I find this topic fascinating. Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but I don't think this topic has been thoroughly discussed.

I personally will ALWAYS prefer a hardcopy to a digital download, but I think my views are archaic to the modern view of album consumption. For me, the physical copy presents an almost symbiotic relationship between artist and consumer; one that builds a mythology behind the work in question. For others, the album is disposable (not many on this forum believe that, I'm sure) commodity meant to be consumed and disposed of.

Also, do you think that cd/vinyl stores will eventually die out?

To me, the saddest day in my personal pathetic existence will occur when the next great album will only be available in digital-download format, if that day ever comes.

Question:
Does the fact that digital downloads don't measure up yet to the quality of CD or vinyl releases stop you from purchasing music that way (assuming you aren't stealing music in the first place)

Choices:
Yes, I prefer digit downloads. It's more convenient for storage, other reasons
No, I prefer the highest quality. But one day, if the technology matches CD quality, I'd do it
No, I'll always prefer a hardcopy for the album art, lyrics, ect.

 

musicfanatic. I completely agree with your first point. I want an object to hold, to turn in my hands, that tactile sensation.....you put the relationship beautifully.

I also am firmly of the opinion that digital downloads pale next to cd sound ( I can hear the difference), and especially beside records.

Despite one incident where Wolf Parade lost about 30 seconds of one song, I'll go with digital, because there's so few occasions to use CDs that actually exist in a physical sense. CDs, furthermore, need to go through the digital meat grinder if you want them on your iPod.

I voted for the third option. I am a collector and I don't feel I really own the album until I actually have a hard copy of it-- either on vinyl or CD (sometimes both!).

That said, I have been slow to embrace mp3 technology, but it really is an amazing format. I can go for my morning run with over 9000 songs at my disposal. How fucking cool is that?

Having worked in an independent record store for several years, I can say unequivocally that the importance of the Record store is certainly on the wane, but I don't fear it dying out completely. These stores need to figure out how to compete in the age of downloadable albums, but there will always be niche market for them-- at least in the larger cities. I do think giant retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart will eventually tire of carrying CD inventories, which means the average Joe will probably cease to buy hard copies.


Good topic.

Digital downloads sound shitty compared to CD and vinyl.

Will cd/vinyl stores die out? I hope not. I think there will always be a market for the hard copy and there's already a ton of albums out there.

quote:

I voted for the third option. I am a collector and I don't feel I really own the album until I actually have a hard copy of it-- either on vinyl or CD (sometimes both!).

Absolutely agree. I own most of the stuff I really love on both CD and LP. I'm definitely a collector. I can tell the difference between sound quality in mp3 or m4a format and an actual CD or LP if the bit rate is under say 160 or so. Some records need the file space in order to maintain their integrity. A fine example of this is the new Panda Bear record, Person Pitch. I ripped it to iTunes at 192 kbps and then again at 320. The compression on the 192 kbps rip made most of the songs sound pretty fucking terrible. I dread the day it goes completely digital but I'm afraid it looks inevitable. At least at that point hopefully all files will be in a lossless format of some kind. I would always prefer to have a tangible copy to hold though. I love having the artwork and liner notes too.

third option. Music such as that from Mannheim Steamroller HAVE to be heard on vinyl. The thing is there are millions of music lovers who have never heard a real album.

Part of me would like to have a giant CD/vinyl library, especially for like...the deluxe super duper box sets and all that with the really nice packaging. But a lot of things prevent that from happening. For starters, I don't really like the idea of paying fourteen dollars every time I want an album. I see a lot of live shows, and as people download more the price of everything else goes up (tickets, nonmusical merchandise like shirts) and I'm fine with that tradeoff, really. Also, I can honestly say if/when I make music I'll encourage people to download it and rip it et al. Probably because I'll break a lot of copyright laws and sample restrictions, but it's just the thing to do I think.

Secondly, I'm just a low maintenance kinda guy, I really question every concrete thing in my life and its necessity. What I like so much about digital media is that it's abstract, and I can still tag it with the artwork and feel pretty ok about completeness. And I actually haven't listened to a real CD in a while so I guess I'm pretty oblivious to sound quality discrepancies, if there are any.

