Physical Media Sales are Booming

I was especially surprised by this line....
"Physical compact disc (CD) sales grew from $142.7 million to $205.3 million (43.9% increase) during those same periods."
Seems the the old digital disc is alive and kicking.
 
Vinyl is enjoying a comeback because it became hip to buy used records for some of the youngsters but both vinyl and the compact disc are absolute ghosts of what they once were. Expressing the CD sales in millions of dollars instead of millions of units sold and claiming a 43.9% increase in sales is just bad journalism. Well, take a look. Streaming is here to stay and is the KING.








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i think when we look at the last 18 months of purchases, the 800 pound gorilla is COVID and it's causation of driving consumers to optimize their personal time doing more solitary things in the home. which for some means buying more CD's. even though it's share has not grown, the net CD purchase number only rides the COVID tidal wave higher.....

nothing to see here.....move along. no reversal of media buying trends. CD's are dead, they just don't know it.

BTW; CD's can sound great, that's not the issue really, it's just not how we access new music anymore.
 
Mike Lavigne said:
i think when we look at the last 18 months of purchases, the 800 pound gorilla is COVID and it's causation of driving consumers to optimize their personal time doing more solitary things in the home. which for some means buying more CD's. even though it's share has not grown, the net CD purchase number only rides the COVID tidal wave higher.....

nothing to see here.....move along. no reversal of media buying trends. CD's are dead, they just don't know it.

BTW; CD's can sound great, that's not the issue really, it's just not how we access new music anymore.
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Totally agree. CDs are dead. Vinyl managed to resuscitate from the dead and show minuscule growth, but whether that’s sustainable remains to be seen.

Streaming is IT. No surprise there.
 
I know I’ll catch hell for this but I’m just not a fan of streaming. I’ve subscribed to Tidal and then Qobuz but just couldn’t warm up to it. I mostly listen to Vinyl and my CD’s mastered from the 80’s and early 90’s. They are also ripped to my Aurender N100H.

The great advantage of streaming is the massive library and convenience. The sound to me is fatiguing due the brickwalled, better known as the loudness wars compression. I purchased mostly vinyl but I do on occasion buy CDs that are mastered by some of the well known engineers.

As always YMMV
 
Same, I have not played a CD in a very long time. I purchase records, mainly new and purchased downloads, mainly from HD Tracks. I have never warmed to the idea of streaming. I know some people think having digital music on my sever machine is streaming, but I do not agree. To me streaming is the subscription services (renting your music) and delivered through the Internet. I prefer owning my music.
 
CD sales only accounted for 4% of the music sold in in 2020 with 31 million CD's sold. But hey, I still buy them from Acoustics sounds along with LP's and yes I stream 60% of the time. I guess I can just say, who cares. Just enjoy.
 
Audiophilehi said:
I know I’ll catch hell for this but I’m just not a fan of streaming. I’ve subscribed to Tidal and then Qobuz but just couldn’t warm up to it. I mostly listen to Vinyl and my CD’s mastered from the 80’s and early 90’s. They are also ripped to my Aurender N100H.

The great advantage of streaming is the massive library and convenience. The sound to me is fatiguing due the brickwalled, better known as the loudness wars compression. I purchased mostly vinyl but I do on occasion buy CDs that are mastered by some of the well known engineers.

As always YMMV
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i disagree about streaming, it can sound very fine. but Roon and all it's conveniences do exact their toll on sound quality. if you want to hear how streaming can sound, listen to the Taiko Extreme server with the TAS (Taiko Audio System) which is a little clunky since it does not navigate as slickly and loads one track at a time, but you will get sound quality nearly equal to local files. and with high rez from Quboz it will be better than CD/SACD.

at this point TAS is still in 'beta' and a more elegant version is on the way.

i do enjoy all the robustness of the Roon interface and there are times when i live with the sound quality penalties to enjoy the new music exploring benefits.
 
Mike Lavigne said:
i disagree about streaming, it can sound very fine. but Roon and all it's conveniences do exact their toll on sound quality.
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This [emoji1312]

I’m amazed that the folks who fuss over which cable lifters and which wall outlets to get are “just fine” with the “toll” Roon takes on sound.

(Shaking my head)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Mike Lavigne said:
i disagree about streaming, it can sound very fine. but Roon and all it's conveniences do exact their toll on sound quality. if you want to hear how streaming can sound, listen to the Taiko Extreme server with the TAS (Taiko Audio System) which is a little clunky since it does not navigate as slickly and loads one track at a time, but you will get sound quality nearly equal to local files. and with high rez from Quboz it will be better than CD/SACD.

at this point TAS is still in 'beta' and a more elegant version is on the way.

i do enjoy all the robustness of the Roon interface and there are times when i live with the sound quality penalties to enjoy the new music exploring benefits.
Click to expand...

