novabrkr said:

I'm fine with free downloads. Nothing wrong with listening to music for free before you buy it.

sextonseven said:

My gripe is that the Big 3 are running CD sales like the Diamond Trade. The market price of a CD is set so high because there's a monopoly on the distribution and promotion of commercially-marketed music.

I still feel that the price of CDs are unabashedly inflated and should go down by $5-$6 USD universally -- not just for a new CD during the first week or some super-old catalogue item.

...
[Edited 1/17/07 13:07pm]

AlexdeParis said:

ipods (as far as i know) have the same features as other mp3 players. the only thing ur paying $200+ for is the name and maybe that 30gb's

Mara said:

Agreed, but the labels wont work with retail and thats why everyone has been basically forced out of business. People dont realize that Best Buy and Target and retailers like that lose about 3 dollars or more per cd and the only thing that keeps Best Buy in business are the "margin" that they make when they sell you a tv,ipod,electronic,washing machine whatever it may be. Thats why you will continue to see music departments shrink to almost nothing but top 40 in all of these stores. And the retailers that had catalog are basically out of business at this point. Labels wont cut the prices that they charge the stores, mainly because then the labels wont make money, and the last thing a label will do is cut their own throat, they would rather since retailers close down, but at the end of the day, they are cutting their own throats.

No, and I don't think it will be anytime soon, either.

I think it is too great a leap of faith for people. You are putting a lot of trust in technology. Depending on the decisions / investments you make, its as easy for a person to lose a music collection as it will be easy for the traditionalist to misplace one of a thousand CD's.

And don't forget the other demographics out there. Sure, at an online community it's easy to think everyone has a computer and high-speed internet. This isn't the case; there's just a lot of buzz. You would think the Beatles outsold Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass in the 60's, but you'd be wrong.

Considering that nobody makes good "new" CDs anymore except for Prince, as long as they make blank CDs and the CD players, I'm fine with CDs dying. Why not? I have almost everything old that I like that is available on CD and most of the stuff I'm looking for now is only available on vinyl. If CDs dying helps today's bullshit music to die also, I'm all for it.

That just goes to show that today's listeners are just as boring as they music they listen to. Hell, I like to party and you sure as hell can't party with that little thing. What are you supposed to do, have all your guests gather around and strain their ears to hear through the headphones? I never liked Walkman radios in the 1980s for the same reason. If the shit ain't loud and powerful enough to disturb the neighbors, it ain't worth having.

AlexdeParis said:

I was told by a friend of mine that you can only use "iPod approve" headphones. If this info is wrong, show me some headphone pics that would work.

stopHATING said:

Oh hell yeah!!! THAT's what I'm talking about! I want real headphones for the iPod and all mp3 players in general.

Mazerati said:

You know what, there's a bunch of fuckin' RECORD COMPANY/MEDIA PEOPLE on this board.

INDUSTRY RULE 4080 GOIN' ON AT THE ORG!!!!

ASKING ALL THESE GOT DAMM QUESTIONS ABOUT CDs, DOWNLOADING, THE STATE OF MUSIC.

WTF!!!!!
[Edited 1/17/07 17:56pm]

Moonwalkbjrain said:

If you used one, you'd know the difference. While iPods are cost competitive with all but the most bargain-basement players, their quality justifies any additional cost. The scroll wheel and iTunes integration alone are still way ahead of the competition.

TonyVanDam said:

Your friend is wrong. The iPod accepts any pair of headphones that uses a standard jack.

AlexdeParis said:

Good. Because I like headphones that covers the ears.

ya know i have no idea about IPODS! do they play only itunes stuff or can u put any of your mp3's on there?

Mazerati said:

They play any MP3s (as well as M4As, WAVs, AIFFs, and Apple Lossless). You don't have to buy any music from the iTunes Store to use an iPod.

LordEvil said:

AlexdeParis said:

cool always wondered about that..thanks

Perhaps selling albums on CD will die off soon, but the CD as blank media to record and save stuff on still has a little more life in it IMO. CD's a cheap and burn much faster than DVD's.

The dangerous thing about relying on mp3 players and such to store your entire music collection is making sure you back it all up regularly. It's one thing to scratch a CD and loose an album, but imagine if your IPod or whatever got destroyed and you lost everything.

Stores like Tower Records could have just adapted and switched over to selling stuff online instead. Look at what Netflix is doing, they're already going to start offering videos online because they know the mail order DVD thing is going to die off in the near future.

AlexdeParis said:

is a scroll wheel even NECESSARY? and as far as itunes is concerned, u cant get nothing on there that u cant get on any other downloading program.

Tom said:

mail order dvd isnt goin to die anytime soon!!!

but netflix is being hurt by blockbuster online which lets u change dvds at the stores for free!! so basically u dont need to wait

netflix is only offering streaming video!! not real downloads
but just go to all those bit torrent websites u can get downloads already

Moonwalkbjrain said:

Have you ever used on an iPod? If you have a large music library, the scroll wheel is still the best interface to date. You'll noticed I mentioned the iTunes integration. By that I meant the automatic syncing and other features. The way iTunes and the iPod work together trumps any other hardware/software package I've seen (and I've seen a lot of them).

AlexdeParis said:

yes i have used an ipod and (atleast for me) the scroll wheel is no biggie. but i know nothing about the itunes features, so i guess it may be worth the price for that
[Edited 1/18/07 17:28pm]