CD Player failed.

[jsrtheta]

I've written elsewhere on the subjects raised here, but, if anyone is still listening/reading, here's my $.02:

Streaming music is killing new music. Bands and solo artists cannot come close to making a living via streaming unless they are megastars already. Artists used to tour to support the CD they released. Now they must tour to make the rent, because very few people will buy the CD. And why should they? They get it virtually for free via streaming. And they got rid of their CD players anyway.

And the amount of new music shrinks, because the artists are not getting paid anything worth the effort. Can you take a year hitting tiny clubs all across the country for shit pay? Because you will never make via streaming. It's a classic con, and everyone sings its virtues, because it's convenient and, well, we aren't the artists are we? Who cares what they get paid?

So everyone pays about fifteen bucks or so a month to rent access to the music they want. And they can cut your feed whenever they want, because you don't own that music.

I buy CDs because a reasonable portion of the price goes to the artist. Not Spotify. The artists.

Without whom we would have no new music.

 

[mkawa]

oh please, it's not like artists were making big bucks off of cd sales. major label artists would make pennies per per cd, and you sell a lot fewer CDs than you get plays on streaming services (although we should seriously be going after spotify for the 0.0001$ they pay per stream. tidal and amzn are much better by a large factor afaik)

small upcoming artists have always had to tour for money, and even then you make all your money, if any, off merch. i always attempt to support my favorite artists live with merch purchases, whether they're self-pressed LPs, posters, clothing, whatever i'll buy it. i don't even own a record player.

anyway, if you want to support musicians with cd purchases, at least buy it directly from the artist, and not the label.

 

[jsrtheta]

oh please, it's not like artists were making big bucks off of cd sales. major label artists would make pennies per per cd, and you sell a lot fewer CDs than you get plays on streaming services (although we should seriously be going after spotify for the 0.0001$ they pay per stream. tidal and amzn are much better by a large factor afaik)

small upcoming artists have always had to tour for money, and even then you make all your money, if any, off merch. i always attempt to support my favorite artists live with merch purchases, whether they're self-pressed LPs, posters, clothing, whatever i'll buy it. i don't even own a record player.

anyway, if you want to support musicians with cd purchases, at least buy it directly from the artist, and not the label.

Not sure what you really know about how artists were compensated when CDs ruled, but the artists made a heck of a lot more than "pennies".

OTOH, I have a friend who makes five quid when his tunes are downloaded 10,000 times. Golly, he might even be able afford a pint! When The Smashing Pumpkins got signed, Billy Corgan made a hell of a lot more than "pennies" for his signature on the dotted line. And a hell of a lot more than "pennies" for every CD he moved.

 

[mkawa]

here's a random (but top google result and about what i remember from the 90s and early 2000s) result on artist royalties for cd sales https://bandzoogle.com/blog/record-sales-where-does-the-money-go

.5 per cd sounds about right. split that between your manager, publicist, producer, bandmates, etc. and you're down to pennies. again, if i buy a cd, i'm going to buy it directly from the artist, and i see live music as often as i can.

 

[Sal1950]

I've written elsewhere on the subjects raised here, but, if anyone is still listening/reading, here's my $.02:

I understand what your saying but I have a somewhat different view on the situation.
You know the other 99% of the world gets up every day, goes to work for a minimum of 8 hours five days a week.
And that's it, they get paid for that amount of time invested and no more. They do not get paid over and over for the rest of their lifes for that same work.
And for the vast majority of them, none will ever become rich off that income and will be lucky to have a pension or government controlled retirement plan.

So in the big picture of it all, I find it hard to feel bad about a musician having to play a gig at least a few times a week to earn a living. And the fact that not as many as before will become super rich from doing so is just like life for the rest of us.
YMMV

 

[jsrtheta]

here's a random (but top google result and about what i remember from the 90s and early 2000s) result on artist royalties for cd sales https://bandzoogle.com/blog/record-sales-where-does-the-money-go

.5 per cd sounds about right. split that between your manager, publicist, producer, bandmates, etc. and you're down to pennies. again, if i buy a cd, i'm going to buy it directly from the artist, and i see live music as often as i can.

Okay. So artists were making $.50 per CD, say.

One of the higher paying streaming services is Amazon. According to Forbes ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyo...nge-the-way-they-pay-artists/?sh=78c9a71872f6 ), an artist can expect to earn $5,000 for one song streamed one million times. That comes to $.005 per play. Lets say there are 12 songs on an album. Let's go further and say an artist is really lucky, and all 12 songs get played a million times.

The take? $.06 per album play. Versus, according to your source, $.50 per CD.

