CDs, vinyl are outselling digital downloads for the first time since 2011

[BikerDude]

When I was in my teens, I loved sifting through album racks and could do it for hours, leave the store (regardless of buying anything), go back a couple of days later and repeat the process. Album art was cool. Thats about the only thing that I miss about vinyl.

Yeah I'm with you.
And also I don't think Albums are as appreciated.
They form a whole work.
There is a lot in the enjoyment from the mix of individual tracks.
How they go from one vibe to another.
And also just the "event" of an album from your favorite artists.
Music just doesn't play as important of a role in kids lives as it used to.
I've managed to get my 14 year old to sort of "get it"
We've been going to concerts together and he's into classic rock now.
We are planning to see Blue Oyster Cult on the current tour.
I've been playing all BOC in the car from my phone and he's way into it.
And he gets how each album is a world unto it's self.
BOC is a good example actually. Albums from the black and white period 'vs' something like Cultasaurus.
All are good but they represent a particular effort. Like a novel or a movie.
Movies by Steven Spielberg might have similarities but each is it's own thing.
The same goes for albums from the best artists.
They are best appreciated as a whole.

 

[BikerDude]

From my experience Itunes are one of the few downloading ones and bandcamp that have high quality downloads unlike others that have a compressed file.

Neil Young has actually taken his music off of some services because of the quality of the audio.

 

[Old Dude]

I have had the opportunity to hear recorded sound on incredibly great sound systems. There is a difference between audio sources when you're listening on an outstanding sound system. I do not own an outstanding sound system. Most of my listening is on medium grade headphones or in my car. On those systems, there is no discernable difference between MP3s or any other recording medium. So, I listen to MP3s acquired through digital downloads. It ain't the best, but it's a damn sight better than listening to the radio.

 

[nedkelly]

From my experience Itunes are one of the few downloading ones and bandcamp that have high quality downloads unlike others that have a compressed file.

You're right

 

[BikerDude]

I have had the opportunity to hear recorded sound on incredibly great sound systems. There is a difference between audio sources when you're listening on an outstanding sound system. I do not own an outstanding sound system. Most of my listening is on medium grade headphones or in my car. On those systems, there is no discernable difference between MP3s or any other recording medium. So, I listen to MP3s acquired through digital downloads. It ain't the best, but it's a damn sight better than listening to the radio.

I do have a premium sound system in the car and actually I can't hear the difference either.
But some people can.

I do the same. I actually usually buy the CD on Amazon and then immediately download the MP3.
The CD comes later and I might take it to our camp where I still listen to CD's.
Most are in a pile in my music room/home studio.

 

[jeffnc]

I have had the opportunity to hear recorded sound on incredibly great sound systems. There is a difference between audio sources when you're listening on an outstanding sound system. I do not own an outstanding sound system. Most of my listening is on medium grade headphones or in my car. On those systems, there is no discernable difference between MP3s or any other recording medium. So, I listen to MP3s acquired through digital downloads. It ain't the best, but it's a damn sight better than listening to the radio.

That's a fair and legit point, which does actually describe the general situation. While I bemoan the lack of high res downloadable audio, I have to concede a lot of people don't care.

It's kind of a curious situation. It seems to be the exact opposite of the video content situation, on which my opinion vacillates. On the one hand, I totally get the idea that music is "viewed" (ha ha) differently than video. People tend to listen to music more on the run with crappy Apple ear buds. So what's the point? But they do love their high res video on the new TVs. But then, they do tend to watch movies on their iPhones as well, which I find basically laughable. But resolution just doesn't matter there - it's the MP3 equivalent which is more than good enough for the situation.

But I guess it boils down to 2 things. People care about video quality and they can easily tell the difference, at least on their home gear where they watch most. People don't care about audio quality and/or can't easily tell the difference, at least on the gear they listen on most (even at home, people never sit in front of 2 stereo speakers to listen to music. In fact usually they couldn't even if they wanted to - their positioning of their 2 so called "stereo" speakers is literally a joke to me.)

 

[BikerDude]

This guy does a "study" of the differences and he contends that the human ear can't hear the difference.
It's long and involved and he isolates the differences and plays just that.
Fr me it either sounds good or not. And most MP3's sound fine to me.

 

[Old Dude]

Please note, it's not that I "don't care" about audio quality. I do care. But only to a point. The difference between really bad sound and reasonably good sound quality is significant. The difference between reasonably good quality and outstanding quality isn't all that big a difference. More important, the quality of the piece of music being heard, the tune, the tone, the rhythm, and all the things that make one song different from another song are way more important that mere audio reproduction quality. I don't give a damn how great the playback quality of any sound system is, anything by Kanye West is going to sound like absolute shit. You can't polish a turd. I'll tolerate less than perfect sound quality on good songs before I'll waste time listening to shitty music on the greatest sound system in the world.

And, that goes for video as well. The best studio grade video playback couldn't make The Jersey Shore watchable. But a good story like an episode of Breaking Bad would still be a good story even played back on a cell phone.

 

[Riff Raff]

Agree with the sound difference quality being not as noticeable when it comes to CD and some downloads but there is evident quality difference between all of them and vinyl. Vinyl is the best sound quality you can get in music formats.

 

[Old Dude]

Agree with the sound difference quality being not as noticeable when it comes to CD and some downloads but there is evident quality difference between all of them and vinyl. Vinyl is the best sound quality you can get in music formats.

I'll take your word for it. I don't have a gazillion dollar sound system in an acoustically treated listening room to do my own side-by-side comparison. If you'd like to buy me one as a gift, I wouldn't turn it down.