There is a definite difference in sound quality between digital media and tangible stuff depending upon the file type and bit rate. If you use lossless applications, there shouldn't be any difference in sound quality. However, when you download something from iTunes, it automatically chooses to rip it at a bit rate of 128 kbps unless you choose otherwise. When you DO choose otherwise, Apple charges you a fee of 1.99 per song instead of .99 cents. Nine times out of ten if there are a decent number of tracks (say 10 or 12 for most full lengths) you are actually paying more than you would if you just bought a copy and ripped it yourself at a higher bit rate. Now if you're downloading stuff for free that is a different story entirely. Using a filesharing program like Soulseek if you wait long enough or look hard enough you can probably find lossless or higher bit rate versions of the things you want.

Most people have trouble hearing the difference in sound quality between mp3, m4a and CD quality sound. When the files are compressed to fit in an mp3 or other lossy format most of the time some of the higher range and lower range frequencies are cut out. Some music doesn't really need those frequencies to sound right, and in fact as I stated before, most people wouldn't know the difference or even care. However if you're listening to some noise record by say Merzbow or Masonna where they use extremely piercing frequencies, the compression can eliminate those frequencies during the transfer to mp3 format. In essence you would be making a brutal and challenging recording easier to listen to by eliminating some of the tougher frequencies to handle.

any artists that i consider favourites, i have to buy the physical album for. others i just download. i don't really notice any major sonud quality issues with digital, but every speaker i own is a little blown, so everything sounds poor. i own a few LPs on vinyl, mostly must-haves like springsteen's "born to run" or dinosaur jr's "you're living all over me", but places to buy them are so few now, and i need to buy a new record player as i only have my grandmother's from god knows how many years ago. eventually, i plan on buying all of my music on vinyl when i can afford it and then also downloading it (but not paying for it a second time, obviously) so that i can listen to it on my ipod as well.

quote:

Originally posted by golden flea:
i plan on buying all of my music on vinyl when i can afford it and then also downloading it (but not paying for it a second time, obviously) so that i can listen to it on my ipod as well.

Hopefully more labels will go the Merge Records route-- I've noticed a few more labels doing it already (Yep Roc, Beggar's Group come to mind). Where if you buy the vinyl, they give you a code for a free download from their website. It only makes sense. This is what the independent record stores need to do. They need to work with the labels to ensure that every time you buy a record, you get a free download.

For me it’s not a matter of preference but of practicality. Yes I would like to own a hardcopy of a lot of the music I listen to, but from a financial and accessibility standpoint digital makes the most sense. I own some of my favorite albums in harcopy but even then I find myself listening to the digital copies of those albums on a much more frequent basis. At home I mostly listen to music from my computer and in my car I have an mp3 player so convenience is a big contributing factor as well.

If that makes me less of a true music fan than so be it, but without having my music available primarily in digital format I don’t think I would have nearly as extensive of a musical palette or as great an appreciation for the music that I listen too.

While I can tell the difference in sound quality between cd and lower bit rate compressed digital formats on the same sound system, there are other significant contributing factors to sound quality that affect the listening experience. For instance, I get a completely different feel listening to the same digital file on my car stereo than I do through my computer speakers (not so great) or through high end open/closed headphones – as to be expected.

Albeit the bit rate and file type put limitations on what one can hear given that’s the nature of compression. But I think one can almost argue that a person’s audio system has as much to do with the sound quality and listening experience as does the medium. For what it’s worth, I get a lot of my digital music from subscription based emusic in which all the files are mp3 and variable bit rate (between 180-220 kbps) as well as from Ruckus (a free service for college students with an .edu email address) which I think has the files in 128kbps mp3 format. Most of the time I have trouble hearing the difference between their respective files sound quality.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: La La Love Pixies,

quote:

Originally posted by pixiestame:
If that makes me less of a true music fan than so be it, but without having my music available primarily in digital format I don’t think I would have nearly as extensive of a musical palette or as great an appreciation for the music that I listen too.

I don't think anyone is accusing you (or anybody else) as being less of a music fan just because you prefer mp3's to hard copies. I grew up with records, then cassettes, then CDs-- now I'm learning to enjoy mp3's. I think you're right, the new technology has made it much easier for people to be exposed to much more music much more easily. And you make an excellent point about sound systems.

I definitely wasn't saying that anyone is less of a music fan based on how they choose to listen to music. This isn't a discussion about that anyway, this is a discussion about digital sound quality vs. other formats (specifically CDs) as noted by the thread topic. I definitely agree that the system you use makes a difference as well. I am not saying digital files are a bad thing. I have an iPod and use it frequently to walk around campus at school and sometimes even at home if I want to hear a majority of my record collection on shuffle instead of listening to a specific album. I was just making note that I can definitely tell a difference in sound quality most of the time and on certain albums I would always choose to listen to a hard copy.

quote:

Originally posted by Maximum Jack:

quote:

Originally posted by pixiestame:
If that makes me less of a true music fan than so be it, but without having my music available primarily in digital format I don’t think I would have nearly as extensive of a musical palette or as great an appreciation for the music that I listen too.

