Is this the End of the CD?

[martinsane]

 

1. CDs do nothing in my house but gather dust. Fact. Come on guys be truthful here - how many of your precious 1000s of cds do you actually play in any given year?? 5%, 10% maybe a huge 15% lol.

 

 

I have around 1600 CD's (plus around 400 vinyl on top) not a huge amount by some standards here ... and no I don't play them all every year, but it's like a library. Something of tactile value that I can read up on, browse through, reference and play when I feel like it. Does someone who has all their songs on a hard drive play each and every song on there? Plus there's the monetary side - if/when I get bored with it I can sell parts of it off some maybe cheap some maybe not, but who is gonna buy a hard drive full of songs someone has paid for? It's dead money you might as well tape the songs off the radio....premium prices for nothing much.

On average I play around 2 full CD's a day, sometimes a lot more and on a RARE day or so I play nothing, which works out about 700 a year which is closer to 50% than 15, okay some may be played more than others but I'd say I hit around 40% or more.

 

 

Plus the fact is some folks are collectors be it books, cars, beer cans e.t.c. I like to collect the physical product associated with the music I like as opposed to a load of 1s and 0's on my PC. Yes it's all about the music, but also how it is presented to you...the full package not economy class. I'd rather also see the real band than the tribute one

 

Could not or would not have said it better myself! Pitch perfect.

 

Especially this bit:

 

" it's like a library. Something of tactile value that I can read up on, browse through, reference and play when I feel like it."

[Glen]

Yeah fair play guys but I do think are being a bit risk averse here! Lol. Think the Cap was a tad unlucky losing both on the same day! Whatever.

 

Look, I still buy CDs as much as the next guy but I won't cry into my beer if the format gets pulled cos the fact is I just don't play the buggers anymore - or v rarely.

[Glen]

@ Cap - no doubt it was an iPod which failed on you then?

[Nick C]

 

Look, I still buy CDs as much as the next guy but I won't cry into my beer if the format gets pulled

 

 

Cool...it's your place for beer then...I hate it watered down

[cdjunky41]

To me it was very liberating to finally embrace digital music and start selling my CDs. I discovered I NEVER listened to actual CDs anymore, haven't for several years now, I rip them then put them on a shelf and then either shuttle the music around on my ipod, iphone or memory stick. So really why should I keep them all around just to say I have a lot of CDs? If I actually listened to them it would be one thing, but I just don't so it really doesn't make any sense to just have them sitting in my basement taking up space when I can sell them and do something useful with the money. However I'm 41 and it took a LONG time to finally get to this point.

 

So why doesn't everyone just join me on the dark side, I dare you.

I pray to god that you dont have some kind of huge electrical failure and lose the whole lot.

I actually had my music collection on two hard drives and both went tits up on the same day. Luckily I was able to get one of them working for half an hour on and half an hour off, and retrieve nearly everything (I lost one album which thankfully I was able to rip again as I had the physical CD).

This is why I now have my whole collection on five hard drives. Sounds like overkill, but even though I still have the physical copies, I dont want to have to spend all that time ripping them again.

If I'd got rid of my CDs and hadnt managed to get that hard drive to work in short spurts, I would be well and truly fucked that 18 years of collecting CDs was wasted.

 

Thing is, one of my current external drives recently deleted 3/4 of the collection on it for no apparent reason. Another got a corrupted boot sector and had to be reformatted completely.

These were both on separate occasions this time, but it just goes to show that nothing is safe when it comes to digital media.

 

Thanks Captain!

I picked up an External Hardrive and wondered Can they be effected? You just answered my question.

I only have 500 c.d.'s on it, but most from my collection that I will never give up..

[cdjunky41]

Them digital fuckers will never take me alive

 

 

[Stefan]

Them digital fuckers will never take me alive

 

 

 

I'm gonna miss both of you...

[cdjunky41]

Them digital fuckers will never take me alive

 

 

 

I'm gonna miss both of you...

 

No worries Stefan,

 

Jez,Keef and I are like a bad case of Herpes. You can't get rid of us...

[Nick C]

This is what worries me more........with digital downloads, and bands having to go the complete digital route due to consumers (and iPrats and big business leachers download stores) it's all geared to instant gratification. I like this song I'll download it and not bother with the rest of the bands catalogue of songs!

