And yet the CD refuses to die...

[blue2blue]

Big changes in the music business, the shift to subscription and other streaming continues even as digital downloads dipped. But CD's still account for about half of international music sales.

 

Industry observer Bobby Owsinski, writing in Forbes, notes that that may not really be good news for the record biz, which has finally begun to embrace the streaming model -- but which seems to have no exist strategy for the inevitable decline/demise of the silvery, ungrooved disk -- physical sales of $7.7B still made up 51% of the total global revenue.

 

The 2013 global music industry revenue numbers are out courtesy of the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonograph Industry – an outdated name if there ever was one), and streaming is now a huge part of not only digital sales, but all music sales. According to its latest Digital Music Report, streaming and subscription services climbed 51% last year, which accounted for $1 billion, over 27% of the total digital music revenue. When downloads are taken into consideration, digital music totaled $5.87 billion in 2013, up from $5.63 billion the previous year, despite download revenues dropping 2.1%.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbyows...usic-business/

 

 

Thanks to Whitecat from the Gearslutz community for pointing out this article.

[Bucksstudent]

People still want physical copies of albums.

[Peter Doubt]

Yep.

[blue2blue]

People still want physical copies of albums.

Well, I've been an on demand stream subscriber for almost a decade now and I'm a huge fan of it.

 

Like others, when I first heard predictions that we'd someday be offered large libraries of online media, I was nonplussed. I'm the kind of guy, when my 300 most-recently played LPs were stolen back in '75, for years would pick up safety copies of albums in used bins and such. A few of the albums that were stolen I ended up with 3 or 4 replacement copies.

 

My first stream subscription was just a standby in my mind. Money was tight and I hadn't bought any new music in a while. I'd been listening to a lot of indie music on the web from electronica and club musicians (I was also doing electronica much of the time) but started tiring of that scene.

 

The offerings in those days were a bit sparse. A lot of top artists were initially held back from syndication -- from companies that paid a reasonable amount per play -- but then ended up rushing in label-herded droves into the waiting arms of Spotify, and pay rates that were often half or less what earlier stream providers had been paying label/artists.

 

But once Spotify hit, pumped enough 'considerations' into the tech press to get some ink, and the labels had had some time to get used to the idea, the selection really expanded. (Still some holdouts, of course; no Beatles except a few stray tunes. Ditto a few others. But they holdouts are mostly dinosaur bands, anyhow. Don't get me wrong, I'm old, I have lots of old faves but the world was not going to end if I don't hear "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" again. In fact, I would really, really like that. And, besides, I have all the vinyl, although it, like my 'tables, is all stored away.)

 

And I've always been a fan of mixing it up. Making 'mixes' of album tracks and singles was one of the reasons I got into tape (after the kiddie radio drama thing wore off). Beloved album sides are great -- but mostly I've always wanted to mix it up.

 

Being able to make a big jumbled mix of 10 or 20 albums for a day's play in a minute or two at the start of the day is great. And with the mostly quite-good queue management of my current service (All Access, from Google), it's easy to shuffle in new tracks or reshuffle the unplayed tracks (I used to have to delete all the unplayed tracks before reshuffling in my old service).

 

 

Still... all that said, every once in a while there's just something that never seems to be released into syndication. If I'm just looking for a single song, I'll check online sales first.

 

But if it's a full album and I'd have to be shelling out $10 anyway, I'm going to look for it in CD, where I can get the full quality content.

 

The 320 kbps online streams are good. By and large, 320 kbps streams are indistinguishable from the CD quality by even trained ears most of the time -- but, why not have a safe, physical copy for the same money. But if you can have full quality content from the CD instead of a 256 kbps mp3, why not? And my the free part of my Google Music account let's me store up to 20,000 titles in my private 'music locker.' (They match your uploads to existing files if they can, but you can upload lossless FLAC files and, if they are matched to lesser content, you can 'force' a reload using your specific file. But, of course, I only upload stuff All Access doesn't already give me access to.

 

(Nowadays, I try to buy new, since, while buying used CD's is legal and better than getting pirated music, it doesn't put any money in the artist's pocket.)

[Bucksstudent]

I support piracy. The artists are not getting as screwed over as much as the record companies, because artists don't make as much from their album as they do touring, merchandise, etc. I buy music, but a lot of people can't afford to. I can barely afford to. I don't buy CDs for over ten dollars, because ten dollars is a lot of ramen noodles and cheeseburgers. Plus, a lot of music is out of print, and imported music (I listen to mostly Japanese music currently) is expensive or being sold used for high prices.