I don't think anyone is accusing you (or anybody else) as being less of a music fan just because you prefer mp3's to hard copies. I grew up with records, then cassettes, then CDs-- now I'm learning to enjoy mp3's. I think you're right, the new technology has made it much easier for people to be exposed to much more music much more easily. And you make an excellent point about sound systems.

I appreciate the feedback and I’ll admit that was a somewhat intentionally inflammatory and topically irrelevant statement, so I apologize for it. I’ve really only become addicted to music recently while I was at college, with most of it obtained in digital format. Consequently I was just over-reacting to what I (incorrectly) perceived as a passive invalidation of the way that I’ve come to know and enjoy music. After all I don’t think anyone could really argue (from a technical standpoint at least) that the standard lossy compression and encoding formats (mp3, aac, wma) offer better sound quality than a cd.

Thus I wouldn’t want to see the demise of the cd or vinyl for that matter, though I don’t think it would be the end of the world either. So to restate my answer to the question – no I don’t think the sacrifice in quality of digital format is noticeable enough to outweigh its benefits and change my preference to hardcopy.

Although I agree that a tiny minority of cds come with beautiful packaging, I could never argue that even the finest cover art actually adds anything to this music fan's listening experience. I have thus recently taken the step of disposing of my thousands of horrible old brittle cd covers and have them filed in sleeves.
Personally I believe that the rich, warm analogue sound of vinyl will never be topped by digital precision, so as regards a major difference in quality between hard copy and download, with a decent sound system I don't hear anything much. And to be honest I would place more importance on the original quality of performance than compression rate...

quote:

Originally posted by Marzie:
I have thus recently taken the step of disposing of my thousands of horrible old brittle cd covers and have them filed in sleeves.

I've mentioned this before, somewhere on these boards. Jewel Cases are terrible, but they are still the best way to keep your CDs scratch free. I don't care what kind of sleeves you are using, if you are actually taking the CD in and out, you will eventually compromise the plastic coating which protects the foil.

The other major pitfall of getting rid of your jewel cases is that they don't recycle very easily. Check this out, from EarthTalk:

quote:

Where can I recycle my plastic CD jewel cases?--B.H.

Environmentalists have been worried about CD jewel case disposal ever since compact discs first became popular in the 1980s. Jewel cases are made out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and has been linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and neighbors where it is manufactured. Also, the lead often added to strengthen PVC can contaminate water, soil and air around PVC manufacturing sites.

Worse yet, because it contains a variety of additives and lacks a uniform composition, PVC is far less recyclable than other plastics. Its quality degrades after only two or three "cycles." Greenpeace has identified PVC as the least recycled of the six major common plastics. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that less than one percent of total post-consumer PVC is recovered or reprocessed.

As a result, most municipal recycling centers do not accept PVC products, meaning that millions of CD jewel cases either take up room indefinitely in landfills, where they won't biodegrade, or are incinerated. And unfortunately, the burning of PVC creates airborne dioxins.

While options for recycling CD jewel cases and other PVC plastics are limited, the Sammamish, Washington-based GreenDisk company will take jewel cases for a fee of $5.95 for up to 20 pounds. GreenDisk then turns the resulting raw materials into GreenDisk-branded office supplies including, you guessed it, CD jewel cases containing at least 76 percent post-consumer waste content.

Another way to make use of old jewel cases would be for art's sake. They can be used as picture flames or to show off collections of miniature items, such as coins, stamps or dried flowers. CONTACT: GreenDisk, (800)305-DISK, www.greendisk.com.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

Great responses! It may just be my shitty cd burner, but I can tell a big difference between the CDs I convert to MP3s (all at 192kbps) and the CDs themselves.

Anyone else find that the Itune downloads (even at 128kbps) sounds much more crisp than either converted cds or other digital download sites (I'm thinking of Emusic in particular)? Not sure how that's the case. Again, it may just be my shitty emachine cd burner.

I obviously can't speak for everyone else but I cannot tell an discernable difference in sound quality from mp3 and cd formats.

I would say my music collection is 60/40 downloaded/hard copies and sometimes I forget which cds I bought and which I have the mp3's of.

I just find it hard to believe that someone could pick out which of my songs are cd and which are mp3.

I will volunteer to take the taste (hearing) test!