2 ms·
I wonder how long it will be for CDs to have retro appeal like vinyl and to a much lesser extend casettes and reel-to-reel? I think this year LPs are outselling
by BoxOfRain 5y ago
I wonder how long it will be for CDs to have retro appeal like vinyl and to a much lesser extend casettes and reel-to-reel? I think this year LPs are outselling CDs in the UK and US for the first time since the early '90s.
I wonder if they even will achieve that kind of status, a CD represents a perfect digital copy which is just as easily available in the same quality on things like Tidal*. Vinyl at least isn't just retro appeal, some of it is down to being a tangible way to support artists when streaming is perceived as not being profitable for all but the largest acts and it does have a different subjective quality to digital music.
*Having said that, I've been building up a library of offline digital music for the first time in over a decade because of rights holders randomly deleting tracks off streaming services on a whim. In a pleasingly circular way some of these are rips of my record collection!
- smichel17 5y agoI doubt CDs will have the same retro appeal for several reasons, which all boil down to "They're insufficiently different from a FLAC library, which has [almost] all the upsides of CDs with [almost] none of the downsides." In contrast, the limitations of vinyl make for a significantly different listening experience -- especially the difficulty in pausing or seeking to individual tracks -- which nudge you toward active listening of whole albums.