SG Broadband Community

Record Labels Say CD Sales Drop 7 Percent, Blame Web

My favorite line here: Potter remained unconvinced. "I'd like to introduce the recording industry to something called bottled water," he said, referring to an example of successful retail items that are also easily available for free.

"The point is if there were a high quality product that was affordable and available across multiple services, they would be able to defeat the free services," he said.

Wake up RIAA!

Waaah!

Water ain't free.....my bill must be optional then...yeah thats it.

RIAA needs to hire some smart young guys to figure out that they ARE NOT threatned my mp3's. Geez.

They just don't seem to get it, do they?

nope.....they are diging themselves in a hole......

Originally posted by Indy
They just don't seem to get it, do they?

No they don't. I have purchased MORE cd's due to filesharing than I would normally have done. I can test the waters and know what I'm about to get. My local cd shop(Sounds Familiar) will open cd's and let ya listen, but its not like I waltz up to the counter with 15 cds and expect to listen to em all ya know.

Besides, mp3's are an inferior product. The bitrate of most ya find is not on par with a wav file(320 encoding being an exception). Bottled water is not a good analogy really. Tap-water is fine, it gets the job done. Whereas bottled water is PREMIUM, the good stuff as it were. I'd be willing to pay 4 bucks for a 320 encoded album, but now the normal 12 bucks they fetch. Now I'd be willing to pay 10-12 for full blown MASTER digital recordings of stuff.

I recently dropped some major dough on quality stereo stuff. I can tell a HUGE difference in 128 bitrate versus a pure PCM digital stream from optical cable. I really don't listen to mp3's much anymore, the quality makes me wince at times.

Originally posted by brembo
Water ain't free.....my bill must be optional then...yeah thats it.

True, but then nothing's free. Even the 'free' water you get in the restaurant is not really free. Nor is the radio tunes you listen to in the car. Even though we may not be directly billed for these items, like network TV, we still pay for them when we buy products that are advertised, etc.

Heck, even getting your oven fixed in your apartment isn't 'free.' Nor is that 'free' cable tv. Nope, we all pay for it.

Originally posted by brembo
Besides, mp3's are an inferior product. I'd be willing to pay 4 bucks for a 320 encoded album, but now the normal 12 bucks they fetch. Now I'd be willing to pay 10-12 for full blown MASTER digital recordings of stuff.

That is so, so, so true and I couldn't agree more. Even on a car stereo the difference is huge between a full recording and an mp3.

The RIAA needs to get a grip with the fact that their prices are just way out of line and the consumer is tired of paying their horribly inflated prices.

The average CD sells for what, about $14-$15 or so? With the low being $10.99 and the high being $16.99 or so... We're not talking MSRP list prices here either, but what you can buy them for in the store. And that's for about 50 minutes of music on the average and 30 minutes blank space.

Now look at DVD's. Ton's of quantity. Full run movie. Loads of features and many times music videos, etc, etc, etc. Top notch quality filled DVD and anywhere from 2-5 hours of entertainment or more. Average price? About $16 or so, with the low being $9.99 and the high being $25 or so.

Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out boys and girls. It's simple math and not in the least bit fuzzy. We are simply not getting our money's worth today on music CD's and when we do not get our money's worth, we quit buying it. Pretty simple economics.

The RIAA is like a little kid who owned the neighborhood and everyone wanted to play with them cause they had the coolest toys on the block and they shared and everyone was happy.

Well, then the other kids started getting their own cool toys and didn't play with the RIAA as much as before. So, the RIAA sat in a corner and cried and cried. And rather than get new toys that are as cool, or cooler than the other kinds, they still sit there crying with their old toys wondering why no one plays with them anymore and now they're tattle-telling to all the parents how their kids aren't playing fair anymore and they should take away their kids' cool new toys and force them to play with the RIAA's old, ancient toys.

Ain't gonna happen, RIAA. We're much more selective on what we buy now because a lot of what is out there is crap. Half-empty CD's with one or two really good songs on a very expensive CD. We're not playing this game anymore. We're no longer going to spend $15 and get one to two songs that we really want.

It's time to grow up and get into the 21st century and quit crying about coulda-woulda-shoulda's and do something! Give us something cool and new and we'll freaking buy it! Look at all the record sales with DVD's and learn something. We want value for our very hard-earned dollars and we WILL NOT throw them to a whining organization that eludes that all consumers are stealing what belongs to them.

Smell the coffee. It's burning...

those porn magazines you get outside redneck BBQ shacks are free.

That's AWESOME, Ghost!!!

i bet the RIAA would love that one

Originally posted by ghost

When you use an IMAC you're promoting communism.

Originally posted by black crowes


When you use an IMAC you're promoting communism.

Heh, heh.

What is the bitrate of a retail CD?

I know most mp3s are 128kbps.

Originally posted by jumpinduo
What is the bitrate of a retail CD?

I know most mp3s are 128kbps.

Look at the size of a 5 min song in .wav format.....60-80 megs.
Mp3 @ 128k, same song.....4-5 megs. I don't know if you can even apply a "bitrate" to a .wav file. Most CD's are 44khz, Super Audio cd's(SACD) are 96khz(I think), as are some DVD music formats.

I agree that 128kbit/sec mp3's suck, however if you DL the same song in 192 Kb/sec you will hear a big difference(of course depending on the song's tonality and complexity some songs that have just a drum beat and a person singing can pull it off at 128Kb/sec) I can not tell much of a difference between a 192Kb/sec mp3 and a song in wav format or on a cd(subtle differences in cymbal crashes). The human ear can only hear so many frequencies up to 22Khz? (not sure) So IMHO Super audio cd (SACD) and things of the such are just a bunch of bull Manarchy to get people to buy buy buy. There are so many frequencies, beyond the range of the human ear, being recorded on them that I could not even hear them using my grandma's hearing aids turned all the way up

Thanks,
Mike

Originally posted by MIKEJ@COMCAST
I agree that 128kbit/sec mp3's suck, however if you DL the same song in 192 Kb/sec you will hear a big difference(of course depending on the song's tonality and complexity some songs that have just a drum beat and a person singing can pull it off at 128Kb/sec) I can not tell much of a difference between a 192Kb/sec mp3 and a song in wav format or on a cd(subtle differences in cymbal crashes). The human ear can only hear so many frequencies up to 22Khz? (not sure) So IMHO Super audio cd (SACD) and things of the such are just a bunch of bull Manarchy to get people to buy buy buy. There are so many frequencies, beyond the range of the human ear, being recorded on them that I could not even hear them using my grandma's hearing aids turned all the way up

Thanks,
Mike

Ahhh but ya can discern difference. The "bitrate" is not just the high and low end of the spectrum. The "filler" is what the mp3 is ripping out. That is a great deal of the midrange. Mids are important, simply because its what our ears are tuned too. MP3's sound hollow and dead to me, fine for background listening, but when I want to really enjoy some tunes, its gotta have all its bits in place...I.E. non-compressed. Highs in mp3's sizzle, the mids are chesty, and the lows are boomy....can't crank em up when yer really digging a song.

Before ya say that SACD is a bunch of hooey, listen to something recorded really well on some good monitor type speakers, the difference is downright scary.

CD quality is 320

i only bought like 3 cd's in my life.. all other cd's are generally mixes and such