h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember the 1980s, when there were three viable ways of getting recorded sound [not counting radio]: phonograph records [also known as vinyl, usually 33 1/3 rpm], audiocassettes, and [starting in 19085] compact discs. I was building a substantial collection at that time, so I bought liberally in all three formats. Vinyl was cheaper than CDs, especially if it was used. Used record stores were fairly numerous in my area. Cassettes were ideal for making your own recordings. Most players had double sets of cassette players, and many also had turntables and radios. I focused on cassettes, creating about a thousand of them. I would buy other formats and record them onto blank cassettes. I would also record music from the radio.

To my great surprise, by the end of the 1980s there was such a groundswell of support for CDs that vinyl all but died. I eventually dumped almost all my vinyl and expected CDs to be the main format for the rest of my life.

Well, why not? CDs took up much less space than vinyl. They promised much greater sound, because the hissing and clicking and popping that you might get from vinyl and cassettes was absent.

According to NPR, compact discs have also been surpassed in the lassdt year or two. http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/10/01/162062347/the-cd-at-30-is-feeling-its-age

I've known about computer sound files for a long time. I've known about iPods. I've known that attention-span-challenged teens have been choosing individual songs rather than patiently listening to albums, thus depriving themselves of the chance to learn how individual songs can add up to a more sophisticated whole.

At Christmas my brother called me an "anachronism" for still wanting to own CDs. Actually, he called me that because I didn't want his old 200-CD automatic changer. He has thousands of CDs, but has converted the songs on them into computer files. So he doesn't need to have CDs automatically fed into his sound system.

The reality is that at some point I will no longer have any choice at all. If I want to buy recordings, they will only be available as sound files. This time, unlike the 1980s, no one is promising better sound. Sound Files will sound just like CDs. They will take up less space if you store them in your hard drive or flash drives, or on some remote cloud drive.

Some people just like to fiddle with things. If makes them happy, just as recording from radio or vinyl onto cassettes made me happy thirty years ago. Just like many h2G2 researchers like to add operating systems to their computers -- Unix, Foxfire, Opera, etc.

Another way in which this is different from the 1980s is that the materials and technologies used for CDs are basically the same as for the relatively robust DVD format. There were no vinyl movie discs 30 years ago. if you wanted to watch movies on your TV, you had to use videocassettes, which shared a technology with audiocassettes [both cassette formats are now long gone, of course].

But even though CDs were surpassed by computer files sales in 2011, the sales still totaled 300 million. Amazon still offers large numbers of CDs. Barnes and Noble and numerous independent book and record s stores have racks and racks of CDs for sale, though not ll of them are new. CDs promised greater longevity than vinyl, so people are happy to save money by buying used. I still hear CDs advertised on the radio.

Where is this heading? Will CD sales implode rapidly the way vinyl sales did, or will they hang on longer because the newer format offers no advantages in sound quality? Is it even possible that the trend could reverse? Some trends do reverse, just look at cigarette use during the 20th century.

"Will CD ... hang on longer because the newer format offers no advantages in sound quality? "

My prediction is: No

Advantages in sound quality is not a valid parameter. If newer formats are faster, cheaper and whatnot people will choose them. Look at what happened to recorded music and pictures in the past. MP3-files are bereaved of a lot of frequencies. A lot. People don't care. (As a matter of fact I don't care either since I can't hear much difference.)

Remember Louis Armstrong's Hot Five? We listened to old 78's of poor quality with scratches. We still do. Why? Because it isn't the scratches that matter, it's the nerve of what the guys back then were able to play!

"MP3-files are bereaved of a lot of frequencies. A lot. People don't care." [Pierce]

I didn't know that these files lacked a lot of frequencies. "People" is a large group that is not necessarily homogeneous. When recordings of yore have been rechanneled and remastered to improve the sound, record labels have issued them. I can't prove it, but my assumption is that there were *enough* people out there who wanted better sound to make the reissues profitable. Record labels keep doing this sort of thing, which leads me to think that the practice sells.

