Continuing with CDs?

That's very accurate, Mike.

War Mice: "This will change". Why?

I've read in a couple of places that MDC in Japan stepped up lacquer production significantly -

We can source enough lacquers from MDC to keep our cutting operation running. And we cut more then ever. They must have expanded their production bigtime.
I don't think lacquer is the bottleneck - there is just not enough pressing plants for the demand right now.

https://www.lathetrolls.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9268&p=59037&hilit=mdc#p59037

The price of polyvinyl chloride meanwhile has gone up something like 70% -

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-technology-business-health-hurricanes-46bce9cc36dab2b330309dae0354cf53

20 years ago IIRC the lead times for vinyl from GZ were something like three weeks including delivery to the UK.

Yeah, I definitely remember times in mid-90s when I was record shopping that I'd be looking at the vinyl prices and thinking, "man, I wish I had a record player to save some money", but didn't bother since I was still in a dorm and lack of space was a serious consideration.

from a consumer standpoint, that's why i got into vinyl in the late 90s: it was significantly cheaper.

also why i'm mostly in for cds these days (that is, if i'm even compelled to purchase something)

^^ yep

I still buy vinyl now and then, especially if it's the only physical option for something I really want, but otherwise I'm 95% CDs.

I've curtailed my physical media purchases because I don't have any space left to keep them in.

rang in the new year by ordering a short vinyl pressing, looking forward to finally seeing it sometime in 2023 after the bottom has completely fallen out

I wish CD sales would pick up enough where it makes sense to bring back BMG Music Club. I was a member during its final years, but early enough to take advantage of the 12 for 1 deals they had going (which usually became 15 for 1 if you held out for a few months on buying "the one" full-price CD as an obligation). After taxes and shipping, not to mention the inflated cost of the full-priced disc, it still came out to less than $4 per disc in '00s dollars. And you could even do multiple memberships for the same address - like I went into college and came out of it with a pretty impressive library from BMG memberships alone. Pretty sure those days are long gone, but at least I got to take advantage of it.

And you could even do multiple memberships for the same address

god did we take advantage of this at my house. even our pets had memberships.

even our pets had memberships

LMAO

I roped in relatives for their addresses and built up a pretty solid Classical Music 101 collection.

I can't remember the point at which new LPs became more expensive than their CD equivalents, but I'm guessing it wasn't something that happened gradually while both formats were widely available in chainstores, but something that happened in one blow, after a period in which LPs had almost vanished. Mid-'80s to late-'90s, IIRC, CDs were 25-40% more expensive than vinyl. Then vinyl mostly ceases to be on the shelves in mainstream shops (and perhaps rising to CD-level price-wise in independent shops?) and, when it reappears in that context (mid-late '00s?), it's 50-100% more expensive than CD.

― Michael Jones, Monday, January 10, 2022 5:07 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

CDs being more expensive than vinyl was always artificial, having to nothing to do with how expensive it was. CDs have always been much cheaper and easier to produce. Even as a local band doing $1000 CD with 1 fold color booklet, we were paying $4 per unit and could sell them for $10 at shows. So I can't even imagine what the big record companies were doing on cost per unit.

yep, this Negativland piece goes into great detail re: lower costs:

https://urbigenous.net/library/negativland_shiny.html

(xpost 1000 CDs not $1000 CDs haha)

upper m@rissa sh@kedown

loooooool just need to sell 5 copies

Pinefox - evidently I was unable to finish a damn thought the other night.

I see a gradual thawing of the habitual anti-CD stance from former hardcore vinyl enthusiasts/purists. As records get ever more expensive & the production timelines ever more extended, buying new vinyl records is firmly a rich person’s hobby. On the used side, there’s hardly a bargain bin left on the planet that has anything worthwhile in it anymore; all those $1 records of yore are now $20-30, while the CD bins are where the thrill of the hunt lies now.

