DIGITAL vs. PHYSICAL music?

[ForeverProg]

I have been a fan of owning factory cd's since the beginning but is it time to let sites like Bandcamp or Cd Baby (who now offer lossless downloads) take over? Should labels only make their releases available this way? It makes sense financially for labels to do this on many levels. The music sounds the same (lossless) and Bandcamp offers full digital booklet options now, pressing costs gone, shipping costs on both ends gone. I personally do not trust or agree with illegal downloading morally AND you truly do not know the source of the music to boot. There's nothing like holding a cd with the artwork on it, cracking open the booklet for lyrics, liner notes etc.. (and I think we are all guilty of smelling the pages of the ink pressing, especially new cd's). Bottom line, I think it's inevitable although the novelty's nowhere as close. I'm pretty sure Lion Music is all digital now but only offer mp3's. Is their a point to signing with a label anymore unless they offer promotion? I miss the old days Anyone want to weigh in on this?

 

[Mullmuzzler]

The only issue I have with digital sales is that a lot of digital retailers sell the product at the same price as the cost of the cd. But I love physical cds, and that's why is that in the rarest case I buy digital.

 

[DeepestPurple]

If something's available digitally, I use the source artists/labels are likely to get a bigger cut from (Bandcamp or something before checking iTunes/Amazon).
If it's only available physically, then I buy the CD.
I miss having more physical media, as I grew up working in record shops & scouring cassette racks, but as time passes, I find storing or moving a computer/HD around is more practical & cheaper than dealing w/ crates of records.

Nowadays, I'm just grateful there are so many ways to properly acquire music (not a believer in illegal downloading but don't want to divert the topic). I once spent 6 hours total on a bus to find a CD, and now it's available in seconds through iTunes, although that long expedition probably made me far more appreciative of the purchase, and the physical heft of the CD reminded me of that.

Availability on the internet has still improved things, IMO. Finding an album in a store was often more rewarding than a few extra mouse clicks, but I'd rather have the selection of places like the Laser's Edge than spend half a day not even knowing if I'll find the music I'm looking for; there are better adventures to take, that's a lot of hours & I'm not getting any younger. (Get off my lawn, etc.)

 

[ForeverProg]

The only issue I have with digital sales is that a lot of digital retailers sell the product at the same price as the cost of the cd. But I love physical cds, and that's why is that in the rarest case I buy digital.

Agreed 100%, especially the fact there is little to no overhead on digital. Another thing, having the physical cd serves as a purpose as protection, in other words, when I buy a cd I usually make a copy to play and put the original cd in my collection OR on occasion will buy 2 copies so I always have a mint cd being an avid collector.

 

[Leyth Mulla]

While I admit that the storage of a massive collection (and growing) of CDs is a never-ending problem, I still prefer the physical medium. For starters, you have something in your hand as you listen (it's hard to look lovingly at MP3 files). More importantly, hard drives have a nasty habit of crashing...

 

[ForeverProg]

While I admit that the storage of a massive collection (and growing) of CDs is a never-ending problem, I still prefer the physical medium. For starters, you have something in your hand as you listen (it's hard to look lovingly at MP3 files). More importantly, hard drives have a nasty habit of crashing...

**Hard drives do crash yes but even when I buy digital I back them up on cd's. I'm in agreement that factory cd's are the choice but I also feel will eventually be obsolete sooner than later. A lot of bands are self releasing digitally nowadays, some giving away full albums for free in hopes to get exposure quickly. Bands make next to nothing on albums, it's the gigs and other merch they make little profit on. Bottom line, do it for the love, not to feed your family...those days are over unless you're Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift.

 

[Leyth Mulla]

**Hard drives do crash yes but even when I buy digital I back them up on cd's. I'm in agreement that factory cd's are the choice but I also feel will eventually be obsolete sooner than later. A lot of bands are self releasing digitally nowadays, some giving away full albums for free in hopes to get exposure quickly. Bands make next to nothing on albums, it's the gigs and other merch they make little profit on. Bottom line, do it for the love, not to feed your family...those days are over unless you're Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift.

I hear you on the inevitable obsolescence of CD's. When that happens, I'll buy lossless downloads if they are available. If that limits the amount of new music available for me to explore, I can always revisit albums I have not had more than one chance to spin (at least 1,000 of those on the shelves behind me).

Cheers

 

[DeepestPurple]

Also worth mentioning: the rush of excitement we all get when a white CD-sized box from here shows up in our mail.

 

[ForeverProg]

Also worth mentioning: the rush of excitement we all get when a white CD-sized box from here shows up in our mail.

*** Oh hell yes! And the anticipation of the arrival. Now I'm getting sad. I had to put on RUSH "Hemispheres" on CD to cheer me back up!

 

[lasercd]

Tom:

So far you are behaving so I will keep you on a short leash and let you participate on the forum as long as you play nice...

You raised an interesting point that is a frequent topic that comes up, particularly on the audiophile forums. I can share my personal experiences with downloading vs. physical. As most of you know I'm one of the crazy audiophiles. I built a dedicated listening room and I spend a lot of time and energy squeezing as much information and musicality out of my audio system. I few years ago I decided to get on board with hi-resolution downloads. To that end I bought a stand alone unit from Bryston which I fed into my DAC. About four months ago I sold it and switched to a Mac Mini based system. All for the purpose of hearing music in 24/96 or 24/192...or even now in DSD.

Here is where I'm at with it. The sound is fabulous - I love it - but there is a steep downside. I keep piling up more and more music on my server but I find the entire experience so much less involving than listening to physical product. Almost to the point that I get bored. Having (at this point only) hundreds of albums at my fingertips tends to give me a short attention span. I jump from album to album - track to track.

Remember what it was like when we moved from vinyl to CD? The tactile experience of moving to the smaller size artwork, lyrics, and liner notes lessened the experience to some degree. Now imagine what its like when the artwork is now a 200x200 jpeg on your iPad, the lyrics are probably non-existent or you have to look them up on a website.

Sonically there is no doubt that from a listening experience a downloaded lossless file will actually sound better than what you get from a CD. But the overall experience is diminished.

My personal musical journey has taken me back to vinyl. I think it sounds best. Plain and simple. That is followed by downloadable DSD and 24/192 files. Standard Redbook can still sound outstanding but in terms of sonics it typically comes in last. (Lossy files like mp3s have no place in my world.)

From the overall experience, for me, its still vinyl followed by CDs (or SACDs), and then downloadable files.

I also understand that the average consumer may follow a different muse. That's why I decided to make our releases available on Bandcamp. You can purchase full resolution downloads if you prefer. I hope to eventually be able to ofer hi-resolution downloads as well. Most of our artists record (and are mastered) in 24 bit.

I think there are a lot of music fans that agree with me and I don't expect vinyl or CDs to disappear in the immediate future - at least not for progressive music. I can't speak about what is going on in the pop world.

 

[ForeverProg]

Thank you Ken! I think the average listener is ok with mere mp3's but when it comes to progressive music so much is lost in the compression, as you know, hence why lossless files should be the choice for such involved complex music as prog. I remember when i-tunes was a 128 bitrate MPEG-4 file, that is absolute blasphemy to the original recording. If you have to play mp3's, use a "LAME" encoding program to convert your lossless files at a 320 bit. Anything less is basically rendering a great production useless.