What is Happening to the Audio CD?

At first it was vinyl, then cassette, and now is the CD just fading away? According to SoundScan as reported on CNN.com, CDs have gone from accounting for 90% of album sales in 2007 to 79% in 2009 and the trend looks to be continuing.

This isn't breaking news by any means. Anyone 35 and younger more than likely owns more digital songs than CDs. But why? CDs are something physical that you can hold onto. You can enjoy the album cover art, the credits, and sometimes even read through the lyrics of your favorite songs. In fact, the CD even sounds better, the bit rate for CDs is around 1,1411 kbit/s and the highest MP3 bit rate is at around 320 kbit/s. Yet still, the digital format is speeding ahead and leaving the physical CD format in the dust, and there are a few reasons why.

We are now in a digital "I need it now" era where internet is king. When we want music, we get it now from the internet and driving to a store to get a CD has become a hassle, an annoyance.

Another factor is the age of the consumers, no doubt there's a correlation with buying CDs and age. Why should the younger generation buy CDs? It's not what they've grown up with. Digital media and audio including iTunes are what they know. It doesn't matter that the MP3 is lower quality than a CD. The difference in sound isn't big enough. In fact, without the right equipment, the CD and MP3 can sound the same. Plus, for those who do want a better sound, there's the lossless and AIFF formats which are becoming the norm and don't lose any quality.

The bottom line is, and the music industry has already figured this out, is that the CD is going the way of the cassette and artists and labels need to be ahead of the curve with implementing digital media. Online distribution is a must. It's always best to stay ahead then fall behind.

I don't see CDs just vanishing and never hearing of them again, but it's clear they're on their way out. As far as the future, there's no doubt with technology getting better every day there will come a time when a new audio format (the current lossless format or something better) takes over and we'll say goodbye to MP3s.

Copyright 2010 Dan Rozak