Vinyl is becoming increasingly “normie-fied”. (Case study 1: This Christmas two family members requested and received record players — these were people who didn’t even have a stereo in the house before, the most boring normal people in the world.) (Case study 2: I can’t keep Billy Joel records in stock at $15 ea; I should be pricing them at a premium, it seems.) I predict this will soon cause the bloom to go off the rose for the terminally hip.

I just smell the tide beginning to turn for CDs. Sure, there’ll always be bins full of Now That’s What I Call Music, same as there’s still a mountain of Melissa Manchester records nobody wants, but I bet your $1 copy of even Achtung Baby is worth $20 in 10 years.

Sure, there’ll always be bins full of Now That’s What I Call Music

https://www.discogs.com/release/4639424-Various-Now-Thats-What-I-Call-Music-4

lol/wow

hd otm

lol/wow otm

Reading through some comments, it appears that was allegedly the first ever Now! issued on CD and at only 500 copies.

I see a gradual thawing of the habitual anti-CD stance from former hardcore vinyl enthusiasts/purists.

a producer/engineer i've worked with (who runs an all analog studio) said to me a long time ago "it was like the moment they'd finally figured out how to make CDs sound great, everyone abandoned them for MP3"

not everyone but yeah, that sounds right

totally on board for CD comeback, maybe SACD will be the next true hipster purist format

that last comment somewhat driven by discomfort re my own tendency to rebuy music with the ostensible pretext of chasing sound quality - someone is selling half a dozen PIL SACDs on a local audiophile classifieds for about $50 a pop (Australian dollars) and if i had the funds available i would be seriously considering it

I've done the same with quality/well-reviewed vinyl remasters/reissues, I'm certainly guilty as well

that being said a lot of 2000s-era CD reissues can be horrifically brick walled, like my pet peeve of the disastrous Virgin Prunes CD reissues on Mute

brick walling was a definite problem, I think his thing as an analog guy he was finally hearing well done CDs that were (to him) on par with vinyl

I agree w/ that, as per bird's fascinating posts upthread abt technological developments

Now I get to play the game of do I get rid of the majority of my record collection while it’s still worth a decent amount of money or do I hold onto it and risk it becoming virtually worthless one day a la the CD collection I painstakingly amassed between the ages of 10 and 20.

definitely happy to shed some less essential records while there’s still a market - some LPs are definitely keepers though either from a sound quality or general ~~vibes~~ point of view

idk, I probably beat this drum a lot on here but I like CDs for some things and vinyl for other things and tapes for other things and Qobuz for some other things and it’s like… we don’t have to choose one or the other, it’s great

Pretty much. I'd just hold on to what you'd want to listen to. I rarely have more than one single copy of an album, and if it's an album I really like with no other physical alternative, I'll hold on to it even it's valuable.

The toughest thing to part with would be 78's - nothing beats hearing a 78 from the original record, much more so than a LP vs CD of an album that had a tape master. But they can be expensive and tough to find, especially in the best condition. A great CD, like the ones John R. T. Davies used to master, makes it a lot easier because 1) he does an incredible job, often from 78's in great shape and 2) it's nice hearing all the records in one 60-80 minute sitting rather than spread out over twenty records that only have three minutes before you need to lift the needle.

I am planning on semi-retiring in about 15 years, selling all my shit and house, and driving a Winnebago around the country as a traveling poker dealer until I drop dead or cannot do it anymore.

I hope that my CD collection is worth something when I do.

War Mice: thanks for your explanation.

"I just smell the tide beginning to turn for CDs" - I hope you're right!

Today at a charity shop I bought 3 CDs for £1. My excuse is that this is to test my CD player. One of the CDs was the best of A Flock of Seagulls. It's good!

oh hey look

https://www.spin.com/2022/01/cd-sales-increased-in-2021/

Qobuz for some other things

Qobuz changed my opinion of streaming so much, running that through a DAC into my stereo sounds really really good

Yeah it absolutely rips and is def helping me feel OK about clearing a little space on my CD shelves

Or at least not adding to it

why were so many domestic CD players so ugly...? ugh. trying to find a nice used full-size unit with a headphone port and good DAC...

also london ilxors hit up music & goods exchange in greenwich for super cheap discs!

