Understanding that sometimes price may not be an issue, $4,000 seems like a lot of money. I get these insane expenditures on analog gear because it’s the nature of the beast. A $1,000 cable. Hmmmm…. Others may be able to provide cogent arguments to the contrary, but I have a hard time seeing a commensurate increase in sound quality from a good DAC/streaming setup to a $5k CD setup. Seems like, as you noted, ripping your CDs and rockin’ the DAC/streaming setup would be totally fair. |
@secretguy ”Streaming is virtual theft.” Artists indeed receive a mere pittance from streaming engagement (a fraction a cent per play). According to the RIAA, CD and vinyl combined sales accounted for about 11% of revenue in 2021. My guess is that the people that go and dish out the $15 at the record store (or order online) for the fresh new CD release are few and far between these days. When we are constantly buying used vinyl and CDs at stores, yard sales, record swaps, and from third party sellers, we’re not putting a single cent in the pockets of artists. To the folks who purchase music, as a matter of course, in a way that directly compensates the artists at a rate greater than $0.004 per song, more power to ya. The problem as I see it is the new CD at the store will offer, for the vast majority of listeners, little-if-any increase in sound quality, but plenty of extra price and inconvenience compared to it’s streaming/iTunes/whatever counterpart. I don’t see a lot of benefit to the buyer here aside from peripheral benefits (physical handling, better artwork, collectible pleasures, a sense of moral edification, etc.). Sure, folks fortunate enough to have high end music playback gear may be able to discern the improvement in sound from a streamed song to its CD counterpart, but, again, these folks are few are far between. At the end of the day, how much further from “thievery” is a person who’s always buying used vinyl, used CDs, scouring Discogs, Ebay, Amazon, etc. than the person who streams all the time? |