 

Now the cool thing about an album or a CD if you wanted "the hit of the day" you either bought the album or the single. Now if you have the single you probably would play the b - side, me I bought Eagles - One of These Nights ...great b/side Visions.....what a cool song. or Queen Bo Rap b/side - I'm in Love with My Car, another great song or The Goodies Black Pudding Bertha b-side Panic...complete rubbish! But you got two songs for your cash and even more with CD singles and more often than not the b-side/ extra tracks started to worm your way into your head and made you want to check it out more, the b-side sometimes worked out to be better than the a side (except for the Goodies!!!!). But download something and you get ...1 song...the song u wanted...end...of ....story!

Worse scenario:-

Hear a song on the radio it's a hit you buy an album for it......you play it, and realise the rest of the songs are cool too....it's not all filler, the song you bought it for is great but wow there's stuff better on here...better then the chart hit.

Or download the one song....and that's all you ever hear...that one songs, the band has loads but you only hear that.

Knock on effect, bands make music to simply to sell, they copy the hits of the day to emulate them, all originality dies in favour of housewives/van drivers choice.

And all originality, interesting music, dies...music becomes just another product....not art, (which it is) not expression - just crummy shite to take your mind off the day.

 

What's coolest

 

a download of New York Dolls first album - or the vinyl or CD?

a virtual tour of the Louvre or actually being there and seeing the Mona Lisa.

[Jacob M.]

This is just another sign the world is changing for the worst. Nothing makes sense any more.

[Captain Howdy]

@ Cap - no doubt it was an iPod which failed on you then?

Nah, it was an Archos. Cant say for sure, but it may have been my own fault as I may have left it plugged into the usb for several days without removing it.

Problem with the hard drive was boot sector corruption, meaning that while it could be recovered, it would have taken weeks, maybe months to do it on my own or £700 to get someone else to recover it.

[Captain Howdy]

To me it was very liberating to finally embrace digital music and start selling my CDs. I discovered I NEVER listened to actual CDs anymore, haven't for several years now, I rip them then put them on a shelf and then either shuttle the music around on my ipod, iphone or memory stick. So really why should I keep them all around just to say I have a lot of CDs? If I actually listened to them it would be one thing, but I just don't so it really doesn't make any sense to just have them sitting in my basement taking up space when I can sell them and do something useful with the money. However I'm 41 and it took a LONG time to finally get to this point.

 

So why doesn't everyone just join me on the dark side, I dare you.

I pray to god that you dont have some kind of huge electrical failure and lose the whole lot.

I actually had my music collection on two hard drives and both went tits up on the same day. Luckily I was able to get one of them working for half an hour on and half an hour off, and retrieve nearly everything (I lost one album which thankfully I was able to rip again as I had the physical CD).

This is why I now have my whole collection on five hard drives. Sounds like overkill, but even though I still have the physical copies, I dont want to have to spend all that time ripping them again.

If I'd got rid of my CDs and hadnt managed to get that hard drive to work in short spurts, I would be well and truly fucked that 18 years of collecting CDs was wasted.

 

Thing is, one of my current external drives recently deleted 3/4 of the collection on it for no apparent reason. Another got a corrupted boot sector and had to be reformatted completely.

These were both on separate occasions this time, but it just goes to show that nothing is safe when it comes to digital media.

 

Thanks Captain!

I picked up an External Hardrive and wondered Can they be effected? You just answered my question.

I only have 500 c.d.'s on it, but most from my collection that I will never give up..

External hard drives can be affected by various things such as magnetic interference or electrical surges etc, and can also go tits up for seemingly no reason.

This is why while I am certainly all for moving forward technologically, I dont think its worth throwing caution to the wind just yet and relying on them 100%.

[Fat Freddy]

More bad news for the CD. Maybe these rumors about its imminent demise aren't bullsh*t after all.

 

Sony To Lay Off Nearly 250 In Plant Closure

CD Distribution Facility To Close

 

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Sony CD distribution facility will close later this year in Hamilton County, leaving about 250 people without jobs.

 

The wheels of technology keep turning, and the closure is further evidence that the compact disc is on the way out.

 

"Due to the continued challenges posed by economic conditions and the current competitive landscape, Sony … has been forced to make the difficult decision," the company said in a statement.

 

Demand for CDs has fallen dramatically in recent years, as digital files have taken over physical product.

