23 Blu rays and i plan on replacing all 497 DVDs with Blu rays as they come available.

[alegr]

So what's the reason you're not using CD native sample rate 44100 to rip them?

[monsoon1906]

Getting my music through CDs is a no brainer - better sound quality, similar price for new releases, and an instant back up once I burn the CD onto my hard drive. Never really understood the phenomenon of buying 128/256kps music for the same price I can purchase a CD.

[Beertroll]

I agree. It is a crime that they charge the same/similar price for lossy compressed music. IMHO they should be charging 10 cents a track if they are going to degrade the quality of the recording!

[OStrolphant]

I still buy as many CDs as I can. I am still a student so my purchases are slow. I wish they were more. I download torrents sometimes and listen to pandora/seeqpod/projectplaylist to find new stuff. I have bought vinyl and one day will have a record player. On that day my CD/vinyl purchases may be split in half. I will never buy digital downloads.

[Pricey]

Any music/artist that I really love and want to support I will buy the CD or have someone buy me the CD for my Bday or something. I love the sound quality of the real CD especially when I play it in my car. If they start making SD card equivalent or better quality I would someday switch because it takes up less space like digital. Also, I am proud to say I have never given Apple any money for an iTune and have absolutely zero DRM tracks in my collection !!!

[Mymaxfactor]

I still buy CD's but not as many as I used to. I started downloading from iTunes because I have an itouch, iMac and it just seemed an easier way to collect music. I live on the east coast and space is precious so I want to downsize collecting CD's. However, I ran into the problem with the DRM. I purchase a CD but I cant make a physical copy of it nor can I move it to a different computer. I had a real problem with that, plus I am 40 and part of the experience of purchasing a CD is the artistic cover, words to songs or just info about the artist. You dont get that with downloaded music. You may get the digital version but how often do you look at that? The jury is still out on DL music in the long run for me. iTunes just decided to stop with the DRM so we shall see how that works out.

[mammalthedog]

I buy CDs and rip to lossless digital because 320k is terrible. Why pay more for less?

[joshdeboer]

FLAC all the way for me. Steaming on my squeezebox Duet...

[headtrauma]

Since we had our first child in 2005, our monetary priorities have changed dramatically. My wife and I went from buying about two CD's a month to buying about 4 or 5 CD's a year and these are almost exclusively kids' music. We check out CD's from our local library and make copies if they are worth it. Also, my friends' and I started an informal music club where we burn and mail CD's to each other every month that we think each other will like and then we discuss the music. I would love to be able to pay the artists for these CD's, but we just don't have the money. Music is now a luxury. As Steel Pulse says, "Life without music, I can't afford..."

[kr3bstar]

I still buy CDs regularly because I primarily listen to music through loudspeakers at home rather than through ear buds on the go. Even with my modest equipment (CAL player, Yamaha amp, Paradidm speakers) the difference in sound quality between an uncompressed CD and it's resulting MP3 through my ipod dock is undeniable, especially when listening to standard Jazz CDs. Coleman Hawkins' fat tone just ain't the same at 320kbps through the ipod's $1.00 D to A converter.

I also rip my CDs to high bitrate MP3 for use with my ipod during those times that I do want the convenience of portability. Furthermore, the CDs that I buy serve as their own backup. I don't have to worry about losing a library of hundreds of albums due to hardware failure.

Regarding LPs - I understand that they theoretically provide a fatter sound on the home stereo system, but LPs can't be ripped with the direct quality and convenience that CDs can. Creating MP3's from LPs would not only require some manual effort in leveling and track indexing. Listening to those MP3s would carry along the losses from A to D and D to A conversion - remember taping your friends' albums in the 80's? Furthermore, since much of modern music is _recorded_ digitally in the studio, then digital artifacts would still be present in a pressing which just happens to be analog.

[Remote_TV_Tech]

If the music content is good, then I WILL buy the CD. If it's mediocre, then I'll live with an MP3 off of iTunes. I prefer to have the original CD and rip my own MP3 at 320/44.1 NON VBR and True discrete stereo, NOT JOINT Stereo.

[karpenterskids]

I still buy CDs. :)

Mostly for album art, and better musical quality, although if someone did a blind quality test on me, I might not be able to truly tell the difference. I suppose it's psychological, but oh well. you can call me old-fashioned if you like.

And once I'm done listening and enjoying a CD, I have something physical that I can sell.
So I end up saving money in the end, anyways.

[thatbassguy99]

Because I can get a CD in most cases for about the same price or less than downloading a digital album, I always buy CDs. To me it is a no-brainer - for the same price I get better audio quality, no DRM, and liner notes.

The exception to this is when I can find music I want from eMusic. eMusic doesn't have everything, but they do have a lot of music I like and emusic costs much less per track than a CD or most other download sites. To me, digital downloads should cost less than CDs because they are of lower quality, often are protected by DRM (though that is becoming less the case) and there are no liner notes.

The way I see it, a digital music download is a lower value product that I am willing to buy if I can get it for cheaper than a CD.

[AndrewRich]

I stopped buying new CDs when the record industry started suing their customers. I will still buy the occasional used, import or indie CD but I'm pretty much all download/digital.

[NYCgoalie]

I still buy CD's; though now I seem to have virtually all the CD's I really want to own (almost 300). I think that's starting to become the case for most people who are now old enough to been buying CD's since they first came out.

Another advantage to CD's is that you can circulate them without having to use software like Bittorrent or Limewire to record your activities. Heck, many local libraries have a ton of decent CD's available for borrowing...and it's free and legal to do so!!

The only problem now is, there is so few new CD's worth buying anymore it's kinda sad. The last CD's I bought was "Kings Of Leon" from a new band called "Ra". Those were good pickups. Too bad there's not that much else out there that's worth it.