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Future of CD; A worthless pile of plastic, or ... ?

formbypc said:
Will CD owners be left with a worthless pile of plastic sometime soon, or not?
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As with any collector market in time the Garrard 301s and LS3/5As emerge from the mountains of Amstrad all-in-one systems. Many of the deleted and long out of print better masterings are increasing in value significantly. I am enjoying the CD market hugely at present, it reminds me very much of the second-hand vinyl market in the 1980s. A period where I was buying as others were selling. I'm now collecting the cream of early CDs; Japanese VDJs, VDPs, 32DPs, 'targets' etc etc. Superb sounding discs that are still findable without having to pay the crazy money at this stage, but are moving upwards all the time. Another nice pile landed from Taiwan this morning, superb sounding things.

mercalia said:
Any idea what to do with the plastic library cases anyone? do they have a resale value?
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Let me know if you have any of the early 'smooth case' design, i.e. they don't have the ridged/serrated edge to the top and bottom and are rather heavier. I'll happily buy them as I've got a fair few quite valuable early CDs that have been recased for whatever reasons.
 
Tony L said:
As with any collector market in time the Garrard 301s and LS3/55As emerge from the mountains of Amstrad all-in-one systems. Many of the deleted and long out of print better masterings are increasing in value significantly. I am enjoying the CD market hugely at present, it reminds me very much of the second-hand vinyl market in the 1980s. A perdiod where I was buying as others were selling. I'm now collecting the cream of early CDs; Japanese VDJs, VDPs, 32DPs, 'targets' etc etc. Superb sounding discs that are still findable without having to pay the crazy money at this stage, but are moving upwards all the time. Another nice pile landed from Taiwan this morning, superb sounding things.
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You are certainly on the right track -regards purchasing. I have always said " Thank heavens for the consumer mentality. . It creates demands and then finally a self imposed glut , that causes products to start spilling and falling off the marketing tables at the real price , that people only wanted to pay- in the first place." :)
 
Now who would've thought, a generation ago, that the fragile, commodious and sub-standard LP, then considered defunct against the perfection of CD, would rise like a phoenix and bring with it a resurgence of record-playing equipment?

Maybe the same for CD some two decades on? The odds are against it, but no less than those were for vinyl, surely.
 
I was in a HMV earlier today. 40 & 50% off Beatles remasters. Quite a few in the 2 for €12 which I would normally have bought, but thought "sure I'll get them on Tidal".

I still like and listen to CDs and it's a great time to purchase, but my CD purchases are either job lots or very carefully chosen.

SJB
 
Mike Reed said:
Maybe the same for CD some two decades on? The odds are against it, but no less than those were for vinyl, surely.
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I'd not be surprised at all, in fact I'm buying the good stuff now as I'm pretty certain the good masterings will only increase in value as the major record labels fail and poor quality streaming of unknown quality masters becomes the norm. One only needs to look at the market proliferation of truly shit quality EU loophole pirate "public domain" content to see the direction of travel for music over 50 years old (as much of my favourite jazz and classical is) and streaming services such as Spotify are riddled with this junk. All it will take is for the majors who are currently custodians of our music history to fail and a lot of it will rapidly become unobtainable in any real quality sense. There will always be a niche market for audiophile quality, and that is what we serious CD collectors are currently stockpiling!

PS I do buy CD collections as well as records for the pfm shop!
 
Folkman said:
My CDs are priceless.

I bought them for the music , not as an investment.

Many also evoke fond memories of people and places from the past , can you get that from a file on a hard drive .
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I am sympathetic to that POV; I bought the music I have and enjoy for the pleasure it afforded me at the time, and still do; I never expected a financial return on it, ever.

Multiple competing sources now, so costs have dropped, and access is insanely wide. Fine; yet obviously it doesn't actually devalue the enjoyment I get from the music I have already bought/will continue to buy/support in any way.

The wider discussion to be had remains - how do musicians (new as well as the old) still make a living and make worthwhile product available - when the whole edifice appears prey to the kind of changes analogous to those seen in, say, TV over the last 15 years - move from 4 to 400 channels, increased choice and access, hurrah - except the corollary appears to be that >99% of it has to be utter shit simply to fill the available bandwidth...

PS TonyL's point about good mastering fits in here, too.
 
I'm holding onto mine, Amazon cd's for 1p, i'm buying more than ever.

Long live Zoverstocks :)
 
Tony L said:
There will always be a niche market for audiophile quality, and that is what we serious CD collectors are currently stockpiling!
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Is there a resource you could point a relative newcomer as guide to choosing / buying audiophile quality cd's?
 
No-one seems to have mentioned that it would be illegal to keep the rips if you sell the CDs! In effect, getting the music twice (or more) while paying once. And if you sell an i-pod you are supposed to wipe it first. Apart from the value as back-ups, and booklet notes, etc. Besides, in my system the CDs sound better than the rips; better DAC I think.
 
I have maybe 1500 CDs and 2000 LPs, and about 12 singles. I've been a voracious consumer of music for over forty years and have never sold anything, these are the punctuation marks of my life and every one has meaning. However 50% of my listening is now on Tidal, as I am always looking for new musical experiences, not wallowing in the past. I also discovered that a ripped CD played via a PC was better that my £4k CD player many years ago, and sold it before anyone else made this discovery! I am now in the daft position that my analogue music playback system is worth many thousands of pounds, and sounds amazing, and my digital playback system costs less than a tenmth of that, and sounds different, but really no worse, and having been a faithful disciple of the religion of source first, now have speakers that are over twenty times as expensive as my source... but, I still have my physical media, as computer based music needs a backup...
 
omegatt said:
Is there a resource you could point a relative newcomer as guide to choosing / buying audiophile quality cd's?
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Steve Hoffman's site (www.stevehoffman.tv) is as good a place than any, though there are a lot of folk wising up to it here on pfm too. If anything Steve Hoffman's site has too much info, e.g. if you are looking to research something like Steely Dan's Aja you may be gone a month or more!
 
JemHayward said:
......... looking for new musical experiences, not wallowing in the past.
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I just love wallowing in the past, Jem. Good music on quality pressings that I enjoyed 30 or 40 years ago still find their way onto my record player. Y'know what? They sound even better than before and are enjoyed more too.
 
Mike Reed said:
I just love wallowing in the past, Jem. Good music on quality pressings that I enjoyed 30 or 40 years ago still find their way onto my record player. Y'know what? They sound even better than before and are enjoyed more too.
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yes listening again to music not heard for 10+ years and realise that it was better than you thought!
 
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