So... What Comes After The CD?

[whitefox]

As many people keeping up with music industry news should know by now, the sale of CD's has been in a steady decline, dropping faster than ever over the past 10 years or so. Also, unfortunately, the rise of illegal downloads has increased inversly. (I don't claim to advocate them, but I can't say much...) At the moment, it looks like this may be the end of physical music distribution. But what if there was something new to come along? I was thinking of something comparable to the rise of Blu-Ray discs over DVD's. Could there ever be something like a Hi-Definition CD as the popular media format?

The quality of CD's could be better than they are, yet the only way to get the highest quality out of music at the moment appears to be lossless downloads, usually from the artist's (or company's) website. I forget who it is, but some musician is trying to get a group of other musicians together to start making higher quality CD's. Is this the future of music?

Or are we going to go back to vinyl? With everything going on, several people are going back to vinyl albums, which they claim sounds better ("warmer") than their partner CD's. While I seriously doubt that it is possible for the mass public to start listening to records again, it remains a slight possibilty that the now niche market could expand.

Whew, after all that, my question is pretty simple: with the growing want of portable music (and the decline of the want for higher quality), what is going to replace the CD (or download, at this point) as the popular format for music distribution?

[Pojo]

I think they will either just be things you get online, or flash drive type things...

[Kams]

Originally Posted by whitefox

Or are we going to go back to vinyl? With everything going on, several people are going back to vinyl albums, which they claim sounds better ("warmer") than their partner CD's.

I know that there are people out there who will spend $100,000 on a turntable, $15,000 on a cartridge for that turntable, and $10,000 on speakers, and another $5000 on receivers. I still buy vinyl (in fact I'll spend the weekends in places like Chicago just find good record stores), but I think that's going a little overboard. But yeah, I've compared the digital versions of some songs to the vinyl version, and most of the time, vinyl sounds better.

[Darkfinn]

I think most music will go online only in the next 10 years or so. Everyone has MP3 players on their person or in their car... so you just take your CD and rip it. I can see flash-drive like devices being sold in stores that will be an "album" that you just take home and pull the songs off of instead of ripping them off the disc.

This is why the music industry is trying to clamp down on piracy so much. With music going from something physical to something purely electronic it can be stolen much easier. Nothing tangible to sell... no profit for the record company.

[whitefox]

I hadn't really thought about flash drives... so it would be like a jump/pen/usb drive with the songs on it? That would be similar to a cartrige versus a disc with games. One advantage would be that it couldn't get scratched, and there would be no extra noise that would be present with spinning a disc. There's also a much larger limit on the amount of storage space.

That sounds pretty good.

[InconJenOnWheels]

I can see the music industry starting to go to digital files or jump drive type things. I, personally, have bought every vinyl record(In the best possible condition) from the rock band Styx and framed them. I just like the way they look. The album art is really cool. I still buy CDs and rip them to my Microsoft Zune. That way, if my Zune stops working or the music gets deleted somehow, I have the CD and I can sync the music onto my Zune again.

[Pojo]

Well flash drives can get really small while still holding a lot...I've seen ones smaller than fingernails...The only problem with those would be losing them...

[betagame]

Originally Posted by Pojo

I think they will either just be things you get online, or flash drive type things...

yes

Originally Posted by Kams

(in fact I'll spend the weekends in places like Chicago just find good record stores)

how do you get there, Youre only 15

Originally Posted by Darkfinn

I think most music will go online only in the next 10 years or so. Everyone has MP3 players on their person or in their car... so you just take your CD and rip it. I can see flash-drive like devices being sold in stores that will be an "album" that you just take home and pull the songs off of instead of ripping them off the disc.
This is why the music industry is trying to clamp down on piracy so much. With music going from something physical to something purely electronic it can be stolen much easier. Nothing tangible to sell... no profit for the record company.

less shipping costs, a small flash drive like that, 6$

Originally Posted by whitefox

I hadn't really thought about flash drives... so it would be like a jump/pen/usb drive with the songs on it? That would be similar to a cartrige versus a disc with games. One advantage would be that it couldn't get scratched, and there would be no extra noise that would be present with spinning a disc. There's also a much larger limit on the amount of storage space.

That sounds pretty good.

that will be nice

Originally Posted by Pojo

Well flash drives can get really small while still holding a lot...I've seen ones smaller than fingernails...The only problem with those would be losing them...

tape them on your arms, cool

[Atsu]

mp3/4's???

[Fire2box]

Its all about Downloading. Hard Disk Drives and Flash Drives is where I think everything should me videos, Music, Games EVERYTHING!

Just think about it you don't have to go to the store to buy it and waste gas and you don't have to wait for a few days for the mail.