Tell me again how artists are doing just fine with streaming. Then pull the other one, 'cause that's where the bells are.

Tell me again how artists are doing about the same as with CD

 

[JSmith]

Sony CDP-291

https://www.ebay.com/p/1800605008

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-CDP-291-Single-Compact-Player/dp/B00O952SVG

You could also look at buying broken ones for parts, assuming it's not the loader/laser/reader.



JSmith

 

[jsrtheta]

I understand what your saying but I have a somewhat different view on the situation.
You know the other 99% of the world gets up every day, goes to work for a minimum of 8 hours five days a week.
And that's it, they get paid for that amount of time invested and no more. They do not get paid over and over for the rest of their lifes for that same work.
And for the vast majority of them, none will ever become rich off that income and will be lucky to have a pension or government controlled retirement plan.

So in the big picture of it all, I find it hard to feel bad about a musician having to play a gig at least a few times a week to earn a living. And the fact that not as many as before will become super rich from doing so is just like life for the rest of us.
YMMV

You make it sound like they roll out of bed around four and toddle across town 3-4 days a week to do a gig.

It's not like that. More like you have to drive to three different cities per week, and stay at a different hotel (which you have to pay for every night, while you're also paying the rent on your actual permanent home) in each town, and pay for gas, and food (at fast food joints, no cooking), and gas, and maintenance on your vehicle.

And the money you make from the actual gigs? What, you expect to get paid for that? Kid, bands I can get. Here's a hundred bucks, that should cover you and your crew and your bandmates. Now get out there and play!

Oh, and do you think the clubs take out for your Social Security? Just wait until Social Security tells you what you're going to get now that you're retiring, you know, from the few crap jobs you had that did pay Social Security? Yay! You might get $300 a month. That's living, baby!

 

[mkawa]

Okay. So artists were making $.50 per CD, say.

One of the higher paying streaming services is Amazon. According to Forbes ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyo...nge-the-way-they-pay-artists/?sh=78c9a71872f6 ), an artist can expect to earn $5,000 for one song streamed one million times. That comes to $.005 per play. Lets say there are 12 songs on an album. Let's go further and say an artist is really lucky, and all 12 songs get played a million times.

The take? $.06 per album play. Versus, according to your source, $.50 per CD.

Tell me again how artists are doing just fine with streaming. Then pull the other one, 'cause that's where the bells are.

Tell me again how artists are doing about the same as with CD

i never said artists were making money off streaming. i specifically highlighted how they make fractions of fractions off a cent from a play on spotify.

i also never said they're just as well or not well as when CDs were the predominant medium. the vast vast majority to the 99th percentile of artists have literally never made net money under any model involving a label or other ip aggregator. i did specifically point out that i buy merch and media _directly from artists_ and see live music, because under any model, that's the only means that that 99th (i'll go even further and say 9-9s percentile) has ever made money from their art, period.

but, don't fool yourself into thinking that the days of the CD were somehow the peak of artists making money. they were poor then and are poor now. the only winners in the IP business are a few very lucky IP owners and their aggregators.

 

[Sal1950]

And the money you make from the actual gigs? What, you expect to get paid for that? Kid, bands I can get. Here's a hundred bucks, that should cover you and your crew and your bandmates. Now get out there and play!

Yea I'm sure it's tuff to get started, but you do realize there's a million bands out there trying to get started and their feet in the door. But the ones that are really good and have talent are noticed, are in demand at clubs and get paid a reasonable amount, and at some point might even take off and get rich.
As a young man I worked my balls off for peanut wages at dirty, nasty, smelly, unhealthy jobs just trying to pay the rent. It took many years for me to become proficient enough the I was able to make a livable wage. I never got wealthy or even close to it, I was just another Joe Sixpack scrambling to make my way in the world like millions of others.
You better be pretty damn special to make a big living doing something you really love like playing music.

 

[JSmith]

So any dvd player with coax out to your dac will sound the same?

If the player is well designed and doesn't introduce noise causing error to the signal and nor does the external DAC create jitter during conversion to analogue, then yes.

Not sure how this thread about a busted CD player has turned into this discussion? Just a thought...



JSmith

 

[Robin L]

Speaking from a little experience, very few artists make money off of recordings. The record/CD companies of old managed to figure out how to produce records and write contracts in such a way as to not give anything to performers until the costs of production were covered by sales. So, in most cases, performers got minimal remuneration. I recall one group that produced 2 successful CDs for a major label. But a successful recording of obscure medieval music doesn't sell in the millions, it will sell in the lower thousands. Covering production costs left that group with nearly nothing. I recorded mostly for Classical musicians, they all seemed to regard their recordings as good for publicity and promotion but didn't expect to make money from their recordings.

