Is The CD on Life Support?
The Mother of all plastic discs, The Compact Disc.
I have been there for the birth of all music distribution formats since the introduction of vinyl. I have watched them rise and fall, and now eventually give way to the distribution of my favorite media music formats to digital down load. The good news is that just like the near death of vinyl gave way to its upmarket rebirth, I can only hope that the potential demise of plastic; CD’s, SACD’s and DVDA’ s will at some later date give rise to the rebirth of these formats sounding even better. Giving all those purists and audiophiles like myself and all those to come in future generations a taste of what recorded audio can sound like. There is even a small resurgence and growing number of vendors selling reel to reel 1/4″ stereo tapes, see Acoustic Sounds and The Tape Project; now that’s real enthusiasm!.
Yes, I am older, but I was trained in a professional recording studio, and my father was a band leader, so I know what live and studio music sounds like, and I have shared that experience with my family and friends in my purpose built listening room. So far I have heard nothing ripped, streamed, compressed or uncompressed, that equals what I can get off vinyl or plastic (SACD, DVDA, Blu Ray) and of course the mother of plastic, the CD.
Has the effort of placing a couple of ounces of plastic into a player or vinyl on a turntable become so challenging that the convenience of a digitally processed and streamed sound is all that now matters? How much are we going to “dumb down” music in order to give it to the masses in a conveniently piped, sanitized and sterile environment, no emotion, just log in and turn on? Is life so hectic now that we’ve lost the ability to sit down, sit back, listen to the music and just unwind, appreciating the musicians, engineers and producers crafts? Or is music just filling the voids of silence through those ubiquitous earbuds?
Just a Little History
So how did we get here?
- Recording to a medium started with Thomas Edison in 1877. See my post on a introduction to audio recording and a potted history.
- Then came the compact cassette and 8-track tape machines using analog tapes. The compact cassette being released by Phillips in 1963, with the 8-track being created in 1964. However, the introduction of the CD caused both of these formats to rapidly disappear from the home and car markets.
- The CD was co-developed by Phillips and Sony and released in 1982. These early shinny discs never really sounded very good but as the conversion process to and from digital, and the required filters improved, so did the audio quality, resulting in the current Redbook CD standard that was released in 1980. See my post on an Introduction to Audio Formats.
- Despite all of the significant improvements to the CD audio quality audiophiles still clamored for something better resulting in the development and introduction of:
- High Definition CD (HDCD). This was developed by Pacific Microsonics and was released in 1995. The format was purchased by Microsoft in 2000. It was the first attempt to provide extended dynamic range, keeping compatibility with existing CD players. The format was discontinued in 2005.
- The Super Audio CD (SACD) jointly developed by Phillips and Sony and released in 1999. An uncompressed audio format that supported stereo and surround sound.
- Digital Video Disc Audio (DVDA) was introduced to the markets in 2000. These standard definition video discs supported both compressed and uncompressed audio only formats from companies like Dolby, DTS and Meridian.
- High Fidelity Pure Audio (HFPA) or Blu Ray Audio was launched in 2013. Supporting both compressed and uncompressed audio only formats, including high resolution LPCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
- Digital downloads and (illegal) file sharing started to appear around 2000 with companies like Napster. Apple iTunes opening its (legal) store in 2003. The Apple Store was quickly followed by numerous download providers over the last 15 years to include:
- Master Quality Authenticated CD (MQACD). This compressed high resolution audio format was first released by Japanese label Ottava in early 2017 and by Chesky Records later that same year. (Comment: I have no idea why any label would release yet another audio format on plastic that is lower quality than existsing available uncompressed formats. It seems absurd, as this format was primarily designed for high quality ‘low’ bit rate streaming)
Plastic (CD) Sales
Source: After IFPI Recording Industry in Numbers, 1992-2015 and IFPI Global Music Report 2016.