 

A Best Buy CD and DVD distribution facility that once employed 300 people closed earlier this year.

[cdjunky41]

I do believe that there are enough indies and other labels that will keep me ocuppied for the rest of my life.

If not, purhaps the bootleg industry will prosper. I know it's a bad word, but I do like a disc in my hand and not just a computer..

[Nightrain]

I think major label's CD distribution will come to an end soon but not indie because the indie community is loyal and eager to spend money for the physical disc rather than major label's community. They need to cut price of CD by 50% and reduced their margin heavily to maintain this industry, otherwise it'll collapse sooner than they think.

[metaltrekman]

And here I am thinking all these years that the sky rocketing prices of oil (plastics) has made the biggest effect on CD prices.

 

According to this the real costs are not in the actual "making of the CD". Its the greedy Record labels. They say the recording process costs more today than years ago. I doubt it. So much talk about the end of CDs and they keep raising the prices to buy them.

 

Pennies That Add Up to $16.98: Why CD's Cost So Much

By NEIL STRAUSS

Published: July 05, 1995

 

For years, music lovers have been complaining about high CD prices. If a CD costs as much to have manufactured as a vinyl record, their logic goes, then why does it cost so much more to buy?

 

The response from record labels has been to raise CD prices even higher. Rod Stewart's new CD, "A Spanner in the Works" (Warner Brothers), which arrived in stores last month, is a good example. It carries a $16.98 list price, the same as most CD's by established stars, and more than 100 times the cost of the materials used to manufacture it.

 

Why the discrepancy, and where does all the profit go?

 

The journey for what was to become the Mr. Stewart's new CD began months ago at the giant offshore oil field of Marjan, Saudi Arabia, and wound its way through Chevron's oil refinery and chemical company in Pascagoula, Miss., a General Electric plastics factory in Pittsfield, Mass., and WEA Manufacturing in Oliphant, Pa., where 10 to 15 cents' worth of raw materials were converted into "A Spanner in the Works." (By comparison, the raw materials necessary to make a single vinyl album cost 40 cents.) The plastic and paper used to manufacture the jewel box and CD booklet for the Stewart CD (at a company called Ivy Hill in Louisville, Ky.) rang in at around 30 cents.

 

Because Time Warner owns WEA and Ivy Hill, Warner Brothers Records does not have to buy its CD's from them, as an independent record company would at a cost ranging from 75 cents to $1.10 a disk.

 

"In the early days of compact disks in the 80's, CD's cost between $3 and $4 to get manufactured," said David Grant, the vice president of sales at WEA. "But as CD making processes have become more automated and capacity has been added, CD costs have come down and the market has steadied."

 

James Shelton, the president and owner of Europadisk, the only CD, vinyl and cassette manufacturing plant in Manhattan, said his side of the business was not lucrative. "The large profit margin is at the record company level," he said, "because we sell CD's for 75 cents. And in addition to raw materials and the cost of the machines and labor, we have to pay a royalty to three different inventors on every single CD we manufacture." (Three electronics companies, Philips, Thompson and Discovision, have patents on different parts of CD manufacturing.)

 

While "A Spanner in the Works" CD's moved from WEA Manufacturing to its distribution warehouses in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, Warner Brothers made two quick decisions: what the disk's wholesale price would be and what the suggested list price for retailers would be. Warner Brothers decided to distribute "A Spanner in the Works" to large record chains for $10.72 to $11.20. (Smaller stores had to buy the CD from independent distributors, which raised the price an additional 5 to 10 percent.)

 

This 2,000 percent markup may seem extraordinary, but manufacturing is not Time Warner's only expense. The really big costs of CD's derive from marketing, promotion, artists' fees, royalties and, often, an arbitrary markup representing a calculated guess at what the market will bear. The recording process alone for "A Spanner in the Works" cost just shy of a $1 million.

 

In addition, the royalties Time Warner pays Mr. Stewart are based not on the retail price, not the wholesale. (On average, Mr. Stewart makes $2.50 per disk sold.) Time Warner also has a record label to run, and -- thanks in part to the extra revenue from CD's -- has put substantially more money into marketing costs in the last decade.