 

For a couple of years, I mostly bought used vinyl. I only recently got back into CDs, but I don't buy them often. I'm really into ripping my favorite albums into lossless wav lately too. I don't like FLAC at all.

 

Oh, and I've never once bought an MP3 online. I always buy a physical copy. I have no interest in streaming services, either. Spotify doesn't give the artist much revenue, either. You might as well pirate it, and you have the backing of Neil Young, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jello Biafra, Lady Gaga, and tons of other professional musicians.

[WRGKMC]

I have several albums I've bought in several formats including LP's, Reel to Reel, 8 Track, Cassette, CD and downloads.

8 Tracks were the worst because the tape failed so quickly. My original LP and Cassette collections are the largest.

When I got around to Buying CD's I didn't buy many. I didn't see much reason for buying yet another copy of something

I already had. The other reason was I really don't have time or desire to listen to allot of commercial music any more.

 

After my last cover band, I gravitated to writing my own music completely which consumes most of my free time.

There are many artists that wind up this way, being driven to creating their own artwork. Once they get beyond competing

with others they begin to create art for arts sake and it doesn't matter how good it is, it becomes the passion that drives their life.

 

I'm sure the Great Masters like Mozart and Beethoven had this passion. I know they learned all the music of their contemporaries

during their training and knew who was popular during their lifetimes, but they all hit a point hit a point where they quit drinking from

the well and started filling it up instead. I've been in that mode for about 15 years now and see no reason to change. I seem to have

no end to creative ideas. It just becomes difficult sticking to one till its complete before another comes along.

 

I suppose many have this happen in many different fields from invention, to business to writing books, you name it. Those who don't

are likely waiting for it to happen, aren't inspired to do it or don't follow through when they are inspired. I suppose you do have to

hit rock bottom a few times to be motivated as well. The scars are part of the process.

 

I do purchase music on occasion. its got to be real special and it may be something unique that catches my attention. Something I

only hear a snippet off, or have no idea who the artists is. I may spend a long time finding out who the artists or only remember one

line of lyrics and go digging for the song and when I do find it, it gets purchased as part of my library.

[BushmasterM4]

Ive had a sub to Pandora for 2 years now and just started one with Spotify. Has anyone else noticed that some older music on Spotify has vinyl noise to it ? Like they have converted some of the streaming music from vinyl ? While the quality and quantity of available of music on Spotify is better, I find it interesting that some tunes seem to have been converted from vinyl. I for one have converted tons of vinyl and find it soo much better than cd conversions. CD's could disappear and I wouldnt even flinch. Long live Vinyl and R2R !! But chime in if you have noticed vinyl noise on some Spotify stuff.

[Vito Corleone]

Eventually the hardware players will disappear. As streaming music and movies and the greater use of tablet computers and smartphones continues, we'll see fewer and fewer people with the hardware to play CDs. Like turntables, CD players will become more and more of a niche item. But as long as CDs are still easily playable in cars and on desktops/laptops, we'll certainly see physical media. They are great for impulse purchases. (Heck, I still see cassettes for sale at truck stops in rural areas.)

 

 

[WRGKMC]

You really need a good Needle Cartridge and preamp to convert Vinyl to digital well.

Copying a CD to digital is about as close to 100% as you can get because it remains digital.

You aren't passing it through various analog circuits which can rob the signal of its quality and

add its own ;coloration, distortion, compression. If they had a way of getting the sound off an LP

with a laser instead of a needle in a groove, it would be a much better way of capturing all the sound.

 

Once an album has been played it does loose sound quality as the diamond needle cuts into the grooves,

plus the outside track on a non linear turntable will degrade more rapidly then the inside making one channel louder than the next.

In addition the inside tracks spin more slower than the outside tracks so an album does change fidelity depending on how the songs are laid out.

 

CD and Digital formats have their own issues but they don't suffer from those. Tape is better because it always moves at the same speed, plus it

is what they recorded and mixed on so you get the best first generation mix from them. LP's have all kinds of EQ and compression tweaks so the needle doesn't jump out of its groove.

They try to add it back in the playback process using an RIAA EQ curve but we all know playback systems are all over the spectrum in sound quality

from a Fisher Price to a vintage Mackintosh.

[BushmasterM4]

You really need a good Needle Cartridge and preamp to convert Vinyl to digital well.

