According to data from Nielsen SoundScan, U.S. sales of digital music albums grew by 60% to 23.5 million units in the first six months of 2007 but failed to offset the rapid sales decline of compact discs: total album sales were down by 15% for both digital and CDs, with CDs alone falling 19.3% to 205.7 million units. The recorded music industry is struggling in the early stages of a transition to digital formats from the dominant CD format. The biggest selling albums in the first half of the year were Daughtry's self-titled work with 1.7 million units, Norah Jones' "Not Too Late" at 1.4 million units and Akon's "Konvicted" at 1.3 million.
News source: InformationWeek
News source: InformationWeek
I was 19 at the time. I didn't think I was gonna get over 200 CDs taken from me. My insurance is two hard drives with exact copies of my data.
I was 19 at the time. I didn't think I was gonna get over 200 CDs taken from me. My insurance is two hard drives with exact copies of my data.
They still aren't fireproof. You have a fire = see you later data. If your CD's get burnt, you buy them all again. Nothing more fun than seeing 200 CD's delivered at once
I was 19 at the time. I didn't think I was gonna get over 200 CDs taken from me. My insurance is two hard drives with exact copies of my data.
They still aren't fireproof. You have a fire = see you later data. If your CD's get burnt, you buy them all again. Nothing more fun than seeing 200 CD's delivered at once
My bad. One of the hard drives.. is kept in my FIREPROOF gun safe.
I was 19 at the time. I didn't think I was gonna get over 200 CDs taken from me. My insurance is two hard drives with exact copies of my data.
They still aren't fireproof. You have a fire = see you later data. If your CD's get burnt, you buy them all again. Nothing more fun than seeing 200 CD's delivered at once
With that in mind, online music stores should allow you to re-download already purchased tracks.
Anyway, When music starts getting released in free digital formats, Higher bitrate coupled with no DRM, CD Sales would cease to be.
+1, and the best part is you can now get some seriously cheap CD's / good offers from import sites like bangcd etc.
Look at all those lost sales!!!
I like to encode them to my own specs, have the artwork, and physical copies ftw. No DRM as well.
I see the increase of digital sales as a good thing, though I refuse to buy any music encoded in the format currently offered on the internet. I mean, DRM or not right now is not the main problem. The files that Itunes & Cie are selling are compressed audio files and thus there is some kind of audio degradation. There is no reason why I should pay for a product that is inferior to what an audio CD can currently output... heck, imho, it is even of inferior quality than the "MP3 scene" rips (which are very good btw, pretty much all encoded with the LAME encoder and they are all high quality variable bitrates mp3's)... There's tons of excellent lossless format now available (wavepack, FLAC for example), so I really don't see why encode their music that way.
First off, almost no one (except big time audiophiles) listens to lossless music anymore. Too big file sizes without enough benefits.
Second of all, almost everyone is listening in a noisy environment, where is is essentially impossible to tell the difference between music with bitrates from 160kbps or higher (and many people are quite happy with 128kbps music).
Third, why bother with the step of buying a CD and ripping it when it is predone for you? Correct metadata, the album artwork directly downloaded from the iTunes store (and in many cases now, a digital PDF booklet to replicate the linear notes), and slowly more and more music in DRM-free 256kbps AAC files.
To me, the only reason to buy a CD is if it isn't available as an iTunes Plus download yet.
First off, almost no one (except big time audiophiles) listens to lossless music anymore. Too big file sizes without enough benefits.
Second of all, almost everyone is listening in a noisy environment, where is is essentially impossible to tell the difference between music with bitrates from 160kbps or higher (and many people are quite happy with 128kbps music).
Third, why bother with the step of buying a CD and ripping it when it is predone for you? Correct metadata, the album artwork directly downloaded from the iTunes store (and in many cases now, a digital PDF booklet to replicate the linear notes), and slowly more and more music in DRM-free 256kbps AAC files.
To me, the only reason to buy a CD is if it isn't available as an iTunes Plus download yet.
i disagree, as the way i see it... is if your paying similar prices to the original cd you might as well get the original cd and rip it like the mp3 scene releases are this way u get better quality stuff and u always have a original high quality source if you ever need to rerip it to a constant bit rate or whatever you happen to want.
cause 128kbps just flat out aint worth paying for.... i would not even consider buying a mp3 unless it was ATLEAST 192kbps MIN.
but to be honest i think it's fairly hard (atleast in standard cheap headphones) to tell the difference between say 128 to 192+ although i can definitely notice the difference once you drop below 128.. cause say 128 down to 96 i can easily notice this with my own ears.
get EAC with the LAME encoder (both free) and you can make scene quality rips for your cd's
cause 128kbps just flat out aint worth paying for.... i would not even consider buying a mp3 unless it was ATLEAST 192kbps MIN.
but to be honest i think it's fairly hard (atleast in standard cheap headphones) to tell the difference between say 128 to 192+ although i can definitely notice the difference once you drop below 128.. cause say 128 down to 96 i can easily notice this with my own ears.
get EAC with the LAME encoder (both free) and you can make scene quality rips for your cd's
VBR is awesome. I don't understand why anyone is still using standard bitrates and not variable, saves on space and makes for very high quality music for less space on average.
cause 128kbps just flat out aint worth paying for.... i would not even consider buying a mp3 unless it was ATLEAST 192kbps MIN.
but to be honest i think it's fairly hard (atleast in standard cheap headphones) to tell the difference between say 128 to 192+ although i can definitely notice the difference once you drop below 128.. cause say 128 down to 96 i can easily notice this with my own ears.
get EAC with the LAME encoder (both free) and you can make scene quality rips for your cd's
VBR is awesome. I don't understand why anyone is still using standard bitrates and not variable, saves on space and makes for very high quality music for less space on average.
exactly my point!
Funny thing, when I was in the first grade I had a Texas Instruments Speak and Spell and after thinking about how it could talk I boldly made the prediction that someday music would come on computer chips instead of cassettes. My friends thought that was stupid but I think I was actually pretty close. We now play our music from "computer chips".
about your flash device with mp3's on it replaceing cd's ... i dont think thats going to happen either as it's still to expensive to use flash memory over cd's.... cause really do you see flash memory getting to be like 20cents for 700MB anytime soon? ... i sure dont.... even if they lower bit rate you still probably going to atleast need 256MB or so.
p.s. although nice prediction about the "computer chips" thing
Last edited by ThaCrip on 06 Jul 2007 - 23:40
unless you one of those people where u only like 1 or 2 songs per album sorta thing and just want a couple songs off many many albums then it might not be a bad thing i guess.
but aint no way i would pay 1 dollar per song when it has DRM and lower quality mp3 files vs the scene releases which are VBR (EAC + LAME) which is generally around 192avg bit rate but goes to 320kbps when needed in the song... this way (as i said above in my posts) u maintain top quality at a decent file size.
http://technobuddy.blogspot.com
http://technobuddy.blogspot.com
Then you live in fantasy lala land along with the excez of the recording industry.
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