CD: What Will Be it's Successor?

[J_UNTITLED]

What does anyone here think will end up being the next format-of-choice for music? What is going to end up replacing CD but without losing any of the sound quality (albeit, SACD sounds better but has never been able to gain much consumer interest)?

[vw mofo]

Some kind of flash memory with lossless audio on it.

[soniqstylz]

Vinyl.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/m...eningpost_1029

[J_UNTITLED]

Since vinyl is obviously not exactly portable to say the least, for that to replace the CD seems taking a fairly big step backwards.

[glenn22]

for me and many others CDs have already been replaced by downloaded content. I haven't bought a CD in years, I get all my music from iTunes.

[pedigree]

Originally Posted by J_UNTITLED

What does anyone here think will end up being the next format-of-choice for music? What is going to end up replacing CD but without losing any of the sound quality (albeit, SACD sounds better but has never been able to gain much consumer interest)?

ummmmm iPod? its this new cool technology. i think its coming out soon

[BStecke]

I think CD's will stay around for awhile. I still buy some CD's, as do those who care about getting the highest quality (save SACD/DVD-A). Some people haven't moved on to downloads, which I think is good, since iTunes' 128kbps crap doesn't cut it. I think enough people HAVE moved on enough that developing a new technology to replace the CD wouldn't really make much sense.

Trent Reznor is starting to do some interesting things. Similar to what Radiohead did with their last album, Reznor and Saul Williams released multiple versions of Williams' new album in varying bitrates for free or a low price. Free for 128, 5 bucks for 320 or FLAC. The new Nine Inch Nails album is going to be released physically and digitally. Reznor has become a pretty big proponent against the recording industry's price gouging and refusal to adapt to what's going on in the world in regards to how people get music.

[J_UNTITLED]

Originally Posted by glenn22

I haven't bought a CD in years, I get all my music from iTunes.

You're not getting solid audio quality then to say the least.

[buckshot]

Originally Posted by J_UNTITLED

You're not getting solid audio quality then to say the least.

no remember what high def digest taught us. bitrates don't matter

I just jumped into sacd, I bought 4 bob dylan albums tonight hopefully they will be here sometime this week. I like the idea of blu-audio. uncompressed multichannel cds. that would be very cool. but for me downloads remain only for itunes exclusives. vinyl and cds rule. and hopefully so will the SACDs I just bought.

[w_tanoto]

never. CD won't have successor (well, if you count download, then it can be considered successor). But I'd rather have CD. I won't buy SACD or DVD-A

[unreal1080p]

Originally Posted by w_tanoto

I won't buy SACD or DVD-A

No and neither will the majority but perhaps they would be willing to buy if they were offered in another form:

I think the music industry could potentialy release high quality downloads.

DVD-A can have 192 kHz/24-bit stereo audio track at 9.6 Megabits per second (or 1.2mbps) in uncompressed/lossless.

This means:

--> 216mb for a 3min song
--> 4.3gig for 60 minutes

So instead of only having 1 download link on Itunes for regular quality songs at 0.99$ you add a 2nd link for high quality songs at 1.99$.

With the sizes of hard drives these days, 216mb per song is not that bad.
You could fit more then 2000 songs on a 99$ 500gig hard drive.

I'm not sure if they allready do this on Itunes but, they should have you register an account which keeps track of what songs you have purchased in the past and allow you to re-download those songs for free in case you lose them (stolen/broken Ipod, hard drive crash etc...).

[J_UNTITLED]

Originally Posted by w_tanoto

never. CD won't have successor (well, if you count download, then it can be considered successor). But I'd rather have CD. I won't buy SACD or DVD-A

I suppose the general consumer doesn't care about having high quality audio but SACD for instance does offer better sound than CD and certainly MP3.


Like all major consumer products, I assume there will be some kind of successor here at some point. Evolution doesn't just stop at some point as it doesn't tend to run out of ideas or variations of an idea. The question remains to be what exactly it will be.