Copying a CD to digital is about as close to 100% as you can get because it remains digital.

You aren't passing it through various analog circuits which can rob the signal of its quality and

add its own ;coloration, distortion, compression. If they had a way of getting the sound off an LP

with a laser instead of a needle in a groove, it would be a much better way of capturing all the sound.

 

Once an album has been played it does loose sound quality as the diamond needle cuts into the grooves,

plus the outside track on a non linear turntable will degrade more rapidly then the inside making one channel louder than the next.

In addition the inside tracks spin more slower than the outside tracks so an album does change fidelity depending on how the songs are laid out.

 

CD and Digital formats have their own issues but they don't suffer from those. Tape is better because it always moves at the same speed, plus it

is what they recorded and mixed on so you get the best first generation mix from them. LP's have all kinds of EQ and compression tweaks so the needle doesn't jump out of its groove.

They try to add it back in the playback process using an RIAA EQ curve but we all know playback systems are all over the spectrum in sound quality

from a Fisher Price to a vintage Mackintosh.

 

 

 

I agree. Ive always have been an avid audio gear collector and have a nice collection of vintage 70's stereo gear. My vinyl collection is over 10,000 records and I try to only convert mint condition LP's. Yes there are a few obscure records and old 78's that have some issues, but with some TLC and plugin magic, those can be brought back to life too. I tried a few TT's and Cart.'s till I combined a Pioneer PL518 with a AT440mla cartridge. Nice combo for classic rock. Those run through a 70's Sansui 9090DB which has a nice sounding phono stage (to my ears). I also run a 70's Sansui EQ though the preamp stage to tweak the overal sound to my taiste before it hits the DA/AD converter. Works well for me. Now for older 78's I use a Stanton T92 with a 78 stylus. I dont use the Stantons USB out, but use its phono stage through the Sansui. While these are not $1000 pieces of equipment, they work quite well and they sound better than CD's Remember CD's are 16bit I convert vinyl at 24bit and have been messing with 32bit float on the last few. But Like you mention with the variance in turntable/cart. specs its all about finding something thats pleasing to your ears. But then again CD players vary is sound too.

[BushmasterM4]

Also its nice to see in 2013 vinyl sales rose 32%. Many music/dvd stores are selling vinyl again and the space dedicated to them is growing each time i shop. Hell even Hot Topic carries vinyl

[Vito Corleone]

The AT440mla is a nice cart and not too expensive. I find most of my old LPs in condition sound virtually identical to the CDs. Some sound better. Some sound worse. So much of it depends on the mastering and a lot of it is personal taste as well.

[BushmasterM4]

The AT440mla is a nice cart and not too expensive. I find most of my old LPs in condition sound virtually identical to the CDs. Some sound better. Some sound worse. So much of it depends on the mastering and a lot of it is personal taste as well.

 

 

I just purchased UFO's Strangers in the Night on new 180 gram vinyl and while it sounds nice, its not as nice sounding as the original Chysalis pressings. Ive found new pressings hit or miss as far as quality, so I try to find mint originals.

[Vito Corleone]

Again, just depends. But new vinyl is kinda pricey and definitely not a sure thing. Spending $25 on a new LP that only MIGHT sound better than an older LP or CD isn't that much fun.

 

Hunting through old bins and finding mint LPs is fun though. And usually much more inexpensive.

 

Of course used CDs are a bargain now too though. All sorts of pawn shops selling them for a buck a piece. But finding old CDs isn't nearly as fun. There's not that romance associated with CDs that there is with LPs. (Part of the reason the album and dedicated listening is no longer in fashion, IMO, but that's probably a topic for another thread.)

[MikeRivers]

Eventually the hardware players will disappear. As streaming music and movies and the greater use of tablet computers and smartphones continues, we'll see fewer and fewer people with the hardware to play CDs.

 

How sad. As more and more people listen to music on computers, tablets, and smart phones, the less permanent music will become. You'll have a "hit" for two weeks, not six months or 10 years. And your royalties will be bupkis.

 

[elsongs]

I still buy physical media. I might buy a half-dozen albums on CD a year. Nowhere near as much as when I was in college, when I'd raid the used CD shops for Promo copies

 

I still buy CDs for a few reasons -- one, my car has a CD deck and no input for any digital players. Two, I like the "package" aspect of physical media, which includes the cover art, liner notes, etc.

