The future of music and/or hi-fi enthusiasts

when robbo and merlin dropped by to hear my pc audio setup we spent a while flipping through my catalogue on the squeezebox's display. perhaps not as tactile as pouring 500 odd cd's all over the floor but then there was no messy tidy up either.
i still buy cd's, i've not downloaded any music. for me it's a space / convienience thing. also as i'm at home all day i don't have to break my concentration to put music on - i just set up a playlist and off it goes.
cheers


julian

 

Convienience or quality seems to be the theme here,I have all three to enjoy music on,and the one the gives me personally the most musical enjoyment and pleasure is my turntable,so vinyl it is for me,I know its not the future,but i'll take quality over convienience.

 

I dont think its actually compression or computers that people are really reacting against. If that works for some people then thats fine. I think its the worry or implication that everything will slowly degenerate down to a computer compressed and processed manufactured corporate controlled DRM locked down world of robot artists and we will have no control or choice. It has gone that way a little already and I think we all need to be careful as to how we go about listining and enjoying our music in the future. There is room for everything, its a matter of simply having the choice.

 

Totally agreed. I wouldnt want it to go too far, where you couldnt buy your own music, and were effectively controlled. Sadly, I think thats how it will go.

 

Maybe in the future we'll have little audiophile labels selling high definition remasters direct to specialist consumers over broadband?

I'm too worried about the "all that is solid melts into air" scenario. Quality does matter to the masses. Aswell as convenience, people upgrade to DVD because it looks so much better than VHS, and some of the most mainstream DVDs have amazing picture quality. They want big, high quality TVs to match too. And see how much food has improved since the 70s.

 

Convenience and quality aren't mutually exclusive.

Also, done correctly, I don't really have a problem with a DRM "pay-per-listen" type of arrangement. People find the idea offensive, some kind of invasion into their "freedom" to what they like with "their" music but it depends how you look at it. For a start with pay-per-listen on demand you'd have vastly more choice. You'd effectively have at your disposal almost every recording ever made. I have about 5-600 CDs and there are many I've only ever listened to once and will probably never listen to again. I'd bet that for most people if they had to pay £1 each time they listened to an album (or, to make it more flexible, 70p per track) it'd end up costing them less than the cost of all the CDs they've ever bought.

Why does DRM imply "robot artists"? Artists would likely make more money this way and if done correctly such a system could benefit artists. If everyone had the end-user technology then there'd be nothing to stop artists setting up their own distribution channels and cutting out the greedy record company middle man. DRM doesn't imply "control" either.

It's only because DRM and pay-per-listen ideas were first floated by the record companies that people associate them with being evil and controlling. They're part of a completely valid (and in many ways better for listeners and artists) alternative distribution method once the technology (ultra high bandwith internet) becomes available.

Michael.

 

Sorry this is off topic do you mean the higher salt and sugar levels? I suppose the avalitability of food as improved but at what cost? Is everything we eat full of chemicals such as pestisides?

Or are you talking about HIFI food? Now that has improved since the 70's!

 

I guess he was meaning that we dont really eat Dream Topping and Dripping sandwiches as much as we did back then.

 

Books are different. Even though books already exist in electronic form, reading an electronic book is a completely different experience and doesn't compare to reading a real book, not to mention that it's more tiring on the eyes.

However, whether the music I'm listening to comes off a little silver disc in my CD transport or down the wire (assuming it's the same digital resolution) makes no difference to me at all. You're still listening to the music in the same way you always would.

Similarly, book stores and libraries allow you to truly browse through books. You see something interesting, you can look at it right there. When you browse someones CD collection you have to put a CD on before you can experience it. The equivalent in book terms would be like scanning a list of titles without being able to open the actual books.

You can experience a book without any additional equipment. To experience a CD you need to play it. A CD is a facimile of a musical event like a concert. A book is the "concert". There's the fundamental difference.

Michael.

 

You are right of course, Michael. Books are completely different.

But once we accept a loss of the tactile accoutrements that accompany a CD or LP, we are much more likely to start accepting similar losses in other formats & industries.

 

so you sit there rubbing the cd / album cover whilst listening to music? interesting.
cheers


julian

 

ok at current rip off apple shop prices it's 79p a song so for an average 10 track album that's £7.90. if packaging costs are £1 (which they are not - more like 50p or less) and your average chart album from tescos is 9.99 where is the loss of value? i'd say you're making out like a bandit
if the market is there for 'tangible' stuff then it could be provided via download and then printed and a cd burned, but to me cd cases and inserts are clutter that i store in a wardrobe now.
i'd be reluctant to buy something on line unless there was some foolproof way of ensuring that some catastophic system failure at either end wouldn't wipe my collection out. i'd also be reluctant to rely on real time offsite streaming as connections are fickle things. however if there was a garantee of music always being available (such as there is with cd) then i wouldn't mind - the music is what's important to me not the packaging.
cheers


julian

 

One of the great little pleasures, that buying a tactile format such as CD or vinyl gives me, is the ability to appreciate the artwork, read the impossibly minute liner notes and gain an appreciation for the work that has gone into putting the package together.

Given the choice between a jewel-cased edition or a nice gatefold/packaged edition (that is reasonably priced ), I'd go for the better packaged variant all the time.

Julian, I can understand exactly where you are coming from with regards to storage space and the sheer simplicity of having your entire collection at the tip of your fingers, but I love having my music collection on display; it's great for my friends to have a scan through and introduces people to my tastes and the very fact that I enjoy music very much. To quote Neds Atomic Dustbin : "My childhood obsession is my record collection".

I'm seriously considering buying an Airport Express for my system so that I can wirelessly (and digitally) stream my music from my Mac. A mate of mine already has his powerbook hooked up to the hi_fi in this way and the quality of it really astounded me. He was using Apple lossless when importing. However, this, for me, is an alternative but not a preferred means of listening to my music.

I can practically see my life laid out before me in an instant and have great fun digging out old gems that take me back; I even open up the cases to see if I have the receipt stuck down the back.

Would Dark Side of the Moon have been so prolific without it's packaging ?

 

voodoo,
it's actually quite easy for friends to scroll through my music collection using the squeezebox display and remote control. in the future i imagine some form of digital packaging will become common too. imagine custom visualisers, animating images per track or other cool stuff downloaded (or on the cd if you prefer) with your music. if you want to see it turn on your tv. if you don't then leave it off. of course you can do this now but there is no 'standard' for it - things are moving this way with things like squeezaebox plugins for dispplaying lyrics and other stuff whilst the song is playing. to me this is far more interesting and exciting than a few bits of paper that get dog eared or ripped if you take them out of their case too much.
cheers


julian

 

I would say the future of music will be LP's and then open reel tape will make a comeback, because digital is not musical enough for the medium.