Jace

now I don't cd's being phased anytime real soon, the digital way it taking over, and fast....and i think in the next few years we are going to see more and more music stores doing exatly what is happening with this one...and I would not be suprised if we start seeing kiosks in malls and shopping centers that you plug up your mp3 player to and buy songs

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THREE of Australia's leading music stores will shift away from CDs towards digital retailing, in plans forged by Australia's most powerful music retailing boss.

Brett Blundy, the director of Brazin - the company that runs HMV, Sanity and Virgin record stores in Australia - has indicated digital technology unveiled for his Sanity stores will eventually be available in all his other major retail chains.

"That's the plan," said Mr Blundy. "It's very exciting."

The reclusive retail boss, who rarely speaks about his domination of the music industry, appeared at a Sanity launch last week to unveil the company's new Fast Tracks Kiosks, which allow customers to buy single tracks for download on either CDs or MP3 players.

It's the first time music customers will be able to select and download individual tracks and choose the format on which they buy it. Some customers may choose to make a compilation CD, others can plug their MP3 players into the machine and download songs directly, removing the need to use a home computer.

Fast Tracks Kiosks - which contain about 100,000 tracks for download per machine - will also be introduced in all of Brazin's regional stores.

"We've basically said that wherever there's a Sanity, HMV or Virgin store we'll have at least four machines in them - the smaller stores may have two - but that's within the next 12 months," said Greg Milne, CEO of Brazin.

As part of its digital revolution, Sanity will also sell mobile phone ring tones over the counter, making it the first "bricks and mortar" store in the world to do so. The service is also likely to be expanded to HMV and Virgin stores.

Mr Milne said while the CD was not dead yet, customer awareness of digital music is growing, and in a few years the CD may be almost irrelevant.

"As customers start to update their hardware, when they don't have a CD player in their home, and want everything on a memory stick or in digitised format, we'll be able to accommodate that," he said. "It's really a transitional thing at the moment."

Mr Milne acknowledged that many music fans might not be aware Brazin operates so-called "rival" record stores including HMV, Virgin and Sanity. "We own them all," said Mr Milne. "If we didn't think it was a good idea, we wouldn't have done it."

But he said many music fans would benefit from the retail shift towards new technologies.

CV of the CD



 Introduced in 1984, compact discs boosted an industry that was considered to be static.

 By 1994 CDs were easily out-selling vinyl albums: 25 million CD sales in Australia compared with 28,000 albums.

 By 2004 Australian CD sales totalled 48 million.

 The introduction of the Apple iPod in 2004 allowed downloading of music from the internet and CDs on to a portable MP3 player. CD prices were reduced in an attempt to keep customers buying music from record stores.

 In the first half of 2005, music sales declined 7 per cent as MP3 players took hold.


http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...151850645.html

BusterBunny

sounds legit except for the fact that the major companies were sposed to stop making vhs and audio tapes 10 years ago due to cd's...cd's will not leave us anytime soon they will just be used by lower income foolios like me

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xlogger

Point being? This is expected, no?

Vinyl > Cassette > CD > Mp3 > Something elce.

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RawAlex

Truth is that in the long run, anything that can be delivered in a digital format will be preferable to a "box" product. Eliminating the reproduction costs, the shipping costs, and the costs of maintaining actual inventory in these stores has got to be a smash hit to the bottom line.

However, I think it is only a stop gap measure before music stores become completely out of date and sink into the sunset. Music distribution is the leading (and bleeding) edge of digital delivery, and it won't be long before those stores are all but useless to the average consumer.

Even crap "low speed" DSL is enough to push the music stores off the map.

Alex

RawAlex

Oh yeah... CDs per se might stay around, but only in the "burned yourself" type. Cost of inventory and production on finished product will do them in.

Alex

infecto

Thats a negative.

Mp3 honestly sucks other then using it with portable media and even then its not the best. Only when stores will offer lossless music formats digitally will the cd be pronounced dead. I am curious to know if this new service even offers the music in a lossless form when getting singles on your cd. If not its a waste of money in my opinion.

woj

bullshit, just because you downloaded some low quality version encoded by an amateur doesn't mean all mp3s suck. Properly encoded mp3s at 192+ kbit/sec rates are indistinguishable from original.

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infecto

I am sorry you have shitty sound equipment. You are wrong my friend, even mp3s encoded at 192 have a noticeable difference from the orginal. Also think about it. Any lossy format is never the exact orginal and never will be. Why pay the same amount for something that is less.

Jace

most services of this type that I have been using online offer 320kbps mp3, and also Lossless FLAC...I never even use the FLAC, just because the 320kbps mp3 is perfect...and this is for broadcast too

infecto

I am not dissing mp3, it serves its job but for any audio phile lossless is the way to go. If your going to drop a several grand or more on your sound system why ruin it with mp3s? It just doesn't make sense to me. And yes 320 mp3 rips sound very close to the orginal but they are not the orginal and you will be able to notice small differences here and there.

Btw what kind of broadcast?

Jace

wow, you must have a killer vinyl collection, cause vinyl is superior to cd

chadglni

Yeah that quarter each in production costs is really putting a kink in their wallets.