I do have a digital player - an iPod - and I rip CDs to my iTunes library immediately. If there's a song that I like, I'll buy the digital version as a single. But if I happen to like that artists' other songs as well, I'll hold off on the single and buy the entire album as a CD. I've only bought one "album" in digital format, and that was only really an EP.

 

I still have my vinyl LPs from the '80s, and still have all my cassettes, but most of those cassettes are unplayable due to the magnetism wearing out. I discovered the record companies use the lowest-quality tape for their cassette album releases. I can still play my blank cassettes of albums, friend's albums and radio play when I was younger, and the fidelity of those haven't degraded nearly as much. I even have a blank tape my parents recorded of me as a baby, and that plays and sounds perfectly.

 

All in all, I think music format purchases largely reflect generational tastes -- the baby-boomers largely worship vinyl, the Gen-Xers love CDs and the millennials won't touch anything that they can't download. There's some overlap among them, but largely, that's what you got.

[elsongs]

 

How sad. As more and more people listen to music on computers, tablets, and smart phones, the less permanent music will become. You'll have a "hit" for two weeks, not six months or 10 years. And your royalties will be bupkis.

 

 

I can make a clear distinction between the music of each decade in the 20th century, from the 1900s to the 1990s. They have their distinct genres and sounds. But for some reason the music from 2000 to today still sounds like it's from the same decade. I wonder if what you said is a contributing factor.

[Vito Corleone]

How sad. As more and more people listen to music on computers' date=' tablets, and smart phones, the less permanent music will become. You'll have a "hit" for two weeks, not six months or 10 years. And your royalties will be bupkis. [/quote'] I dunno. A lot of music managed to become permanent without any sort of physical media existing beyond sheet music prior to the invention of recording. And radio and movies made big permanent impression upon people back in the days of 78s when buying records wasn't nearly the common practice it became a few decades later. Art and music, like life, will find a way it seems. My prediction (hope) is that a future disinterest in recorded music will revive people's interest in live musical performance. And, for what it's worth, I think hits are around longer these days than they used to be. I remember in the 60s, 70s and 80s it was pretty rare for a single to remain on the Billboard charts for longer than 25 weeks or so. Now there are a bunch of songs around for 40+ weeks. Not sure if that has anything at all to do with the subject at hand, but it's something I find noteworthy.

[MikeRivers]

I dunno. A lot of music managed to become permanent without any sort of physical media existing beyond sheet music prior to the invention of recording.

 

Well, few tangible things in the music business have survived longer than printed sheet music. It's still a going business, though there are a lot of lyrics and lead sheets (with unpaid royalties) available on line.

 

My prediction (hope) is that a future disinterest in recorded music will revive people's interest in live musical performance. And, for what it's worth, I think hits are around longer these days than they used to be. I remember in the 60s, 70s and 80s it was pretty rare for a single to remain on the Billboard charts for longer than 25 weeks or so. Now there are a bunch of songs around for 40+ weeks. Not sure if that has anything at all to do with the subject at hand, but it's something I find noteworthy.

 

Those that do make "the charts" can indeed hang around for the better part of a year, but there are so, so many Internet-only "hits" that are very quickly forgotten. They don't have the print, radio, and video behind them, and they don't do $150 per ticket six month tours.

 

[WRGKMC]

I predict this 3D TV thing will revive the music industry at some point. It may be back seat to

what goes on in the movies and it will take a minimum of a decade before the hardware becomes affordable

and main stay in homes. MTV did its thing in the 80's for bands. 3D will likely do the same. Surround systems

have become the replacement audio systems for Hi Fi systems of the past. Today you get music channels of different

genres of music when you buy a TV subscription. I can see the same thing for Music videos once the provider monopolies

get their act together. They could have commercial free music videos now but craps stations like MTX and VHS1 have turned them

into something else.

 

It seems the people who play the music seem to think they are as great as the artists themselves and turned the channels

into soap operas and putting way too much face tome by nobodies on those stations. You can handle the commercials to support the

stations income to pay artists royalties and overhead. I don't need some jackass interpreting what I think about the music or rewriting

history for me. Half of them weren't even born when some of those bands did those concerts.

 

I can see concerts being shot as hologram and the viewer having the ability to switch positions in the audience when viewing the band.

Instead of having some editor cut form shot to shot, let the viewer do it. If he likes the view from side stage or from in back of the drummer

without the high paced 2 second cuts from the lead singers teeth to the audience view, then send multiple tracks to the viewer's set and

let him choose which camera angle he wants to view. I guarantee you the people who do pay to watch the video will pay to watch the same

song as many times as there are camera angles.