"Remember Louis Armstrong's Hot Five? We listened to old 78's of poor quality with scratches. We still do. Why? Because it isn't the scratches that matter, it's the nerve of what the guys back then were able to play!"

Thank you for mentioning Louis Armstrong. Having heard some of the old78's in my parents' collection, I can personally vouch for the poor sound. But you know what? Today's record labels don't use those scratchy of 78s for their reissues if they know what's good for their bottom line. They go back to the masters, and the results are magic. It blows my mind every time I listen to recordings that were made 70+ years ago. But then, I'm unusual, I guess.

A couple years ago I read a book about radical improvements in low-cost manufacturing in the areas of publishing and sound formats. The thrust of the book was that old paradigms of profitability based on lowest-common-denominator marketing have been relegated to the scrap heap. The so-called "left tail" has now become much longer than it once was. Things that appeal; heavily to relatively small groups can now be manufactured profitably. Customers don't have to be satisfied by watered-down stuff. They can have what they really want.

I suppose that improved MP3 files with the extra frequencies restored would address that market segment, but it also would matter in terms of keeping really high quality compact discs profitable [remember, they aren't hieously expensive to make any more] for people who want really high-quality sound and don't want to settle for what the mass of people wants.

So, you can have what you want, and I can have what I want. if we're both happy, what's wrong with that?

I want to compliment you for spotting my weakest argument and zeroing in on it, Pierce. I intended for the idea of compact discs hanging on longer than vinyl did as a possibility, not a probability. What do I know about predicting the future?

Where attitudes toward change are concerned, there are four or five different kinds of people, from what I have read. My brother is the kind of person who is eager to rush in and be the first person on his block to get whatever the latest gadgets are. I know a few people who fight against change to the bitter end. Between those extremes are several different variations.

apparently here in brit', vinyl is making a comeback ? because of sound quality on discs

Vinyls are in demand around the world because of the quality of sound. Our local manufacturer Ortofon sells pickups for vinyl record players around the world. And is doing quite well. But it is a niche and will probably never be more than that.

But as you point out, paulh, if some people are willing to pay for it and others are okay with cd's there is nothing wrong with that and everybody can live happily ever after

A very interesting argument. I can't really hear any difference between a CD and an MP3. For home use, or for background music, it is not really relevant. If you look at a graphic reproduction of the sound from both you can see a clear difference, but no one has been able to explain to me why the MP3 is worse - except that it does iron out frequencies that the human ear can hardly hear.

I think there is a strong argument for today's type of listening in favour of MP3's - you just click on a file on your laptop or computer screen and hey presto - immediate listening. With a CD you have to run along a shelf of (hopefully) alphabetically sorted boxes with your finger to find the right record, pull the box out, fiddle with that annoying jewel case mechanism, switch on the hifi, put the disc in the player and switch it on, consult with the tiny, often illegible writing (white on light blue, anyone?) on the sleeve, or box, or whatever it's called, to find the number of the track you want to listen to and press that number on the player's controls, or, in most cases, hop forward until you get to the relevant track. By which time the conversation has moved on and no one is really interested any more. So you reverse the whole procedure until the box is back in its (hopefully) correct alphabetical position on the shelf.

Having said that, I buy CD's for the booklet, and keep them on the shelf. But I convert them to MP3's and have them on my laptop and on a chip card in the car radio so that they are available to call up at will. And now I've discovered the Amazon cloud - I can listen to all the CD's I ever bought from Amazon on my phone or laptop. Including the ones I bought as presents for other people!

Vinyl will never go away, and I hope that those 70-year-old masters never do either. They are important,but they serve another purpose from the quick-fire MP3's we listen to these days.

I do the same, TC. Well, more or less anyway

I should point out that there are a number of different formats out there. Not just MP3

For instance iTunes on my iMac can record in these formats: AAC, AAIF, Apple-lossless, MP3 and WAV. Some of them can be set to different levels of sound quality. I once checked what gave me the highest quality (most available frequencies) but I forget since my phone can only play MP3's anyway.

I just checked two of my cd's. An older and a newer. Both are recorded in the AIFF-C-sound format.

