Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat EMI sold to Sony/Universal = Good News ?

<[NotAllowedPleaseUseUrlTagAndFullUrl][NotAllowedPleaseUseUrlTagAndFullUrl]EmiSold


Emi have made some strange decisions in recent years paying for remastering then only releasing Lossy versions ( e.g.. Bowie , Deep Purple ) so it will be interesting to see if this turns out to be good news for the consumer .

Sony recently admitted that they lose money on every tv they make so they obviously believe that there is money to be made from the Emi back catalogue .

Time to start canvassing for your own personal favorites

~M~

I guess we will see.........especially if the Rumour linked to below turns out to be true.........

Music Labels in Secret Plot to Kill off CD's??

Wow! No CD�s

Thanks for the link Ronnie.

It would be interesting if there was a pole to see who buys �new� CD�s (I don�t know how to do it!)

I know I sort of asked regarding my SB Touch and some said they buy second-hand CD�s. This is all well and good but it doesn�t help CD sales and shops like HMV. This and VAT in the Uk is the end of the CD.

Given how poorly EMI have managed their back-catalog, I'd view the sale as potentially good news. It may ultimately make no difference, but I doubt the new owners could do worse.

BTW, I've seen a handful of these 'no more CDs after 2012' articles, and they all seem to originate from a single source - but I am unable to assess what that source is and whether it is credible.

I must confess, when I first read it my reaction was: PREPOSTEROUS. While CDs are clearly in decline in favor of downloads, there is still an enormous business to be had in physical media, and nobody in their right mind would abandon it (there are lots of folks who don't do downloads woho would be disenfrachised). But then it occurred to me that the music business is in really bad shape, and that something dramatic needs to be done to get things back on track ... and this would be dramatic.

If I was a betting man, I'd go with my initial reaction, and that there are some years left in the old girl .... but I suppose we'll know soon enough.

Simon

Given also that they the killed vinyl off some 30 years ago and its still with us and Sony have been looking to replace the CD cash-cow revenue for years its probably wishful thinking on their part .

However , nowadays , kids are not as hung up on albums and are quite willing to just purchase favorite tracks and seem to be either unaware or not bothered about the quality of what they are buying .

Emi , like Warner's have already paid for numerous remastering projects which were either never released or only made available in lesser formats .

~M~

And the grown ups that actually have money want to buy CDs...

+1

Sorry if that's too old hat. When/if I buy my F80/M80/C12 I'll spin discs, listen to radio and put it in the car to take on holiday!

people who buy CD's :

1) audiophiles, hitchhikers (i.e. us)

2) people who prefer to buy used, at a discount, or like esoteric albums which are out of print and no longer available new ( I just bought Fleetwood Mac's Tusk used, oddly out of print, huge in the late 70's on FM radio in the U.S.)

3) older people that don't use iPods and iPads and still prefer CD's to computer media

4) people that prefer to collect physical objects (I admit to preferring to hoard CD's to amorphous data files on a file server)

I don't think these groups of people, plus others I haven't thought of, add up to enough to make it worthwhile for the labels to continue to press CD's. I normally buy my new and used CD's through Amazon, I hope that part of the rumor is true.

When CD's are mostly not made, i expect Amazon/Apple to sell lossless versions through the internet. Maybe I am naive.

Given , then , that downloads are to be the future it makes you wonder what way they would be structured and priced ( they 'should' be cheaper but you know that won't happen ) .

Paul Mc Cartney's fine recently released remasterings were made available in various format combinations selectable on the download site ( MP3 , Apple Lossless ,FLAC , 24/96 ) and seemed to well thought out in regard to the needs of different types of listeners .

The recent Jethro Tull reissue of 'Aqualung ' came lumbered with Vinyl and Bluray and a hefty price tag
which made it even less glamourous . Currently , neither format is available on its own thus guaranteeing to p off a section of potential purchasers

One area I miss is the great art work and sleeve notes of classic albums . Storm Thorgerson's Pink Floyd work is so distinctive and much better appreciated in a larger format . Could download sites and even Sooloos be tweaked to accept pdfs or tiffs of support information for each release ? I hope so ,
as I slip towards the Winter of my life I don't want to be trying to remember who penned ' Black Betty ' or which album covers were designed by Hipgnosis

IMO the ' grooming' of server-based music collection is still in its infancy regarding supplying the complete experience . With Sooloos , M have got the most important thing right , the sound . Hopefully , as these things develop they will use the time to 'groom' overall experience and the iPad app etc.

~M~

As I fall into Categories 1-4 inclusive above, I'm not sure I would bemoan the death of CD - as long as some sort of physical media remained. This would be ok if Blu-ray Audio were to take off, giving 96/24 versions of our favourite music in stereo and multi-channel - plus album covers, lyrics, other intelligent thoughtful data to display on-screen (say, the videos where made).

I suspect it would be a smaller market than vinyl used to be and CD became - but another way of getting us to buy The Beatles, Stones, Queen, Pink Floyd, etc all over again!

Certainly as regards 'Aqualung', I have the DCC gold disc (having had CD, vinyl and cassette versions since 1971) but would like a copy of the Blu-ray Audio - but I don't want a 12"x12" box or the vinyl versions. Likewise the Pink Floyd multi-channel re-mixes........

If vinyl can continue to exist as a niche market, then so could hi-res digital physical media.

The major record companies have got so used to thinking in huge numbers of units that quality versions of their catalogues seem below the horizon. Obviously from a 'green' perspective, then doing away with oil-based product that needs warehousing and shipping around the world is a good thing. But, perhaps high quality niche marketing is the route to adding value to the download culture. Once much higher speed broadband is rolled out beyond countries like Korea to rural UK, European and US areas, then perhaps 96/24 multichannel downloads may become a possibility and a viable alternative........but don't hold your breath!

Most of the comments here are about ancient back catalogue rather than new artists and developing music: perhaps this indicates why the industry is in trouble. And also that young people spend their money on games rather than music. The industry is unlikely to experience another time such as when large numbers of people replaced huge vinyl collections with CDs. Maybe the industry is just shrinking back to a more viable size. The reduction in competition that the merger represents is a bit of a worry despite the mess of things that EMI have made over recent years.

As a pretty heavy consumer of physical media, I've been ruminating on the 'no more CDs' topic for a while and I think, as with all things, that neither extreme is likely - in the short/medium term, that is. In other words, while the labels will certainly begin the process of phasing out physical distirbution formats, I think this will be gradual, and consistent with the buying patterns of the consumers.

For example, I could certainly see eliminating CDs on music that is clearly targetted to younger people (the 'iPod' generation) as I doubt they are buying many discs. At the same time, music more likely to be consumed by older listeners (classic album re-releases, jazz, classical) would seem to be better suited to physical formats - at least for a while.