 

Setting prices "is very arbitrary," said a top executive at a major label, who described his company's pricing policies only on condition of anonymity. "We're trying to raise CD prices," he said. "The reason for this is that our costs are escalating in such a marginal way, everything from marketing to promoting to signing bands. It costs $400,000 to $600,000 to sign a band. The first video costs a minimum of $50,000. Touring is more expensive, and people's salaries are a lot higher. Our profit margins are being squeezed.

 

"It's a very speculative business that we're in. If a label can break one new band a year, they're having a good year. The first 300,000 to 500,000 copies a record label sells of most CD's don't make money. That's 80 percent of all records that don't make money; the other 20 percent have to pay for the 80 percent."

 

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission subpoenaed the heads of several record labels as part of an investigation to determine whether the major CD distribution companies were fixing prices; a spokeswoman for the commission would not comment on whether the investigation was still in progress.

 

Some consumers said they thought record companies were trying to make American prices equivalent to those in Europe and Japan, where CD's cost the equivalent of $25 to $30. Record-label executives didn't disagree but said they believed that in a few years the price of a CD would level out at $20. Currently, when a CD is sold, 35 percent of the retail price goes to the store, 27 percent to the record company, 16 percent to the artist, 13 percent to the manufacturer and 9 percent to the distributor.

 

A record-industry analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said suggested CD prices had been rising $1 a year. "Around 1992, Michael Bolton's 'Timeless (The Classics)' was the first to go from $15.98 to $16.98 because Columbia said it was a special extended-play greatest-hits collection," he said. "Then Capitol went to $17.98 with the Frank Sinatra 'Duets,' saying it was a special project full of superstars. They call it an event price, a single one-time high list price. But the other labels always follow, and it becomes the new standard price. Most recently, it happened with the Page-Plant and the 'Three Tenors' albums on Atlantic last year at $19.98."

 

Most stores ignore suggested list prices and follow their own policy for pricing compact disks, but since increases in this amount correspond to wholesale price increases, they are significant. "A Spanner in the Works" was sold to retailers for around $11 with a suggested list price of $16.98, but few stores put it on sale at that price. In Manhattan, Bondy's Records is charging $11.98, Tower Records and HMV Records $12.98, and Colony Record and Radio Center $19.98. Elsewhere, the CD costs $12.99 at Wherehouse Entertainment in Los Angeles and at Sam Goody in Westport, Conn. Wal-Mart in Athens, Ga., is selling it for $11.88, and Best Buy in Miami for $9.99. (The Best Buy chain, which also sells home electronics, reportedly sells CD's near or even below cost to lure customers into stores.)

 

In the next few months, after "A Spanner in the Works" is no longer considered a new release, its price will creep up $2 to $6 at most of these stores. At Tower, the price will rise to $15.99 in accordance with a chainwide pricing grid called a cost-to-list conversion sheet; at Wherehouse Entertainment it will climb to $16.99, and at Sam Goody it will be $17.99. (Record stores make more money than it appears: in exchange for playing music by new bands in their store, putting posters in their windows or placing record company ads in their in-store magazine, they are often given CD's to sell.)

 

Jim Freeman, the regional manager at HMV Records' home office in Stamford, Conn., explained how the record chain determines its CD prices. "There are three factors," he said. "The first is the manufacturer's suggested list price. The second is what the competition is selling it for. The third is what's called the blended running margin" (jargon for a 30 to 35 percent price increase).

 

Per unit, CD's are one of the least profitable items a record store carries. Cassettes, for example, are sold at 41 percent profit, at least six percentage points more than a CD. "We make a greater dollar amount on CD's than other related items, but only because we sell so many," Mr. Freeman said. "I think the customer is actually getting really cool value for their $15. The Page-Plant CD had a full 70 minutes of music, which is the equivalent of two LP's of music and actually costs about the same as a double LP." (Mr. Stewart's CD has 55 minutes of music.)

 

Arnold Stiefel, who has managed Mr. Stewart's career for 13 years, said music and money don't correspond so easily. "The whole concept of value received for any entertainment endeavor is hopeless," he said. "If you're getting 55 minutes of Rod Stewart on 'A Spanner in the Works' and you love the CD, you've got a great deal. If you think it's noise, maybe you'd have paid double the price not to have it. However, I can personally warrant that 'A Spanner in the Works' will last longer than $16.98 worth of gas. And just think: they came from the same place."

[RichieZ]

Not the end for me. It seems people are taking interest in vinyl again which is encouraging because I love that medium too.