The Rapid Rise (& Fall) of the CD

Honestly, I think it's all pretty good. 

We have LPs for the "analogue forever" crowd. There's CDs for those who simply must have 0% background noise. And we have digital streaming for pretty much the ultimate in convenience, access and variety. There's pros and cons to each system and I for one enjoy all of them.

And on top of all that, the gear to listen to it all keeps getting better and better.

I dare say we're living in a Golden Age right here, right now. 

Happy listening.

I was at the AES Convention in NY at the Javitz Center when SONY first showed there CD player. The line to there Demo booth was long. The player was $700.00.

They had a Distro system set up with 5 headphones so you could listen to the Player. We all thought this was the bomb...!!

Now ...DAC's are popping up to go back to analog..LMAO.

We need to be careful about selling all our CDs and vinyl just because these streaming services have taken over. There are several scenarios that could happen like musicians taking their music off the streaming services or the streaming services raising their rates to exorbitant levels. Once the streaming services think they have a monopoly, that's when rates might start to rise. Also, I couldn't listen to Neil Young for a long time except for what I had purchased because he wasn't on Spotify. 

Granted, one of the best things about CDs was the ability to listen in the car and most new cars don't even have an option for a CD player anymore but remember, when you have a streaming service you own nothing but when you purchase a CD or vinyl, you own that music. Just stuff to keep in mind.

70% of what I buy on vinyl is not available on streaming. That said, if only streaming was available from tomorrow on, I would still survive and still be happy listening to music.

Why can't we just argue about cables not making a difference like normal people?

Well, when I made the post I sincerely thought people might enjoy learning some of the details about how the CD was developed....like The physical reasons for different specifications and the collaboration and competition between Philips and Sony. 

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when a war of what source is best broke out... LOL.

We all listen to our music in a way that suits us the best and that's all that matters.

Cheers