Is The CD Dead?

[WildBill]

An interesting [if too long] article about the future of selling music from David Byrne [formerly of Talking Heads]:

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that's not bad news for music, and it's certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/musi ... ntPage=all" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[C-dub]

I have a multi-CD player in my truck, but it is 8 years old. I haven't used it about 5 years. I should check to see if there's anything in there. Do vehicles even come with them anymore? I'd say, if the CD isn't dead yet, it's on life support and fading fast.

[WildBill]

I have a multi-CD player in my truck, but it is 8 years old. I haven't used it about 5 years. I should check to see if there's anything in there. Do vehicles even come with them anymore? I'd say, if the CD isn't dead yet, it's on life support and fading fast.

I bought a new vehicle last year. It came with a CD player, but I have used it only a couple of times. I just plug a USB drive in and have plenty of music choices.

I don't buy new cars very often. My old one has a cassette player.

[Dragonfighter]

I have a multi-CD player in my truck, but it is 8 years old. I haven't used it about 5 years. I should check to see if there's anything in there. Do vehicles even come with them anymore? I'd say, if the CD isn't dead yet, it's on life support and fading fast.

I bought a new vehicle last year. It came with a CD player, but I have used it only a couple of times. I just plug a USB drive in and have plenty of music choices.

I don't buy new cars very often. My old one has a cassette player.

I had a quadrophonic Pioneer 8 Track in my car. Really kind of trippy on those late night drives with PInk Floyd or Rick Wakeman. I remeber when cassettes first took over and then the auto reverse...woohoo. We were high tech.

[Ameer]

I don't think the CD is dead but I don't think the DVD is dead either. People definitely stream music and video much more these days, but I think there will always be some demand for owning the physical medium with the digital entertainment.

But I wish the penny was dead.

[K.Mooneyham]

I will say that CDs are getting harder to find at stores. I, for one, like having CDs to listen to in my home office. They sound better than some downloaded compressed-format track. I do have an older iPod music player, but I rip all of my music into Apple lossless format for that. Oh, and I like having the CD as a backup copy, too.

Of course, I still have about 200 cassettes, too, stuff I never bothered to replace with CDs. And I have an old Pioneer tape deck I bought at the base exchange in England back in the mid-90s that I use every once in a while when I want to listen to one of them. I know, dying breed and all that.

[Abraham]

I guess I'm in the rather rare category of those who don't listen to music anymore and haven't for years.

Music in general bores me, most especially so-called classic rock.

I am an avid listener of audio books, half non-fiction and the other a wide variety of suspense, mystery, thriller, action and so on.

Now that's entertainment...

[J.R.@A&M]

I thought at first the OP as talking about certificates of deposit, in which case the answer is clearly YES.

[RoyGBiv]

Haven't bought music on CD in at least 6-7 years.. maybe longer.
Don't listen to radio either, all the ad's and blah-blah-blah drive me crazy.
I have my MP3 player hooked up to power on when I start the car.
My music, all the time, no commercials. Thank you Napster/Rhapsody/Amazon/Shawn Parker, et.al.

I started downloading some podcaststo the MP3 player recently, too.

[Wodathunkit]

I haven't bought a CD in 5 years. I've gone to straight digital format.

[Abraham]

K.Mooneyham,

I know some folks who swear that vinyl records sounds superior to CD's, that they sound warmer. These same folks insist vacuum tube radios are better than what we have today. These people I mentioned are quite the artsy type too.

Being half deaf, I can't tell the difference, but the artsy type say they can, but I have to wonder if they would also tell you what a genius an artist is before finding out he's a monkey.

[VMI77]

It's old tech to me, sort like a cassette deck when CD's became popular. I have several hundred albums on a single thumb drive and my car player has two USB ports and one analog input.

[WildBill]

K.Mooneyham,

I know some folks who swear that vinyl records sounds superior to CD's, that they sound warmer. These same folks insist vacuum tube radios are better than what we have today. These people I mentioned are quite the artsy type too.

Being half deaf, I can't tell the difference, but the artsy type say they can, but I have to wonder if they would also tell you what a genius an artist is before finding out he's a monkey.

I can tell the difference, but I like CDs because I don't like the hiss and pops and skips of LPs.

[Dadtodabone]

K.Mooneyham,

I know some folks who swear that vinyl records sounds superior to CD's, that they sound warmer. These same folks insist vacuum tube radios are better than what we have today. These people I mentioned are quite the artsy type too.

Being half deaf, I can't tell the difference, but the artsy type say they can, but I have to wonder if they would also tell you what a genius an artist is before finding out he's a monkey.

"And still it moves."
Sorry Sir, it's demonstrable scientific fact that the sound waves produced through analog reproduction are of a higher fidelity than digitally produced sound waves. Dynamic range is also limited to the middle of the human discernible spectrum thus eliminating both the upper and lower levels of sound from a digital recording.
Chita and I will be enjoying some light opera while he finishes my portrait.

[bizarrenormality]

Looking at interest rates these days I don't think there's much benefit to lock up money in a CD.