 

The whole thing with big screens in concerts turns me off too. They can be helpful in big stadiums where you're so far away the

musicians look like ants running around on stage, but even then, it can be a big distraction from seeing how an entire band interacts on stage

throughout a song. Some bands do have a big command of the stage. A Band like the Tubes for example had to be seen live so you could see

the complete "show" Seeing them on video didn't convey half of what they were live.

 

There have been attempts to expand this however. If you ever watched the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense DVD, You can find an

alternate audio track you can select. On that track they duct the music down and the performers do their own Rocumentary in the background.

They explain different aspects of the band, the making of the film, parts of the show that were novel, like them having to build

a special road case for that over sized suit David Byrne wore or how they built the show up over time. Things that are interesting to

the listeners and gain appreciation for the band and the concert.

 

A band can create a video with many different shots and angles, each telling a different part of the story. If the shot was on one particular musician,

maybe he has breaks about his life's story. Much of this can be done now in fact. The trick is in selling it to someone willing to buy it.

 

Seeing that a good deal of our new generation really doesn't give crap about quality and are happy to listen to music on Low Fi systems,

there probably wont be a market for high quality productions. Its actually sad because they really haven't got a clue of what they are missing.

[JeffLearman]

You really need a good Needle Cartridge and preamp to convert Vinyl to digital well.

Copying a CD to digital is about as close to 100% as you can get because it remains digital.

Copying CDs is not just close, it's 100% accurate, assuming the CD doesn't have so many pits that it exceeds the error correction capabilities (which causes drop-outs, which are plainly audible).

 

I buy music on CDs, then copy them to wherever I want them. I like having the hardware backup, plus we still use a CD player in the family room (which feeds the whole house).

 

I'm pretty sure I've lost more digital media than I've lost hardcopy CDs, over the years. That's especially true now that I don't need to carry CDs with me. However, I do see a day in the not too distant future when I might dispense with the hard copy. That is, when I'm preparing to check out completely. Hopefully I have a good 30 years before then, and no doubt there'll be another format change so all my CDs will become antiques. Oh well.

 

 

[blue2blue]

I support piracy. The artists are not getting as screwed over as much as the record companies, because artists don't make as much from their album as they do touring, merchandise, etc. I buy music, but a lot of people can't afford to. I can barely afford to. I don't buy CDs for over ten dollars, because ten dollars is a lot of ramen noodles and cheeseburgers. Plus, a lot of music is out of print, and imported music (I listen to mostly Japanese music currently) is expensive or being sold used for high prices.

 

For a couple of years, I mostly bought used vinyl. I only recently got back into CDs, but I don't buy them often. I'm really into ripping my favorite albums into lossless wav lately too. I don't like FLAC at all.

 

Oh, and I've never once bought an MP3 online. I always buy a physical copy. I have no interest in streaming services, either. Spotify doesn't give the artist much revenue, either. You might as well pirate it, and you have the backing of Neil Young, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jello Biafra, Lady Gaga, and tons of other professional musicians.

Your thinking is kind of upside down. I'm not crazy about Spotify, either, but it's far from the only stream service out there and, we mus remember, for better or worse, the labels and artists on Spotify got their legally and DO receive some payment for the plays -- even advertising-driven free plays.

 

It's not a lot -- and only about half as much as most streaming services, but it's SOMETHING -- and something is better than the NOTHING that artists get when people just DL pirated music.

 

For $5-$10 a month (let's see, how many latte's is that?) one can get a subscription that will give them access in qualities as high as 320 kbps (indistinguishable from CD by most folks). But if he's really broke and can put up with an audio advert every 10 minutes or so (better than the radio!), he can use Spotify to listen on demand. And the artist will at least get something.

[blue2blue]

Ive had a sub to Pandora for 2 years now and just started one with Spotify. Has anyone else noticed that some older music on Spotify has vinyl noise to it ? Like they have converted some of the streaming music from vinyl ? While the quality and quantity of available of music on Spotify is better' date=' I find it interesting that some tunes seem to have been converted from vinyl. I for one have converted tons of vinyl and find it soo much better than cd conversions. CD's could disappear and I wouldnt even flinch. Long live Vinyl and R2R !! But chime in if you have noticed vinyl noise on some Spotify stuff.[/quote']

Welcome to the nasty little secret of the online streaming subscription world...

