BestBuy to stop selling CDs... Target may be next

[watchnerd]

Yup, ladder DACs with tube output stages are already on their way to being the next hot, retro items.

I thought reel to reel was the next thing?

I'll admit, I've considered it, but $450 per album makes $35 'audiophile' vinyl look cheap...

 

[watchnerd]

• When CDs were first introduced in the early 80s, they were hellishly expensive.
The MSRP of a disc averaged around $25, which when accounting for inflation, is more than $50 today.

Love vinyl, but why is it so expensive? Shouldn’t prices be coming DOWN?

Some's up.

If one believes Discogs, much of the vinyl I've purchased in the last 7 year has gone up in value. Caveat: I pretty much only buy limited edition numbered runs.

As an extreme example, I bought a large number of limited edition Blue Note Japan 180g mono re-issues for $35-50 each about 6-7 years ago. They're now going for $180-$350.

 

[RayDunzl]

CD Sales to me this year:

New:
Viper's Drag Henry Butler/Steven Bernstein And The Hot 9
KAZUMI WATANABE -OLIVE'S STEP - JAPAN HQCD E25
Screaming Headless Torsos-Live!!

Used:
SEX MOB Cultural Capital (CD) Rex Records

I've been slow...

Obviously, I spent more than that on other stuff...

---

Streaming:

I can do it.

None "paid".

Although, if radio is streaming, I donated my clunker to the local Classical station to get it out of the driveway.

 

[NorthSky]

There is something more tangible about about analog vinyl, je ne sais pas quoi exactement, c'est juste comme ça.

It is very spooky, to see vinyls @ my local Wal-Mart and London Drugs stores. ...Like . . . memory magic.

Maybe next is Best Buy?

 

[RayDunzl]

Maybe next is Best Buy?

My semi-local Best Buy claims 21 vinyl titles ready to be picked from the shelves, or 74,720 (maybe) that can be ordered and shipped.

 

[watchnerd]

There is something more tangible about about analog vinyl, je ne sais pas quoi exactement, c'est juste comme ça.

It is very spooky, to see vinyls @ my local Wal-Mart and London Drugs stores. ...Like . . . memory magic.

Maybe next is Best Buy?

Turntables, and vinyl, are like pets. They're slightly unpredictable, finnicky, require a lot of care and feeding, and force you to work within their limitations.

I think of that branch of audio akin to mechanical watches and manually shifted vehicles.

 

[watchnerd]

For those of you who don't have a paid streaming service, do you listen to internet radio?

I'm listening to my local listener supported jazz station, KCSM, via 64kps AAC right now....

 

[DonH56]

I'm curious as to why -- there are many solutions these days that can stream hi-rez at relatively modest prices. Heck, you can make a Raspberry Pi DIY box for ~$100 that will do it.

Just haven't gotten around to it and mostly listen to my own CD rips from my NAS. Price is not the issue; I have considered streamers from Salk and others but had decided to try a Raspberry Pi implementation since I want to play with it. But, last week I put in ~77 hours, and 14 hours today, so the real problem is time. I keep thinking and hoping things will slow down... Life and Work have been challenging lately and for the past few years.

 

[NorthSky]

Life and work is good, it leads to good and happy retirement.

 

[Jimster480]

For those of you who don't have a paid streaming service, do you listen to internet radio?

I'm listening to my local listener supported jazz station, KCSM, via 64kps AAC right now....

That actually doesn't sound so bad....

 

[watchnerd]

That actually doesn't sound so bad....

It's not, and their programming is excellent, so it's a great source of new music discovery, too.

 

[restorer-john]

...As somebody who lived through the "golden age" of CDs, I say good riddance to the format of inconvenient, unreliable and finicky media and players...

Your experience is vastly different to mine. I have perhaps 5000-6000 CDs and maybe a hundred or so different players of all vintages. The media is neither 'finicky' or 'unreliable' and CD players themselves, of all brands, have proven to be more reliable in the long term than any other music playback format I can think of.

Out of interest, what format do you think will outlast the veritable compact disc?

 

[Palladium]

Your experience is vastly different to mine. I have perhaps 5000-6000 CDs and maybe a hundred or so different players of all vintages. The media is neither 'finicky' or 'unreliable' and CD players themselves, of all brands, have proven to be more reliable in the long term than any other music playback format I can think of.

Out of interest, what format do you think will outlast the veritable compact disc?

I'm talking more that just Redbook CDs, and I'm also talking about average consumer grade drives and recordable media in the 90s to early 00s. There are good reasons why flash drives got so popular even before they reach a GB/$ parity versus optical.

And of course the Internet will outlast optical, obviously.

Ask any average city apartment dweller and I'm sure they will balk at the thought of storing 5000 CDs in their houses, let alone multiple players.

