As much as I prefer vinyl and hi-end, and I never listen to CD's at home. I would welcome some type of hard drive system that would have 5000 songs in my boat or truck. |
Yes, people prefer convenience over the ultimate high-end differences for the most part today, but my point is, you can have all that at your fingertips, WITHOUT the horrible mp3 artifacts. Heck, even with current technology, I can put roughly 50-80 CDs (depending on length) of uncompressed AIFF onto my iPod, and they can be integrated into a car or home system extremely easy (heck, some cars like BMW are coming with iPod docks in the glove-box). I don't see hard drive space going UP in price any time soon, in fact I imagine very shortly you'll be able to have a device the size of an iPod with well over 100GB of music, equalling almost 200CDs at full redbook. |
I think that MP3 will be king. As I think it should. Maybe not the exact format being used right now at this moment, but one that works on the same principals. Don't get me wrong, I don't listen to anything like that. I listen to vinyl at home and FM in my vehicle on the way to work and back.
But I think the idea of having thousands of songs at your fingertips is the future for us all. Every vehicle should come standard with a music bank that will hold at least 5000 songs of your choice. No more CD's to drag around. No more of our kids borrowing our CD's without asking. It just seems to me that this is the way to go.
I also think there is a place for it in our home. Background music while working around the house. Or even an outdoor system where sound quality is difficult to get right anyways.
Todays generation does not care one bit about the sweet spot. All they care is to have what they want at their fingertips when they want it.
Like it or not, it is here to stay. |
I agree / strongly feel that with how cheap hard-drive space and bandwidth is becoming, there's no reason to further compress a nowhere near perfect format like CD. What I expect the market to (eventually) do is move to a non-local / streamed format over physical media (imagine, if we silly consumers / materialistic fools got over having to 'hold' a CD, you could pay probably $3-4 for the right to listen to a full CD anywhere any time, basically the right to playback but not own a physical media, and obviously be allowed to make a backup/portable - much like iTunes Music Store / burning a CD etc). I also call witness to the trend in digital cable / on-demand, if Time Warner wanted to, they could probably put Netflix and Blockbuster out of business in 6 months (obviously with a HUGE investment in hardware and some infrastructure improvements, but nontheless, quite doable, I believe someone recently tested well over 300Mb over standard rg6 coax, and DVD is what, 10-12 MAX?) |
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Looking at it differently now then in previous post. If these new reduced data formats and satellite broadcast music delivery methods draw new fans to music in large numbers,then we all win.A natural progression should be fans of these delivery formats today,some will be audiohounds of tomorrow. |
Mp3 players are enticing because they're new and also because they're so easy. I just purchased a 40 GB iRiver, (similar to the iPod, but better in my opinions.) I'll be away at college next year, and I'll be able to put half of my CDs into a little box that can fit in my pocket rather than toting a portable CD player and my little case of CDs around the campus. Also, I can easily put wav or Mp3 files on my player. Storage space is getting cheaper and in a few years, my 40GB player will be obsolete. By that time, there will probably be players with 10X the capacity of mine for a much more reasonable price. At that point, Mp3 will be dead because there is no reason to use a lossy format when you can purchase HD space cheaply and use wav files. |
I guess much depends on what you mean as king. Sonically, it certainly is not. I cannot stand its sound. |
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MP3 will be obsolete by 2006. |
Ok Toonsurge I cant believe LP's have died. I guess that means the new turntable and cartridge I bought 4 months ago was a waste of money. Not to mention the rest of my system. Why download music what can I really do with it. Compression, bit loss poor speakers sure I can wire it into my system not a problem. But it will bring out every flaw in the format. Approx 60% of the US is on the internet and we are the richest country in the world. Only 10% of the world population has internet access. As we grow as a world and developing countries emerge what format will we use. Will it be cheaper to buy a cheep cd player and a hand full of CD's or a computer, internet access fees and download fees? 2010 can the CD die. I guess my digital front end should be given a proper burial not to mention all my vinyl.
I guess those small vinyl pressing factories that have sprung up lately are just out of luck. What about the new Stones release that was put out on Virgin Vinyl.
Remember to take the system as a whole. |
Wow!! I want some massive stuff!!! Please give me at least 10 of everything!!!! |
Massive storage is possible, but we will also have to see the advent of massive throughput capacity with our internet connections before it will truly die. Thankfully, this becomes less of an issue daily, but it isn't gone altogether. |
I imagine like all digital formats, its time is past. With massive storage possible, there will be no need for it. |
I agree, Tomryan.
I only listen to a handful of artists regularly. For example, for the past month or so, I've alternated between Prince and Joss Stone. (And for those who haven't heard Joss, all I can say is do so immediately. Best voice I've ever heard and she's only 17 years old.) |
In the same way we overindulge in eating, watching TV, etc. we overinduldge in "music" listening. About 2 yrs ago my niece bragged she had 1,800 songs in an MP3 file but today she hardly ever listens to computer music. Has discovered Al Green, Van Morrison, etc. and buys their CDs. She says she overdosed on canned music and now only listens to stuff she really has an interest in.