See here for further details on USA media sales from RIAA and here for digital media details from Music Business Research. Clearly the free file sharing and downloads of music have had a significant impact on the sales of CD’s. With SACD, DVDA and HFPA never really gaining a firm foothold in the audio markets, tending to be mainly supported by the relatively small audiophile and enthusiasts markets. So as can be seen in the above graph, there has been a rapid decline in the sale of shinny plastic audio discs as the convenience of digital downloads has risen.
Digital Downloads
The death bell tolls!
Percentage of recorded music revenue from “ownership” and access models, 2009-2016. Data source: RIAA.
In most parts of the world, excluding Japan, the desire to actually own the physical media, be it a shinny plastic disc or vinyl, appears to have lost its appeal to the current music listening generations, this despite the recent resurgence in vinyl sales. For most music listeners the convenience to listen to what you want where you want seems to have taken the place of striving for audio Nirvana and trying to recreate the studio sound at home. See here for further information on digital download information.
Digital download providers, some of which are listed earlier, are growing at the speed of sound. It is also true that with the advent of Master Quality Audio – MQA, these downloads and streams continue to get smaller and audibly better. Providing a low cost streamed connection and a signal quality that continues to get closer to replicating the sound that was engineered in the control room. Other than for purists like myself, I suppose that for the average music lover, these file formats when played back on good quality audio systems, provide a level of enjoyment that whilst not exactly studio quality, is close enough for the average listener. The finer differences to what can be achieved, having little impact on these listeners enjoyment; what you’ve never heard you can’t miss!
Impacts on other Listening Environments
Hardwired and Blu Tooth Connectivity Found in Many Modern Cars
I have to admit, that my daughter, a trained pianist and vocalist and who really appreciates live music, now listens to most of her music via earbuds, and in the car as streamed music over Blu Tooth, all from her iPhone! There was a time when she, and I, would spend hours ripping and compiling tracks and burning CD’s to play in the car…..its all gone the way of the Doh Doh. Its convenience, convenience, convenience, and lets face it, the car is hardly the ideal music listening environment. So the possible audio quality benefits of an uncompressed CD are probably not going to be audible unless you listened to MP3 files! We also now have HD Radio and XM providing good quality digital sound, for a less than perfect listening environment.
This rapid movement away from owning the physical media is also being strongly supported by the current wave of home media devices like Blu ray players and AV receivers. Many of which now support networking and wirelessly streamed media files or playback from external networked storage devices and USB.
Reseller Impact
© Target
© Best Buy
Unfortunately the only thing that seems to matter for corporate America is the bottom line, and with CD sales plummeting, it is now rumored, and much to my amazement, that both Best Buy and Target are about to drop the sales of the CD. Adding to the “nail in the CD coffin” American car manufacturers are also about to stop installing CD players in cars. My recent car purchase, has an excellent Fender sound system and still has a CD player and SD card reader (inconspicuously hidden in the glove compartment), but also sports significant connectivity via Blu Tooth and various physical connectors to accept and control iPhone type sources. I wonder, are radios the next in the firing line?
It’s not Goodbye. It’s See You Later.
Call me old fashioned, a ‘stick in the mud’ or just plain difficult and narrow minded. Great audio is just that, great audio. Those days are long gone when audio enthusiast like myself would spend hundreds of hours sweating over a hot soldering iron building the latest ‘state of the art’ amplifier or speaker system, trying to reproduce the studio sound at home. I lived the life and recorded the sounds. There isn’t any source that creates the studio experience at home like an uncompressed carefully produced and pressed piece of spinning vinyl or a carefully crafted uncompressed piece of plastic.
The new young breed of music listeners are missing out on the perfection of a beautifully engineered, produced and performed recording, in favor of speed and convenience. But just like everything else the wheel will come full circle, I hope, and the desire to own the physical media, sit down and listen to what the performer and engineers created in the studio will return. The resurgence of vinyl is spearheading the revival, lets hope that all the plastic formats will find their nitche in time also, if only to keep the dream, my dream, alive!
