New decade, end of the CD?

^ I'm a big fan of recording in 24 bit because of the increased headroom. Another way of putting it that with a good 24bit soundcard input a dynamic guitar signal has much better quality in the silent parts, which in 16bit already suffer from digital aliasing artefacts. This problem is of course even more important when you record dry, since in that case the input signal is weaker and more volatile (higher dynamic bandwidth).

I haven't done this myself, but I *think* that in a double blind test of 16bit/44.1kHz vs. 24bit/44.1kHz it would be difficult to tell sources apart if listened to under normal circumstances (good/high-end system with normal listening volume). At high volume though, with very dynamic signals, I think the difference would be audible though.

I am not a big fan of removing a round piece of plastic from a square piece of plastic, putting the round piece of plastic in a squarish kind of sled, playing and then repeating the process  in the opposite direction.

It think my CD's already dead. At least they are already in a plastic box under my bed, and they are not moving. I have ripped them all to my harddisk. Now I just have to move my mouse I little bit and press a mousebutton to play. That is what I call scientific progress!




Edited by Rottenhat - March 05 2010 at 11:22

Scratches?  I remember those.  At  least I could listen to the song upon which the needle was placed.  But my ol' Sony CD carousel has taken on a mind of it's own.  I dial up Arthur Brown and it's playing Mountain.  Then some sort of permanent, non-interruptible shuffle, where it never actually decides to stop while shufflin'.  It has however decided it likes Zephyr, so I guess tonight, headphone-wise, it's Sunset Ride.  No wait, it's decided to shuffle all of the CD's again and so now I'm getting Waka/Jawaka.  This will be quite the trip. if it's deciding to shuffle every single song on every single CD (all 400 of 'em).  Almost like my IPod, but slower. 

I believe that physical media will be around a long time from here, even though the popularity will become smaller. There will always still be an audience for physical marketing in music. I mean, it's like owning a piece of art (CD/vinyl) or then just have a picture of the painting on your computer (mp3 and all that sh1te). Plus CDs and vinyls sound much better than mp3 and 99 % of computers today are too retarded to play FLAC and other uncompressed music files. And most people are too retarded to make their computers FLAC compatible.

idiotPrayer wrote: I believe that physical media will be around a long time from here, even though the popularity will become smaller. There will always still be an audience for physical marketing in music. I mean, it's like owning a piece of art (CD/vinyl) or then just have a picture of the painting on your computer (mp3 and all that sh1te). Plus CDs and vinyls sound much better than mp3 and 99 % of computers today are too retarded to play FLAC and other uncompressed music files. And most people are too retarded to make their computers FLAC compatible.

Some people don't feel the need to own art. :P And I have never been able to tell the difference between a high quality MP3 and the CD. Maybe I'm just deaf...

I can't tell the difference between a 320Kbps rip MP3 that was encoded with a high quality encoder and a WAV/CD either.
However, as far as 24 bit is concerned, as someone who regularly records and mixes music (be it my own sh*t, or just random stuff I use for practice) 24 bit is an absolute blessing. And it's no secret it's been adopted as the industry standard bit rate for professional studios all over the world.
When you sit down and work with the finer details of audio for hours a day, the advantages of 24 bit are highly apparent and I cannot imagine working in 16 bit.


Edited by Petrovsk Mizinski - March 14 2010 at 07:01

Good thing I have an iPod and iTunes account then. Granted, I would HATE if CDs disappeared, as I love getting whole records as opposed to a couple of songs from the CD, but that does have it's up-sides. There are some songs I like, but I wouldn't want to get an entire CD JUST for that song.

But, I better stock up on CDs before they go away.

CDs are not needed anymore since music can be offered on the flac file format or another lossless.  People can always make their own discs, and it is a waste of environmental resources to make something that is digital more tangible.  People are buying licenses to listen to music, and that is all they own.  I am very content with the sound quality of the downloads online between the 256k aac and 256k vbr mp3 extreme.  Aimeestreet.com sells 320k cbr.

ONE NOTE:  Many groups are not available as downloads.  King Crimson and the Smiths are not available on iTunes or AmazonMP3.


Edited by javajeff - April 18 2010 at 12:23

Hey. I'm going to join this party late and I am also going to confess that I haven't read most of it. But here are my thoughts regardless.

Basically, I don't think that the CD will ultimately die in the foreseeable future. However, it is true that physical media is dying. It's much more of a hustle to buy physical copies of media(be it music or videos) and manufacturing is something that also costs money(not to mention environmental damage) which could be saved.
Of course, you can't deny that there is a large minority which does want to hold a physical copy and I don't think that this demand will really die. But what you have to really understand is that MOST people, not us prog fans or some audiophile crowd, the average Joe(or Jane) doesn't care much about quality or possessions. So the importance of having a lossless format or a physical copy is less great and therefore with reduced demand will eventually come reduced productivity.

The music industry is changing a lot due to the digital age and some musicians will choose to release singles on itunes while others will insists on releasing albums. I don't think it's a bad thing, if anything it allows for more freedom for the artist and I support having that option.

Long rant is long.