The Rapid Rise (& Fall) of the CD


A few days ago, one of my favorite YouTube channels did a video on the CD. This channel (Asianometry) always does an incredible job telling the story of different technologies, technical industries and/or products.

I think most of you will find the 25 minute video to be very interesting.

Asianometry - The rapid start (& end) of the CD

mwinkc

kennymac. As a side story, when the CD format was developed (as indicated in that video) I had bought a CD player straight away and enjoyed CD sound. I still had a Thorens TT and was spinning albums too. As time went on, CDs were engineered better and I got rid of my TT and albums. I had thought the format was dead. Well it was for 1-2 decades and now it’s back full tilt. I also have two tube amps even the US stopped making vacuum tubes long ago. I guess the point of this tale is that formats don’t usually die, they will come back eventually. To many audiophiles they sound good enough to enjoy the listening experience.

... and CD’s are gaining in popularity again, there are a good many YouTube vids about this; sales are increasing and there are more CD players and CD transports hitting the market along with it....

Oh, there are YouTube videos so it must be true. 🙄 Some perspective: CD shipments had a relatively tiny blip up since Covid but are still down 96% from where they were at their peak around 25 years ago. US shipments peaked at 943 million in 2000, hit a low of 32 million in 2020 and had a brief bounce to 47 million in 2021 but have since steadily declined back to 37 million in 2023. Hardly a resurgence, and in the investment world we call that a dead cat bounce. CDs will continue to decline from here and are the modern digital iteration of the buggy whip, and any talk about an increase in its popularity is just silly talk and wishful thinking.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/186772/album-shipments-in-the-us-music-industry-since-1999/

 

https://djmag.com/news/gen-z-listen-more-vinyl-cds-and-cassettes-any-other-age-group-survey-shows

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrosenblatt/2023/01/16/luminate-data-music-report-the-album-is-once-again-a-vinyl-lp/

An excerpt from the Forbes article

"Vinyl buyers are also likely to be Gen Z. The born-digital generation, now teenagers and young adults, is 27% more likely to purchase vinyl than the average listener; yet it’s also much more likely to discover new music on short online video clips. That is, Gen Zers are likely to watch short clips of music on TikTok and then purchase the music they like on vinyl. And they spend more than twice as much as the average consumer on music"

 

I'm 57,  I was afraid they would stop making quality players.  I have a lot of CDs, 3 or 4 hundred at least.  Most I like all the way through... 

Two weeks ago I bought a new transport and my CDs have never sounded so good.   I have purchased about 6 CDs since for $3 to $6 , all favorites that I want to own.   

I love my Aurender but it's not quite as good as my transport with 44.1k material.  I think a lot of what is available on streaming is just a sample rate converted version of the original.  It varies so widely between platforms and tracks ...   CD playback is a constant. It's always direct from the disc or buffered like the PS Audio units .   

I'm going to keep grabbing my favorite discs while they are plentiful and cheap. 

Why arguing about what old farts and younger generations like. Big deal, everybody is different and that's a good thing. From 78s to streaming it has always been about the music. Arguing about how to play it is fruitless, to each his own. I do a little bit of each: Vinyl, CD, DVD/ YouTube for concerts on my TV and streaming Qobuz, Tidal and Amazon music for the majority of my listening. All running through my main system in the house of stereo. I sure as heck wouldn't bad mouth any of them. Why limiting yourself to one over the other, they all offer different experiences. Ending each post with happy listening makes you think that blogger would stand by it.