I was recently in an Apple store at the mall and the 20 something salesguy could not understand why I wouldn't be thrilled to get their system and download "thousands of songs", as he put it. He then went on to tell me I could listen to them all day long, everywhere I went. Said I could have Outcast in my ears 24 hours a day if desired.
All of this stuff is the aural equivalent of factory produced frozen foods or traffic noise on a busy street. True noise pollution - music has become a cheap, demographically produced fast food. I haven't eaten at a Mc Donalds in over 25 yrs |
I suddenly feel like I'm in kindergarden again. Please disregard this thread! |
You're missing the point ketchup. It's a turn-key solution and it seems that a remote control is included. I doubt the average Audiogon reader could configure a remote control interface for a PC. Heck even type like you and I who can build PCs in our sleep with either XP, Linux, BSD, etc would be hard-pressed to configure a remote control interface intuitive enough for the average user.
Are you aware of such software packages? If so, I'd like to know. Because my brother just dumped a bunch of PC parts on me and said "Build me an MP3 server." I think he's looking for a way to control it with his Dell Axiom handheld PC. In such a way that he can queue up song titles or play lists from the screen on the handheld, and also get a readout on the handheld of what is currently playing. Quite a tall order in deed. But in the meantime I would settle for a remote control that is similar to the one your get with most satellite TV receivers with an interface similar to their program guide. Any ideas? Or just check the usual PAMS or HTPC newsgroups? |
I wasn't recommending the product, I was only imagining the time in the near future when CD's and LP's are going to be obsolete.
Like it or not, thousands of dollars worth of equipment is going to be obsolete by 2010, IMO. |
if you're capable of reading this thread you probably already have a pc that can do everything that mp3 player can do, provided you also download 1 or 2 free programs.
$800 dollars is INSANE for a Celeron processor and a 20 GB hard drive. Read further and you will see that they charge you $400.00 for an additional 10 GB. That's criminal! Hard drive space is currently 50cents per GB, not 40 dollars! jeez!
i think the player is geared toward computer illiterate folk who dont realize that its highway robbery.
it also sucks that it wont play the most popular types of lossless compression: flac and shn. |
Here is the link I was talking about:
http://www.audio-ideas.com/reviews/mp3/audio-request-arq-1.html |
The line of succession is:
Elvis (Emeritus),
thenCharles,
thenthe two princely tots (one at a time, of course),
then Secretary Rumsfeld,
thenthe guy who does anal searches at airport security in Baltimore, (no, not same as above, shame on you...let's wave that flag now),
thenMP3. |
The Apple lossless format is still 6x the size of a typical 128 kbps MP3 or AAC file. In what ways is it better for the iPod user? |
It's already dead. There are new compression formats being released that are far better. Apple's Lossless format for example. |
I agree with Flex. For music lovers MP3s have a very useful purpose. They're not high end, but not every music listening experience needs to be about audiophile values. |
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Everything has it's cycles. Fitting lots of data onto a small card is today's novelty. Somewhere in the not far future, the pendulum will swing backwards as people discover sound quality all over again. But it will then be combined with much higher storage and delivery capacity than is available from the cd or lp.
When I was in college and listening to lp's on a cheap record player in my dorm room, I was oblivious to quality too. You get more demanding of quality as you get older, and I expect today's kids are the same.
Besides, what's wrong with having compression (AAC, WMA) in casual listening situations, like in your automobile, with 70dB road noise, or walking down the street listening to your ipod? It's in your home that you really care about music quality. |
It already is the king of fools. Maybe next it can work its way up to king of pain. |
Unfortunately, as far as many people are concerned, MP3 has long since surpassed anything else. Who cares about mere sound qualty, they wonder, when you can fit so many songs onto a player smaller than a deck of cards? |
MP-3s throne has a little silver handle you must jiggle and as it swirls to who knows where a new format with every song ever done compressed into one long 4.7 gig medley will attempt to sit there next only to suffer the same....;^) |
The purpose of MP3 was to allow you to compress music files because storage space was expensive. Also, to allow faster downloads over dialup connections. Now with big cheap harddrives, cheap memory cards, and broadband who needs MP3? I'm sitting here at a computer with 450Gigs of storage. The first harddrive I had was only 5 megs! The first computer I purchased only came with a cassette tape drive. I added on a 100k floppy drive for $1400.00! |
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"the emperor wears no clothes";)-~ |
Doesn't really matter. It will never surpass vinyl.
Oz |
how can mp3s pass anything if they're made by by subtracting information from higher resolution files?
mp3 is lossy. it produces a file that is smaller than the original because bits are thrown out. what i'm trying to say is that mp3s are always encoded from somewhere else. that "somewhere else" is always better than the resulting mp3. there are plenty of other lossless alternatives that are much better than mp3 such as flac and shn.
to surpass sacd and dvd-a you have to come up with a new format.
can you provide a link to this article? |