The only risk with CDs these days is ordering them from Amazon. I try to order via bandcamp, straight from an artist or indie shops as much as possible, but sometimes I run into things where Amazon, unfortunately, it just the best option. I've had plenty of minor cracks in jewel cases over the years thanks to them just being thrown in those envelopes with absolutely no padding, but yesterday I opened one that looked like it had been stomped on several times over. It was a tri-fold digipak that looked just fine when I pulled it out of the envelope, still wrapped in plastic. But once I pulled off the wrapper, dozens of pieces of shattered plastic fell all over the place along with a tiny shard of the CD itself that had snapped off. Portions of the plastic tray were literally ground to dust. It's getting replaced, but jfc how hard would it be to provide even a little padding for these?

my issue with buying from amazon is: why are the only people who have certain things (of which there is ONLY a US PRESSING) located overseas and 1) charge an arm and a leg and 2) take literal months to get the damn thing.

fuck amazon. i don't begrudge anyone who buys from them, but i certainly won't. and if it's between buying the cd through amazon or just listening on youtube or whatever, well, i'm glad i have a smartphone.

i'd rather throw money in the trash than deal with amazon at this point.

I never buy physical music media thru Amazon (I do get printed media sometimes) specifically because every time I did it the package was damaged (well, twice, but that was enough)

music & goods exchange in greenwich

their Instagram page has convinced me the next time I'm in London I will be spending considerable time there

I was in SE10 the other weekend and was surprised that shop was still there (I lived in Greenwich 20+ years ago, and the town centre was rather different then). Walls of cheap CDs downstairs, and racks of more "premium" content (incrementally-reduced price card + booklet), organised by genre, in the main island. Even classical SACDs/DVD-As, for a few quid, if that's your bag.

Inspired by this thread, I decided to give Qobuz a go last night (free one-month trial). I did previously have a short, free trial of Apple Music, which I mostly wasted on toggling Dolby Atmos on/off (Ringo's behind you! Oh, now he's over there). In my entirely flawed comparisons, I can just about convince myself that there's a bit more there vs Spotify 320k-OggVorbis. Spent a while this morning bouncing between Víkingur Ólafsson playing Glass Études on Spotify (Connect, direct streaming to the Marantz) and same on Qobuz (24/96k FLAC, but (presumably) transcoded to 16/44.1k ALAC over AirPlay from my phone to the Marantz). Bit more space, smoother, an inkier backdrop, if you will :) No doubt I'd flunk any blind comparison but I was really hoping not to hear anything.

And then someone started drilling outside, so that was that.

I like the UI, it's pretty good. And the digital liner notes, and pop-up track info. There's really none of this on Spotify, as far as I can tell. But early days, and I'll almost certainly cancel before Feb 11th, because the whole family is locked into Spotify and I can't afford another subscription.

This performance by Dinosaur Jr. on Letterman from 1993 is so insane. As usual, Paul Schaffer and Co. sit in, but they’re throwing in bells, a wild sax solo, high harmony vox, and it is SO LOUD. They crush it; the Ed Sullivan Theater is fully melted🔥🔥https://t.co/5K0fjJhI1B

— Ben Boyer (@sleezsisters) January 11, 2022

when letterman holds the album up, is that a CD? what format is that?

me:

https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/73f55da57c7ecac379d98646974cbda9.jpg

xpost - Maybe my sarcasm detector is broken, but I'll answer earnestly realizing there are people that weren't alive to see those - that was a "longbox" that CD's used to come packaged inside. The actual jewel case itself took up less than half of the length, but this was how record stores were able to keep using bins designed for LP height well into the CD era.

lol Whiney