[DealsR4theDevil]

I also DL all my songs from itunes, but I understand I am getting inferior audio quality compared to CDs. If a new audio format comes out that is as portable as itunes/ipod and has equal or greater audio than CDs, I am on board.

[J_UNTITLED]

Originally Posted by DealsR4theDevil

I also DL all my songs from itunes, but I understand I am getting inferior audio quality compared to CDs. If a new audio format comes out that is as portable as itunes/ipod and has equal or greater audio than CDs, I am on board.

See, that will be the trick; to make extremely high quality audio easily portable or on-the-go.

[w_tanoto]

Originally Posted by nyg

+1

Music is often enjoyed on the go so downloading is definitely the future. While some may use iPods and flash memory I think most will continue to burn their downloads to CD-R.

same here, but I'd still rather have the original CD instead of download then burn it to CD-R. I love hard copy. that's why I think movie download won't work

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by J_UNTITLED

Since vinyl is obviously not exactly portable to say the least, for that to replace the CD seems taking a fairly big step backwards.

columbia-open.jpg

Nice! Borat.gif

[gvortex7]

I can think of a few things. As far as another disc format is concerned, I think a smaller, more densely packed disc that's read by a different type of laser definitely could be coming out sometime in the future, perhaps providing an even higher fidelity of music with portability in mind of course. And I'm not talking about another MiniDisc, but something entirely different.

I believe that MP3's will be out of style in a few years, due to the fact that it's a lossy compression format. I myself started to encode my CDs as wave files because of the better overall sound quality, but am aware of the fact that they take up so much more space. That's why I'm happy with the fact that much larger capacity HDD based MP3 player are coming to the market now that are also able to play wave files. Soon, solid state drives (flash) will be the media storage of choice when really high capacities within that format are finally achieved.

And perhaps in a few years we'll also see a new compression format become widespread that's superior to MP3, and yet able to provide lossless audio in a minimal amount of space. I sure hope it's forthcoming.

[J_UNTITLED]

Originally Posted by gvortex7

I can think of a few things. As far as another disc format is concerned, I think a smaller, more densely packed disc that's read by a different type of laser definitely could be coming out sometime in the future, perhaps providing an even higher fidelity of music with portability in mind of course. And I'm not talking about another MiniDisc, but something entirely different.

I believe that MP3's will be out of style in a few years, due to the fact that it's a lossy compression format. I myself started to encode my CDs as wave files because of the better overall sound quality, but am aware of the fact that they take up so much more space. That's why I'm happy with the fact that much larger capacity HDD based MP3 player are coming to the market now that are also able to play wave files. Soon, solid state drives (flash) will be the media storage of choice when really high capacities within that format are finally achieved.

And perhaps in a few years we'll also see a new compression format become widespread that's superior to MP3, and yet able to provide lossless audio in a minimal amount of space. I sure hope it's forthcoming.

Best post so far and I couldn't agree more.

[hardcore_canadian]

the best sound ever comes from vinyl, and when it makes it's comeback, according to lots of journalistic magazines, it'll be a driving force in entertainment once again. Personally, i don't like iTunes, and i do tend to buy the cd's and then rip them to my pc. I also don't see anything wrong with downloading songs for free, It's completely legal in canada, My computer isn't capable of it, but i think if you can do it, do it!

[WickyWoo]

I believe that MP3's will be out of style in a few years, due to the fact that it's a lossy compression format

Highly unlikely. People are very happy with MP3 and don't care that it's lossy

the best sound ever comes from vinyl, and when it makes it's comeback, according to lots of journalistic magazines, it'll be a driving force in entertainment once again. Personally, i don't like iTunes, and i do tend to buy the cd's and then rip them to my pc. I also don't see anything wrong with downloading songs for free, It's completely legal in canada, My computer isn't capable of it, but i think if you can do it, do it!

Vinyl is only a force in the DJ community because it's a look and feel thing for their instrument