The Hitchhiker Guide does not seem to have anything to say about this (yet) but here is what I found in the other place which must not be mentioned:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Interchange_File_Format

"With a CD you have to run along a shelf of (hopefully) alphabetically sorted boxes with your finger to find the right record, pull the box out, fiddle with that annoying jewel case mechanism, switch on the hifi, put the disc in the player and switch it on, consult with the tiny, often illegible writing (white on light blue, anyone?) on the sleeve, or box, or whatever it's called, to find the number of the track you want to listen to and press that number on the player's controls, or, in most cases, hop forward until you get to the relevant track." [TC]

I'm not interested in individual tracks. I want to hear the whole recording, which might have 30 tracks or more. I don't keep *anything* in strict order, alphabetical or otherwise. I deliberately scramble the order so nothing will be remotely like the preceding recording. I leave my Bose stereo switched on. Getting the CD out of the jewel box is not a hassle. I keep a pile of CDs in front of the player and use the one on top. It takes maybe 15 seconds from the time I pick the box up until I hear it start to play. I don't need to change CDs again for 50 or 60 minutes or so. I don't relish the idea of clicking on each of the 30 tracks in order to hear them in proper order. *That* would be truly cumbersome, though hopefully there would be a way of avoiding it.

I hear six to twelve CDs a day, encompassing the instrumental and vocal and classical and popular music of four centuries. Nothing is left out. I hear it all. Wait, I don't have any Zydeco. There's only one collection of Rap hits. Well, nobody's perfect.

Vinyl continued its comeback in 2012 and 2013. The people who refused to dump their phonograph records in 1990 and beyond now seem vindicated. Why don't people just choose a format that they enjoy and just stick with it? Why does life have to be treated like a horse race? One format is declared dead even though it sells hundreds of millions of units in a given year, while another format sells a tiny fraction of that, but is hailed as an up and comer?

I still have some vinyl. I keep it because certain music was never transferred over to compact disc. Ironically, it would be more versatile if I could convert it to digital computer files, as I no longer have a turntable.

I kept all my vinyls and audio casettes and will every once in a while play them again - just because I can

I have two turntables left. One has a USB-portal, but I can actually use both to turn my vinyls into any format I want and record them onto my hard drive

One reason is I have vinyls and audio casettes I most likely would never be able to obtain again as cd's - or in any other format for that matter.

I believe I'ye told you this before, paulh: It is one of the goals I have set myself to convert everything I have in order to be able to store it on several hard drives for posterity.

I remember your telling me about it, Pierce. I thought you already had converted everything. What I don't understand is how you would do it. How would you connect a turntable to a computer? Or would you use one of those all-in-one units that has a turntable, a couple of tape players, and a compact disc player/recorder?

The recording industry likes to stir things up every thirty years or so and encourage people to buy things they already had in new formats. I got stuck buying CDs of things I had on vinyl or cassette. Now they're pushing some other format on me. I'm wondering if I should stockpile CD players just in case they disappear.

Turntables which you connect to the computer and convert your records were all the rage here a couple of years back and the prices plummeted as demand and supply increased. We bought one, too, as our old turntable had never really worked properly. I have converted one vinyl LP to mp3 with it so far, mainly for lack of time, and mainly because I was mixing it with songs from CD's which somehow, were much louder in the mp3 format. And I mean considerably louder, so that if I had tried to balance them out, the LP song would have been so distorted, it would have ruined it.

I also have a gadget for converting cassettes to digital, but it's still in its box! I shall no doubt use it sooner or later, if only to convert all the kiddies' cassettes we had when my boys were little in the early 80s, for the use of my pending grandchild, who, I have been promised, will have a bilingual upbringing.

Here's a review of some of those turntables I found - with prices in $$

http://vinyl-converter-turntable-review.toptenreviews.com/

Thanks, TC.

That leaves me nothing to add, so thanks from me as well, TC

bose radio's and speakers = very expensive, but they say sound quality is 110%. Apparently it's done like the inside a seashell type thing ?

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41378069/ns/technology_and_science-science/
something like this

I clicked on the link Prof gave, and got this:

"We cannot find the page you requested.
Error 404"