Is is just me, or are music CDs becoming more and more redundant with each passing year?

I mean seriously, why get the music CDs for Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U & 3DS when all the music is already on YouTube?

CDs are becoming obsolete, yes.

At 12/17/14 08:43 AM, Radaketor wrote: CDs are becoming obsolete, yes.

Welcome to YEARS AGO.. I am still amazed that physical stores selling physical music CDs still exist and still make profits. Kind of amazing.

Soon artists will be releasing their albums on USB flash drives

At 12/17/14 08:46 AM, Shaun wrote:

At 12/17/14 08:43 AM, Radaketor wrote: CDs are becoming obsolete, yes.

Welcome to YEARS AGO.. I am still amazed that physical stores selling physical music CDs still exist and still make profits. Kind of amazing.

Well not everyone uses iPads, you know. Plus almost anyone can play CDs. CD players can play them, most DVD players can play them, most computers can play them, and most disc-based gaming consoles can play them.

Also for promotional material, is a band going to give out iPads preloaded with their music or are they going to give out music CDs?

They're not really obsolete at all. Also neither is DVD. More stuff can play DVD than BluRay and the technology is less expensive to license than BluRay.

I still buy CDs because I don't know many legal means of acquiring music. It'd be fine using illegal means if the maker of the music was popular but the music I listen to isn't mainstream popular so I'd like to support them every way I can. I just wish I'd taken more physical money to the Sabaton concert so I could buy more Korpiklaani and Tyr CDs.

Music WHATs?

I still collect CDs because I like to have things physically. Right now, I have about 100 CDs in my collection. The only kind of entertainment I don't have a problem with buying digitally is PC games. With physical PC games, the disc is useless other than when you install it because the data is being read off of the hard drive.

Oh, I forgot to put this in the original post. Another reason I get my music physically is getting to choose what type of file to save it as, what the bitrate is, and shit like that. With digital download music you're usually stuck with one type of file and one bitrate. When I rip my own CDs, I can choose whatever I want. I could rip them as FLAC if I wanted to.

At 12/17/14 09:32 AM, NekoMika wrote: CDs are becoming more obsolete, mainly due to the formatting of files for each song. You can add it to your itunes or whatever music player you use but heaven help you if you decide you want to put in on an MP3 player and enjoy the song on the go because the file won't play.

What are you talking about? Every single one one of my CD rips can play on my iPod. What kind of file have you tried ripping CDs as? I use 320kbps MP3 and the files work on everything.

Yo, I will always prefer to have a physical copy of someone's music than digital, even if digital is more convenient. Also, vinyl is still making its rounds in the market. Ask an audiophile why and prepare to have a good half-hour conversation.

At 12/17/14 10:32 AM, FinaLee wrote: Yo, I will always prefer to have a physical copy of someone's music than digital, even if digital is more convenient. Also, vinyl is still making its rounds in the market. Ask an audiophile why and prepare to have a good half-hour conversation.

I have no idea why vinyl is big with audiophiles. The records never play at exactly the right speed and there's surface noise and popping. Plus it's a lot harder to copy to a computer. I had to use an RCA audio to 3.5mm to copy one of my records to my computer. I like it that CDs are going to play perfectly every time you listen to them unless they're dirty. They'll always play at the right speed and there aren't any audio defects unless the disc is dirty/scratched or the source was like that to begin with.

Hm... Oddly enough, where I'm from Vinyl is coming back IN!

ie: Bands/Artists are actually choosing to release their songs in a hybrid manner, on Vinyl, CD and Digitally.

I think the appeal comes back to having tangible, that you can physically FEEL. It changes something. It can't just be me, but I know for one that when I'm listening to a song on vinyl, even if the vinyl is old and skipping, it just makes me feel better inside. Take that feeling of the same song in digital format and it just isn't there.

If CD's seem to be dying out near you I suggest trying to make a venue spot where local bands and artists can play and sell their music. They can be house shows, or maybe if you can negotiate with a cafe owner you'll be able to get some stuff moving.

Really more people should do this. It is awesome, creates a sense of community and allows people to get some more experience performing on stage in front of a hopefully supportive crowd.

