Are Music CDs Dying? Best Buy Stops Selling CDs (complex.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Complex magazine: The future of physical music isn't looking good. According to Billboard, consumer electronics company Best Buy will no longer carry physical CDs and Target may be following suit in the near future. Best Buy notified music suppliers that they will cease selling CDs at stores beginning July 1. The move is sure to hurt the already declining sales of CDs as consumers are switching to streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal in large numbers. CD sales have already dropped by a sizable 18.5 percent in the past year, Billboard reports.
Billboard also reports Target has given an "ultimatum" to music and video suppliers. "Currently, Target takes the inventory risk by agreeing to pay for any goods it is shipped within 60 days, and must pay to ship back unsold CDs for credit... Target has demanded to music suppliers that it wants CDs to be sold on what amounts to a consignment basis..."

"If the majors don't play ball and give in to the new sale terms, it could considerably hasten the phase down of the CD format."

Comments

Re:Last DRM free media

[TheRaven64]

Huh? iTunes and Amazon have been selling DRM-free MP3 and MPEG-4 AAC downloads for about 10 years now. The music industry was fairly quick to realise that DRM gives control to distributors at the expense of producers. The TV and movie industry is a lot slower.

Re:Last DRM free media

[DontBeAMoran]

There's no DRM on the music* files sold in the iTunes Store.

* videos are another story.

Re: Last DRM free media

[Anonymous Coward]

Compact Disc specification does not include DRM. Even Philips said copy protected CDs are not CDs.

Re: Last DRM free media

[hairyfeet]

Sigh...do I REALLY need to provide the actual A/B tests that were done when Pono Player (wow that was some snake oil huh?) came out when they put 320k MP3 ripped from CDs against the 24bit masters in FLAC and found those "ears that can tell the difference" couldn't tell shit from shineola? It got a ton of press thanks to Neil Young making out CDs and MP3s to be shit, look it up.

At least with tubes versus solid state there is actual science there, tubes naturally accentuate even order harmonics and add a bit of organic compression to certain frequencies with a breakup that follows a smooth curve which is difficult for a solid state amp to replicate (this is why bass players like myself have no issues with solid state, our signal need to stay clean and thus the same effects the tube has on guitars produces mostly unwanted affecting of the signal on bass) but as we saw with Pono Player there are limits to human hearing that adding more fidelity simply will not change.

BTW if you wonder why if this is the case that studios record in much higher fidelity than what you get on CDs? I have spent a lot of time in studios and can answer that, headroom. When you are recording an instrument its extremely rare these days that the signal is gonna go straight from the recording to master without alteration, you need that extra headroom for effects and equalization so that you have more room to experiment before clipping. If one puts some serious thought into everything from mike placement to effects before one hits record? Its quite possible to get VERY good recordings using only 16bit CD audio quality, just look up demos of the Tascam and Zoom portastudios on YouTube or check out the low fi movement and we have certainly seen many artists create timeless recordings using equipment that any audiophile would consider absolute garbage.

Many think CDs sound like shit today NOT because of the format but because of the studios pushing the loudness war max compression, but go to a show where indie artists sell their own CDs and you'll find some really awesome sounding CDs because they are not slamming compressors on the entire mix. its not the format, its how its being misused.