 

A lot of those '20 million' tracks are duplicates -- but a WORSE 'secret' is that there are a very large number of east European releases of older records that -- while still under extended copyright in the US and the EE, have 'fallen out of copyright' (not sure what the time window is, might be as little as the original 25 year period).

 

And these fly-by-night re-release labels sometimes just go down to the local used record store, buy a copy, rip it into digital and release it vig an aggregator to the streaming companies. Sometimes the rip and/or subsequent 'processing' are incredibly poor -- I've seen an album where the highest peak signal was -31 dB RMS and one track had an RMS average of -39 dB! Don't put THAT in your queue scrambled with Skrillex! I found another copy of the same album from a different re-release label that had every song totally compressed to 13.5 dB RMS. Every song -- but not just every song -- you could just grab a half minute of any song on the album and test that and ALSO get an RMS of 13.5.

 

I've also heard some utterly STUPID single-ended noise reduction applied to records where the high fidelity tape masters still exist --- but, again, some sleazy label in the second world just grabbed some vinyl and slapped so much NR on it that it sounds like it was recorded under 5 pounds of soggy gauze under a gurgling brook).

 

That said, as bad as it is to accidentally get one of these POS records into your stream queue -- imagine going out and spending $10 on the CD!

 

 

If we've been suffering the effects of the 'loudness wars' -- we're heading into an era where the effects of the 'track count wars' will have their own ugly side.

[blue2blue]

Again, just depends. But new vinyl is kinda pricey and definitely not a sure thing. Spending $25 on a new LP that only MIGHT sound better than an older LP or CD isn't that much fun.

 

Hunting through old bins and finding mint LPs is fun though. And usually much more inexpensive.

 

Of course used CDs are a bargain now too though. All sorts of pawn shops selling them for a buck a piece. But finding old CDs isn't nearly as fun. There's not that romance associated with CDs that there is with LPs. (Part of the reason the album and dedicated listening is no longer in fashion, IMO, but that's probably a topic for another thread.)

What a LOT of folks don't seem to realize that many of the vinyl records made over the last 30+ years were cut using a digital insert to provide lookahead services, the most common of which were the Neumann cutting lathes introduced in '79.

 

So, the provenance of MUCH of the 'all analog' vinyl in play is quite suspect.

 

But you can't tell folks stuff like that. They just go into denial. It's pretty funny.

 

 

Oh... going back to artist revenue... another reason I like streaming is because it mostly broke me of the habit of buying used CDs. Used CDs can be a good bargain for the listener, but in the US and (I think) most of the EE, while they put a good chunk of change in the store owner's pocket, they don't give the artist ANYTHING past whatever they got on the original sale.

 

Whereas a streaming subscription pays with every play. (More or less. The per-play payment thing is a bit of a sausage factory, but, overall, the more you're played, the more you're paid.)

[Vito Corleone]

Record labels have never been particularly concerned with fidelity. I remember buying a copy of Elvis' Golden Records back around 1983 and between the hideous "stereo effect reprocessed from mono" and lord-only-knows how many generations from the original source this LP was mastered from, the sound of the record was virtually unlistenable. So the search began for early-pressings.

 

Thankfully, the advent of CD inspired the labels to get closer to the original masters on most old recordings, but even that was for naught in many cases as remastering during the loudness-war period has resulted in some pretty atrocious sounding CDs out there as well.

 

I also remember back when companies like Mobile Fidelity and Nautilus were having some success with their "half-speed mastered" audiophile LPs (a process that is debateable as to whether it improves fidelity in and of itself...) that Columbia decided to issue their own half-speed mastered series (charging more than twice as much for an LP, of course!) but botched most of the series pretty badly by not noticing they got the EQ all wrong. Most of those LPs sound markedly worse than the standard issues. Did Columbia even actually care? It doesn't seem they did.

 

And don't even get me started on how poorly most old stuff from '78s was transferred to LP and CD. And sold as "remastered" of course, as if that means we're getting something special.

 

So these fly-by-night reissues really don't have that much going on the big boys in many ways.

 

And it also calls into question the idea of "hi-rez" digital formats. Sure, hi-rez might be nice, but hi-rez of WHAT, exactly? The history of the labels indicates they'd most likely just take whatever-copy-they-have-lying-around, dupe it 24/96 or whatever and sell it as "hi-rez".