Pros & Cons of buying MP3’s vs. CD’s

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Lawrence · #16 Post by **Lawrence** » Wed May 18, 2005 6:31 pm

CafeSavoy wrote:
Lawrence wrote: Although I'm starting to bend and realize how useful MP3s can be, especially for organizing a huge collection so that it all is readily available at your fingertips instead of hidden away in giant binders or on massive shelves, MP3s don't measure up in terms of sound quality. Much better to have the original source.
Have you looked at Ogg as an alternative to mp3s or at some of the lossless formats?

Not yet. Compatibility with my (and other MP3) players is too important. That's somewhat similar to why I stopped using minidiscs: I could only play them on my own players. Thus, for instance, I had to carry a player AND my minidiscs if I ever wanted to DJ off them. I don't want to end up spending hundreds of hours ripping music into a format that will possibly become obsolete in a few years.

MP3s have reached that threshold of acceptance that they probably will always be playable during my lifetime no matter what new technology comes around. Like records (players are still being manufactured), and unlike 8-track tapes (no players being manufactured).

Lawrence · #17 Post by **Lawrence** » Wed May 18, 2005 6:33 pm

julius wrote:I want the best source possible too: live music.
heh heh heh.

Yes, but Basie and Ellington are not "live" anymore, no less available to play at my exclusive discretion at any time, any where, with a push of a button.

Campus Five · #18 Post by **Campus Five** » Wed May 18, 2005 11:17 pm

This doesn't yet apply to lots of CD's but I'm sure it will become more a trend: I juts bought the new NIN CD, and it doesn't come with liner notes. Instead, it just has a link to the NIN website for a pdf of liner notes/lyrics/credits. I'll bet that as mp3 sales grow, there will be an effort to give mp3 buyers some access to liner notes /packaging etc.

GemZombie · #19 Post by **GemZombie** » Wed May 18, 2005 11:32 pm

Campus Five wrote:This doesn't yet apply to lots of CD's but I'm sure it will become more a trend: I juts bought the new NIN CD, and it doesn't come with liner notes. Instead, it just has a link to the NIN website for a pdf of liner notes/lyrics/credits. I'll bet that as mp3 sales grow, there will be an effort to give mp3 buyers some access to liner notes /packaging etc.

Candy picked up this cd,... actually it's a dual DVD-Audio/CD (each on one side). I was hoping the DVD-audio side would contain lyrics as well, but no such luck. I really think that's the way they should go for discs, but I agree that digital formats will probably necessitate websites for liner notes and such.

Toon Town Dave · #20 Post by **Toon Town Dave** » Thu May 19, 2005 12:04 am

If there are no liner notes, only the disc then it kind of takes any value-add away from hard media. An all electronic format would certainly cut a huge amount out of the manufacture and distribution costs, it'd be stupid not to go this way, being able to cut the incremental cost from tens of cents to a fraction of a cent would help the bottom line and help pay for the lawyers to deal with piracy war.

Perhaps with a DVD format that allows for greater density, the liner notes could go to a rich format on the media. It would be nice to click on the name of a song being described as I read through the narrative and listen to that the author is referring to.

JohnDyer · #21 Post by **JohnDyer** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:37 pm

Regarding lack of liner notes on downloadable music, maybe labels will just add all of the info to some tag(s) in the digital format. Your player could pull up all of the tags automatically or keep them hidden unless you wanted to know all of the details. For a particular song, being able to see who was playing, the record date and place, vocalists etc in the digital music format of your choice would be pretty cool. Granted it would add size to each song - but probably not much compared to the audio content.