Which is all very cool, and I would love a SGM server, but at the $30,000 - $40,000 range it is not reasonable or reachable for a vast majority of audio fans. For most of us Roon does a great job. Yea, it would be nice to hear digital at its finest, it would also be nice to hear vinyl at its finest, but the $400,000 and $600,000 turntable that have been recently featured in audio magazines are not where 99.99% of us are at, let alone the 2-3 million dollar system to make it worth wild... oh, of course forget about our under multi million dollar houses, because of course they do not warranty that kind of system...

See my point... it is all fine and dandy to say you have not heard how streaming can sound unless you get one of these.... and then, well not at all possible for a vast majority of the members of this or any audio forum.... but I agree, from everything I have read the Taiko Audio System (SGM) is one of the best.
 
Randy Myers said:
Which is all very cool, and I would love a SGM server, but at the $30,000 - $40,000 range it is not reasonable or reachable for a vast majority of audio fans. For most of us Roon does a great job. Yea, it would be nice to hear digital at its finest, it would also be nice to hear vinyl at its finest, but the $400,00 and $600,000 turntable that have been recently featured in audio magazines are not where 99.99% of us are at, let alone the 2-3 million dollar system to make it worth wild... oh, of course forget about our under multi million dollar houses, because of course they do not warranty that kind of system...

See my point... it is all fine and dandy to say you have not heard how streaming can sound unless you get one of these.... and then, well not at all possible for a vast majority of the members of this or any audio forum.... but I agree, from everything I have read the Taiko Audio System (SGM) is one of the best.
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Randy,

agree completely. i still enjoy Roon listening, and before i had the choice of TAS, Roon was where it was at. it's not that Roon is a problem, only that when people diss streaming it needs to be pointed out that the experience and flexibility of Roon is what is holding back ultimate sound quality, not streaming itself.

my intention was not to invalidate Roon as a way to listen.......and the Extreme is.......well......extreme as a solution.

disc listening has it's limitations of access to millions of cuts at your fingertips, and the cost of acquisition. and fumbling with discs and transports having limited life-spans. and no access to most higher rez recordings. i know some can be accessed through SACD's and Blue Ray discs, but less and less as we go along.
 
Mike Lavigne said:
Randy,

agree completely. i still enjoy Roon listening, and before i had the choice of TAS, Roon was where it was at. it's not that Roon is a problem, only that when people diss streaming it needs to be pointed out that the experience and flexibility of Roon is what is holding back ultimate sound quality, not streaming itself.

my intention was not to invalidate Roon as a way to listen.......and the Extreme is.......well......extreme as a solution.

disc listening has it's limitations of access to millions of cuts at your fingertips, and the cost of acquisition. and fumbling with discs and transports having limited life-spans. and no access to most higher rez recordings. i know some can be accessed through SACD's and Blue Ray discs, but less and less as we go along.
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It sounds like we agree more than disagree :)... to me I am not really interested in streaming because of sound quality but for other reasons. I have a personal preference of purchasing my music, to own it so to speak. My spinner is used exclusively to rip SACD's for club members who want to put their disks on their servers, so CD purchases are really a thing of the past for me. I purchase records and high resolution downloads. I feel I am doing better by the artist and I take pride in ownership. I also already have a hard enough time deciding what to play as it is... streaming would probably be a bit overwhelming :), I mean my 1500 or so albums is pushing the limit for me :D.
 
Randy Myers said:
Which is all very cool, and I would love a SGM server, but at the $30,000 - $40,000 range it is not reasonable or reachable for a vast majority of audio fans. For most of us Roon does a great job. Yea, it would be nice to hear digital at its finest, it would also be nice to hear vinyl at its finest, but the $400,00 and $600,000 turntable that have been recently featured in audio magazines are not where 99.99% of us are at, let alone the 2-3 million dollar system to make it worth wild... oh, of course forget about our under multi million dollar houses, because of course they do not warranty that kind of system...

See my point... it is all fine and dandy to say you have not heard how streaming can sound unless you get one of these.... and then, well not at all possible for a vast majority of the members of this or any audio forum.... but I agree, from everything I have read the Taiko Audio System (SGM) is one of the best.
Click to expand...

My point: Roon is the bottleneck. Even a base Aurender bests Roon sonically.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I’m perfectly fine with the sound quality of Roon and the vast world library of music it has opened up to me for a small fee together with Qobuz.

(I’m actually a life member with Roon for some years now and it has already paid for itself)

I can listen to virtually any artist and any album, any time of day and night.

As far as sonic penalty… the brand new vinyl I used to buy was quite noisy and disappointing from time to time. I’m not even going to mention the used and beat up vinyl. Early digital? Fuggedabouit… My dentist made me cringe less at times.

Nope, Roon and streaming is absolutely fine by my ears.

I get the desire to keep purchasing and collecting physical media though. Old habits are hard to break but I did.. ;)
 
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