On 06/07/2010 10:01, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In ,
Malcolm wrote:
I find that just playing my original vinyl on one of my turntables
works fine for me.

It has several advantages:

[snip]


5) It sounds better anyway.

You've obviously not had the opportunity to compare it to the tape it came
from. Different, yes. Perhaps you prefer the distortion it adds.

Is one way of describing it - still sounds good, preferably good, to a
number of people.

A
properly made CD will sound a clone of the master tape.


Goodo.

Rob

In article , Rob
wrote:
On 05/07/2010 20:55, David Looser wrote:
"Malcolm wrote in message

5) I am not lumbered with a collection of CDs that will be worthless
in a few years time when most/all digital music will come via the
net.

Why on earth should the fact that most music in the future will
(probably) be bought via the net make existing CD collections
worthless?



Substitutes are becoming increasingly sophisticated - the sound quality,
convenience, the extras, and the methods of replay.

You'd have to give some examples so I can know what you mean here.

And I would add cost, which for a number of people is I suspect nothing.

Which may well be why the big companies would prefer us all to switch to
using things like blu ray and internet devices they can control. 8-]

All of which renders the 'original' CD less valuable - and it was always
an impersonal bit of poorly packaged plastic with illegible labels in
the first place. Exceptions will exist, but in general CDs will be
landfill in 20 years.

Will be interesting for far-future archeologists to find the 'vinyl layers'
in landfill just under the 'cd layers'. I wonder how many LPs are already
there?... Probably won't matter to me as I'll also likely as not be
'landfill' myself by then as well! :-)

The worst problem with LP wasn't the packaging. It was the ease with which
it could be audibly poorly made and audibly damaged by the owner. But then
I don't buy books for their covers...

Slainte,

Jim

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On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:12:25 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article , Laurence Payne
wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 09:55:53 +0100, Malcolm Lee
wrote:

No - the operative word is digital. CDs are digital. When exactly
the
same music in digital form is available from the net in a cheaper
and/or more easily accessed form, then CDs become redundant and hence
worthless. CD sales are dropping rapidly and have been for several
years now.

Just like vinyl. Unless a movement ascribing magical qualities to CD
springs up, in which case you may be able to cash in on your collection
:-)

Certainly the fact that others can obtain copies of what I have on CD
does not make the ones I have "worthless" to me. What I have is already
'accessible' so far as I am concerned. As are the bulk of my old LPs,
tapes, and cassettes.


Absolutely - the value to you of the music you already own in any format
is not changed by new formats arising. What may change though is the cash
value you'll get should you wish to sell your old stuff.


Anyway, weren't we talking about utility, not cash value?

The poster will need to say that for himself. Otherwise we may be at
cross purposes due to people using the same word for different meanings.

Slainte,

Jim

That maybe seems the case. The "worthless" I originally used related to
monetary worth not musical worth - as above. And just in case there are
any pedants around, I was not using "worthless" in its literal sense
(ie worth zero money) but in its more everyday sense (worth very little).

On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:01:36 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Malcolm Lee wrote:
I find that just playing my original vinyl on one of my turntables
works fine for me.

It has several advantages:

[snip]


5) It sounds better anyway.

You've obviously not had the opportunity to compare it to the tape it
came from. Different, yes. Perhaps you prefer the distortion it adds. A
properly made CD will sound a clone of the master tape.

Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn

Try playing another record, that one's worn out.

"Rob" wrote in message
...
On 06/07/2010 11:17, David Looser wrote:
"Malcolm wrote

No - the operative word is digital.

No, the operative word is "music". The idea that there is some
qualitative
difference between analogue music and digital music is absurd.


That's always going to difficult to understand if you've never owned or
used a record player, I agree.

I've owned record players since 1971, and still use one occasionally. So my
comment is firmly based on experience.

CD sales are falling now, just as LP sales plummeted after the CD was
launched, so?


LP sales are still going strong.

I know LP sales are still going. Even increased a bit in recent years due to
the fetish market.

Today, you'll see similar numbers for
CD and vinyl listings on ebay UK - about one million each. There is
*something* about vinyl that has endured. I've mentioned in another thread
the reasons CD won't endure.

You mean the reasons *you imagine* that CD won't endure. There's
*something* about steam trains too.