With this being said, I still prefer CD over digital copies. Technically, certain files you get online are diluted when they are converted to mp3s, the songs on YouTube are often pitch shifted to keep the copyright piggies at bay. Physical copies on the other hand, are usually encoded as .aiff or .wav files which are of a much higher, crisper quality than what you'd listen to on YouTube.

Keep CDs alive!

At 12/17/14 10:57 AM, Monster-64 wrote: I haven't bought a music CD in years.

I haven't bought a music CD in weeks.

At 12/17/14 11:02 AM, Sword-of-Kings wrote:

At 12/17/14 10:57 AM, Monster-64 wrote: I haven't bought a music CD in years.

I haven't bought a music CD in weeks.

I haven't bought a CD in well over a decade.

CD's have been obsolete for a long while, and with how the internet changed media sharing, CD's are really just a relic of a past era. In my car I just hook up my phone, and in my home I have my PC and a record player.

At 12/17/14 11:14 AM, Heretic-Anchorite wrote: I haven't bought a CD in well over a decade.

CD's have been obsolete for a long while, and with how the internet changed media sharing, CD's are really just a relic of a past era. In my car I just hook up my phone, and in my home I have my PC and a record player.

That's pretty much the way I am. I listen to all of my music on my computer and iPod. I rip my CDs and never touch them again unless I the rip has problems. I still have a rip of 1 by The Beatles on my computer where Let It Be suddenly switches to Come Together. "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of-ether yeah. Come together, yeah!"

fuck not being able to upload MP3 files

i still buy music CDs of artists i like. the collection looks nice on my shelf

Yes, they're getting obsolete.

I still buy CDs because I prefer physical media when it's a viable option. My HiFi system plays music better/louder than my PC can, so that's one of the reasons I still buy CDs. I listen to CDs in the car.

Plus, I just prefer to not buy digital content. There are only a few albums that I've bought digital copies of and that was because I couldn't find them on CD anywhere. I burned them onto CD straight away

At 12/17/14 08:52 AM, Teddiikun wrote: Soon artists will be releasing their albums on USB flash drives

Those became obsolete 3 years ago silly.

You'd think we'd have uncompressed, 5.1 audio discs by now.

At 12/17/14 02:18 PM, Cordyceps wrote: Some people still appreciate uncompressed audio

Who, data analyzers?

At 12/17/14 02:36 PM, Painbringer wrote: You'd think we'd have uncompressed, 5.1 audio discs by now.

We have for 15 years.

There is two big reasons why music CDs are still around, (and vinyl as well, for whatever reason) there are so many devices that can play CDs and distribution is much more accessible this way for folks who don't have the Internet. It's easier to transport and keep track of physical copies of music, including burned CDs without much of the political or ethical baggage involved. That said, these kinds of things don't matter to the folks who wholly download their music online, either through ignorance or convenience.

They're only around because some people prefer a physical copy, it's the same reason for why comic book stores still exist.

At 12/17/14 03:32 PM, Sekhem wrote: it's a real shame SACDs never caught on

It's because of the stupid format war with DVD Audio.

All they ended up doing is annihilating each other.

At 12/17/14 02:39 PM, Cordyceps wrote:
With well-equipped sound systems its easy to pick out the difference between 1,411.2 kbit/s on a CD and the 320 kbit/s that the mp3 format can handle at a maximum.

But the human ear can only occasianally detect any loss with 160 kbit/s, only rarely with 320, and anything over 500 is out of the question.

At 12/17/14 05:55 PM, Cordyceps wrote:

At 12/17/14 05:49 PM, MykeiXWolfe wrote: But the human ear can only occasianally detect any loss with 160 kbit/s, only rarely with 320, and anything over 500 is out of the question.

When the audio is amplified then the loss is definitely apparent.

At that point you might as well be making a deaf wish.

OH FUCK, OH SHIT, OH DAMN, DID ANYONE JUST WITNESSED WHAT I DUN DERE. YO, WHERE DHFK'S MY EMMY FOR THAT SHEEIT.