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infecto

I don't see where your going. That is all up to taste there. One can argue till there blue about vinyl music from the past and how it doesnt sound right on cd. I am talking about music in the last 15yrs. Its just a given fact that lossless formats are better then mp3 lol.

chadglni

It's amazing I know, but the rest of the world isn't comprised of geeks that spend more than .0001 second comparing music files to see which sounds better when you strain your ears. In short, nobody gives a fuck.

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infecto

Wow if nobody gave a fuck I don't know where the audio industry would be today. Go upstairs to dinner with your mommy.

chadglni

Nobody gives a fuck and if you'd open your eyes you'd see where the audio industry is today.... exactly where the fuck you're bitching about. Digital music is what everyone wants, hell I haven't bought a CD in 5 years but I listen to music daily. Millions of people like me, a few idiots like you. We win.

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2HousePlague

That's true. Remember when CD's first came out, the sound quality improvement dominated the marketing. That's because people were comparing to LPs and cassettes. This forced an awareness on the technological details into the consumer's mind, which the marketers of CD players and "premium sound" CDs were happy to capitalize. At one point, you even had sampling rates and such displayed as part of the important details in newspaper ads. Remember that?! But now that digital is a foregone conclusion, and convenience has become the dominant product attribute for most purchasers, the sound quality minimum has *room* to seek a new level --

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Manowar

I still buy CDs all the time

BusterBunny

well with all these kudos im gonna hafta toss out my 8-track and hook up a $500 ipod...

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infecto

Actually I win. I only stated my opinion on listening on my own equipment. And plainly said lossless is better then any lossy format. All opinion with some fact. If you want awesome compression and don't mind the decreased output lossy is the way to go. If your like me you just go with lossless. I don't know why your getting so worked up over this but then again some people never grow up.

BlackCrayon

i think people like mp3's because they are mostly free. when i buy a cd i buy it for the artwork, the complete piece. i wouldn't pay to download mp3s.

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biftek

i can see this taking off in huge numbers , due to the huge uptake of portable mp3 players , alot of ppl don't like buying offline due to the security risks , so buying from a store is a bit more secure

can see video libaries going the same way soon , where you head down with your thumb drive and dump a movie onto the thumb drive, the only thing i see with this is that they movie would need some dmca on it , to kill the movie after X days


while mp3's are pretty crappy format when there is better alternatives out ther , at the the end of the days it's about marketing , records are better then cd's , beta is better then vhs , crt is better then plasma .. for the general user they wont tell the difference between a mp3 and a cd , not when the general consumer just has a crappy bookshelf all in one stereo system or running there ipod with the standard ear buds

Furious_Male

In a few years kids will be asking "What is a CD". Just like most don't know what an 8 track is.

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2HousePlague

Werd 678.

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Tat2Jr

Yes.... on my $5k car stereo I DO hear a difference in the depth of the bass between the CD version, and the alt-preset-extreme VBR MP3 of the same song, but out of convenience I only carry around my MP3 CDs in the car. I do agree with Infecto that there IS a difference in sound quality on high end systems, but also agree with everyone else that lossy is the way of the present and future. There will always be SACD type situations for the high end guys.

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GatorB

Well wal-mart is no longer carrying VHS tapes. Any they got are ones already in stock.

Anyways digital downloads will never take over CDS as long as companies involved keeping being uncooperative with each other. You know 79 cents or 99 cents for a song you really like is cheap, but not if you have to buy 3 or 4 different versions of it to play in your various different kinds of players. The great thing about vinyl or cassettes is that they worked on ALL record players or cassette players. CDs usually do to though at the beginning I think that was an issue.

KRL

The future is all digital and any end product mfr'd on site on demand.

Biggest problem for the record labels in terms of distribution is that music stores are closing up left and right. That leaves them with the notoriously price cutting Wal-Marts and chains to deal with where they'll have zero bargaining power with the merchandise buyers.

Kodak is pretty much getting out of the 35mm film mfg biz. Who would have ever thought that day would come?

Things change and faster than ever in the 21st century.

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RawAlex

The quarter each to produce it plus the transport to your local music store... the time, the management of inventory... yeah, all of that does put a kink in their wallets.

Average music store has maybe 10,000 titles, anywhere from 2 to 10 copies each. They have to maintain them, sort them, stock them, re-order them, and generally keep the inventory on hand.

A "you burn it" store only has to have a computer with high end MP3s, a way to select them, and a pile of blank disks. New songs are delivered digitally to the store (little or no shipping cost) and the entire back catalog can still be accessed without issue. Set up a store with 20 or 30 listening areas / burners and away you go.

It changes everything in the music business, the same way Itunes has already started to gut regular music stores.

Alex

tony286

I think this is singles coming back, no one wants to buy a whole cd where 90% of it is crap. When I was a kid we rarely bought albums we bought 45's

minusonebit

I think recording companies are pricing themselves out of the market unless they pull thier heads out of thier asses real soon and that they AND thier CDs will go the way of vinyl. Artists have access to alot more self-publishing tools than they used to. Couple this with a public that no longer is willing to pay the cost of a CD in numbers sufficent to maintain the current status quo. Recording companies will either need to cut costs drastically or find that the public and artists will both cut them out of the deal.

GatorB

Everyone 27 and under is saying "What is a 45"?

SilverTab

yeah same here..I want the fucking original CD LOL...this sucks...I hate paying for mp3 (even though I do it sometimes)... I want the god damn booklet

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