I doubt it, at least on the same scale. You're going to have to shift your
thinking at some point :-)

Or, then again, maybe you are going to have to shift *your* thinking at some
point. :-)

David.

On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 15:59:38 +0100, Malcolm Lee
wrote:

Anyway, weren't we talking about utility, not cash value?

I wasn't - see my last post - quote:

"Just in case there's any confusion, I mean "worthless" in the context
of resale value. I'm sure your CD collection (in musical terms) will be
worth just as much to you in the future as it is now - as long as
you have stashed away a few spare CD players to play them on!"

Oh, right. Yes, if you bought your CD collection as an investment, I
guess that was a bad decision :-)

On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:34:12 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Malcolm Lee
wrote:
On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:57:28 +0100, UnsteadyKen wrote:


As to CDs - and this brings things back to the original post - I can see
most people in the near future not only downloading their music from the
net but also storing it on devices like the Brennan. When the cost of
such devices goes down to circa £100, expect loads of people to transfer
their CDs to it and ditch the CDs.

Which may be fine until the HD dies or it goes wrong. At which point they
may wish they'd kept the CDs somewhere about the house. :-)

Simple solution to that - multiple copies. Ripped my CDs to hard disc
a few years ago. I automatically back up all my files to another
machine periodically and have another copy on a 500G USB disc. It is
no problem, or significant cost to make further copies if necessary.
I've still got the original CDs as well.

Result - loads of S/H CDs on the market which no-one wants to buy.
Value of said CDs - zilch.

Is so, I'm looking forwards to it. There are still many CDs I'd be happy to
take off the hands of people who don't want paying for them. 8-]

The second hand value already seems to be low. I've been buying a few
that I wouldn't pay full price for but are worth £3 to me.

Bill

On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:16:01 +0100, Rob wrote:

Once the CD is "old
technology" it will acquire the same sort of fetishistic appeal that the LP
does now.


I doubt it, at least on the same scale. You're going to have to shift
your thinking at some point :-)

Tape didn't. Even esoteric forms like 8-track or elcaset.

On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:43:00 +0100, Rob wrote:

You've obviously not had the opportunity to compare it to the tape it came
from. Different, yes. Perhaps you prefer the distortion it adds.

Is one way of describing it - still sounds good, preferably good, to a
number of people.

Be careful here. When you dig into vinyl preference you often find
it's more about different mastering choices on compression than about
any intrinsic quality of the medium.

On 06/07/2010 16:43, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In , Rob
wrote:
On 05/07/2010 20:55, David Looser wrote:
"Malcolm wrote in message

5) I am not lumbered with a collection of CDs that will be worthless
in a few years time when most/all digital music will come via the
net.

Why on earth should the fact that most music in the future will
(probably) be bought via the net make existing CD collections
worthless?



Substitutes are becoming increasingly sophisticated - the sound quality,
convenience, the extras, and the methods of replay.

You'd have to give some examples so I can know what you mean here.


Not sure which words you'd like me to explain. As an example, a
'substitute' is an iTunes track. 'Sound quality' is increased bitrates.

And I would add cost, which for a number of people is I suspect nothing.

Which may well be why the big companies would prefer us all to switch to
using things like blu ray and internet devices they can control. 8-]


Yep, but I suspect the damage is more or less done. Just about the
entire back catalogue of digital music is out there somewhere i'd have
thought.

All of which renders the 'original' CD less valuable - and it was always
an impersonal bit of poorly packaged plastic with illegible labels in
the first place. Exceptions will exist, but in general CDs will be
landfill in 20 years.

Will be interesting for far-future archeologists to find the 'vinyl layers'
in landfill just under the 'cd layers'. I wonder how many LPs are already
there?...

:-)

Of course.

Probably won't matter to me as I'll also likely as not be
'landfill' myself by then as well! :-)


Think of the children :-)

The worst problem with LP wasn't the packaging. It was the ease with which
it could be audibly poorly made and audibly damaged by the owner. But then
I don't buy books for their covers...


Yes, of course I have to accept it's a fragile medium. But very few on
this NG ever seem to accept the popularity of LPs a good few decades
after they stopped making them in any numbers. And if they accept it,
there doesn't seem to be any serious attempt to explain it, limitations
(true and deep) notwithstanding.

Rob