 

[Wombat]

I find I have to insert a flash drive to find out what is on it. I guess there is enough space on some to use a permanent marker to write an indexing code(usually rubs off on plastic housings) and list in a database - too clumsy for me.

 

[FrantzM]

I thought reel to reel was the next thing?

I'll admit, I've considered it, but $450 per album makes $35 'audiophile' vinyl look cheap...

If you cannot hear the utter superiority of reel to reel , it is because your system is not resolving enough

I admit being lost when it comes to some of the business strategies out there. It should be noted however that most often than not , a company would be really losing money but is allowing its owners and founders, a more than wealthy life or/and lifestyle. That is one of the often overlooked realities of business and companies: The net results from the outsider POV is that of a"losing" companies accumulating losses. From the point of views of some owners and sidestepping the serious ethical questions, they are living off the company , earning a serious salary, having their houses, cars, loans and travels paid by the investors and even, perhaps saving serious money for when the well runs dry or the business model reveals itself to be unsustainable. It could be interesting to have an idea of what the compensations of the people running those companies are. That would include those CEO being paid $1 a year but whose cars (plural) , houses (plural), apartments (plural), vacations homes (plural), private jets.... lives in totality is being taken care by their money-losing companies as part of their work contracts...
OTOH there are companies with Well mapped-out plans to grow their customer base then to become profitable. Amazon did just that and it looks they are here to stay and dominate in ways that are unfathomable. I don't know where Spotify fits.

To be back on-topic. Physical media are a thing of the past. Some of us cling to our past and to the physical media that defined it. They are the minority and are being left behind. Of course there will be suppliers to serve that minority , the market in general is dying with those last and aging (dying?) customers ....

 

[Dimitri]

This is about a year old...I could't find how things have changed in the last year....
Titled " In Shift to Streaming, Music Business Has Lost Billions"
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/...in-steady-but-lucrative-cd-sales-decline.html

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

If you cannot hear the utter superiority of reel to reel , it is because your system is not resolving enough

I admit being lost when it comes to some of the business strategies out there. It should be noted however that most often than not , a company would be really losing money but is allowing its owners and founders, a more than wealthy life or/and lifestyle. That is one of the often overlooked realities of business and companies: The net results from the outsider POV is that of a"losing" companies accumulating losses. From the point of views of some owners and sidestepping the serious ethical questions, they are living off the company , earning a serious salary, having their houses, cars, loans and travels paid by the investors and even, perhaps saving serious money for when the well runs dry or the business model reveals itself to be unsustainable. It could be interesting to have an idea of what the compensations of the people running those companies are. That would include those CEO being paid $1 a year but whose cars (plural) , houses (plural), apartments (plural), vacations homes (plural), private jets.... lives in totality is being taken care by their money-losing companies as part of their work contracts...
OTOH there are companies with Well mapped-out plans to grow their customer base then to become profitable. Amazon did just that and it looks they are here to stay and dominate in ways that are unfathomable. I don't know where Spotify fits.

To be back on-topic. Physical media are a thing of the past. Some of us cling to our past and to the physical media that defined it. They are the minority and are being left behind. Of course there will be suppliers to serve that minority , the market in general is dying with those last and aging (dying?) customers ....

Agreed, apparent business "losses" are tricky things. I remember that back in the 80's a broker and I were discussing Comcast, the then small, later huge cable and ISP company, now also owners of NBC, etc. At the time, there were consistently huge losses on their accountant's P&L statement, red ink as far as the eye could see for years. A closer look revealed that subscribership was growing strongly in the early stages of the cable TV paradigm and cash flow was quite positive, once amortization of their investment in building the network was factored out.

Eventually, they also became hugely profitable on the paper P&L. Stock investors and lenders back then also could clearly see the eventual paper profits and were rewarded handsomely. But, of course, it does not always work out.

 

[watchnerd]

This is about a year old...I could't find how things have changed in the last year....
Titled " In Shift to Streaming, Music Business Has Lost Billions"
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/...in-steady-but-lucrative-cd-sales-decline.html

Wow, CD sales down to $1.5 billion....that's less revenue than the business unit of the mega corp I work for. I didn't know it has down that far these days.

 

[Palladium]

This is about a year old...I could't find how things have changed in the last year....
Titled " In Shift to Streaming, Music Business Has Lost Billions"
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/...in-steady-but-lucrative-cd-sales-decline.html

What you see is the long slow death of big media, now that everybody has so many avenues to put content on the Internet for free and there is only so much eyeball time available.

There is so much unique quality indie content on Youtube alone, sure its buried under a ton of garbage, but its there. I already enjoy watching those so much that I have very little interest left for mainstream TV/Hollywood releases, be it streaming or physical.

 

[davidB]

Wow. Didn't even know Best Buy was still in business. Thought they disappeared with Circuit City.