Some musicians know how to make money, know how to get a contract written that works for them. Steve Miller is an excellent example. Some didn't know that they were being screwed royally until it was much too late. Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe would be an example of that. One group I recorded held the rights to their recordings, sold the CDs either at concerts or via mail order and online. This was very early for online sales. They made money by working on all the details of financial arrangements. They found that by going through distributors, they wouldn't make nearly as much money. Most musicians don't.

There's a reason they call it the "Music Industry". The companies exist to make a profit. Supporting musicians was always a secondary consideration. If a musician wants to make money from "The Music Industry", they have to put up a fight.

 

[mkawa]

yah seriously, any cd reading device that outputs spdif will sound exactly the same unless something is really broken somewhere. i figured that would have been covered by post 3.

 

[cistercian]

yah seriously, any cd reading device that outputs spdif will sound exactly the same unless something is really broken somewhere. i figured that would have been covered by post 3.

My old sony was analog out only. I am still surprised how much better the RME ADI FS V2 sounds. I never owned a premium CD player.
Or a newer one until I bought the TASCAM. If it fails, any pedestrian transport will work....But it is nice having a remote.

 

[threni]

Not sure what you really know about how artists were compensated when CDs ruled, but the artists made a heck of a lot more than "pennies".

OTOH, I have a friend who makes five quid when his tunes are downloaded 10,000 times. Golly, he might even be able afford a pint! When The Smashing Pumpkins got signed, Billy Corgan made a hell of a lot more than "pennies" for his signature on the dotted line. And a hell of a lot more than "pennies" for every CD he moved.

Not sure it makes sense to compare "a friend" with Smashing Pumpkins though. There are a few big bands...then there is everyone else. If the "Music business" senses you look good and can be marketed and make commercially acceptable music you might get an advance and hype etc and possibly they may even make their money back. There are loads and loads of great bands/projects/people who'll never make it big because their music is too niche/different. I think the days of a good band spending a month in the studio every 2 or 3 years with a tour to support the resulting album's launch and then living it up on the royalties for the next 50 years is over, and it's more of a job like the rest of us; you get paid for the work you do on any given day and if you stop working you stop getting paid. The only reason it worked before was the fact that you could control the ability of people to copy the music; it was a pain; copies didn't sound as good; you had to know someone with a copy etc. Some artists used to blame piracy for them not making enough money; I never bought that argument; I never met anyone who copied music who didn't also buy loads of music. Now they're blaming streaming. CDs are certainly on the way out - looks like even vinyl will be outselling them soon.

 

[jsrtheta]

My old sony was analog out only. I am still surprised how much better the RME ADI FS V2 sounds. I never owned a premium CD player.
Or a newer one until I bought the TASCAM. If it fails, any pedestrian transport will work....But it is nice having a remote.

I just bought a Tascam CD200 on ebay, and it works a charm as a transport for me as well.

 

[auronthas]

Bought an used Sony CDP 997 (1992) from Japan two months ago, it works like charm with Sony DSP technologies in the 90s .

Will use CDP997 as CD transport, waiting for SPDIF splitter to digital out to Topping D90 DAC.

p/s: I switched from CD player to network media player since 2005 (Slim Device Squeezebox, SONOS Connect and now Auralic Aries Mini). I am now engaging with CD player again, blast from the past.

 

[Jim T]

I lost my 2 year old Denon 300 slot loader today as one channel dropped out. 2 years is all I get. So I replaced it with one of my Sony DVPNS 755's from 2003. I am even looking at all of the $1k to $3K b stock players offered for sale after they are repaired under warranty. Pretty sad QC when the cheapest parts are being used.

 

[jsrtheta]

I just bought a Tascam CD200 on ebay, and it works a charm as a transport for me as well.

Welp, two power outages yesterday and the Tascam stopped working. To be precise, when I hit "play", it begins counting down in reverse from the total running time of the disc. In this case, reversing from 50 something minutes all the way back to 0:00. I presume, I wasn't going to wait. Fortunately I have an old Denon doing the duty now. Think I'll be abstaining from any Tascam purchases in future.

 

[gene_stl]

The key phrase above is to buy old stuff. New electronics just don't seem to have the reliability of the old stuff. I suspect the chips have gotten too narrow in their internal traces and also that lead free solder trashes reliability. I replace a lot of "digital control boards" on scientific gear that is WAY TOO NEW to be failing. To the extent that I am considering taking my overdue retirement because it actually is not much fun constantly doing the above.

Decent CD players are a dime a dozen at Goodwill and similar places. And DVD and BluRay players which are video capable but have audio outs do the job just fine.