Stereophile
New member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2013
- Messages
- 442
- Thread Author
- #1
<p><img class="story_image" src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/HNilsson_CAC_FRONT.jpg" /></p> The worlds of creating and selling music have never been in such a dramatic state of change. While the CD declines, the LP is resurrected. As piracy charges along undiminished, downloads continue to increase in sales. And then there’s streaming….
<p>
As we <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/content/sony-push-hi-rez-downloads">learned at a press conference this week</a>, Sony, Universal, and Warner Music, the last three major labels, have now banded together to launch a push for consumers to purchase High Resolution Audio downloads. They say that the Consumer Electronics Association [CEA] has survey results that prove that 90% of music consumers want better sound quality and 60% are even willing to pay for it. All of which conveniently ignores the fact that very few listeners under 35, who’ve grown up in a world where downloading music is free, will ever pay for music again. There’s also the creeping feeling that the high resolution download fanfare is really just a setup for Sony’s new and very competitively priced line of media servers. And wait… didn’t we hear an eerily similar pitch in the last decade extolling the virtues of SACD?
</p><p>
At the same time as all this frothy talk of the future is going on, things also seem to be staying the same in grand fashion. Sony/Legacy, the best of the major label reissue arms in terms of packaging and ideas, has released a classic example of one of those never say die monuments to the past
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/harry-we-hardly-knew-ye]
<p>
As we <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/content/sony-push-hi-rez-downloads">learned at a press conference this week</a>, Sony, Universal, and Warner Music, the last three major labels, have now banded together to launch a push for consumers to purchase High Resolution Audio downloads. They say that the Consumer Electronics Association [CEA] has survey results that prove that 90% of music consumers want better sound quality and 60% are even willing to pay for it. All of which conveniently ignores the fact that very few listeners under 35, who’ve grown up in a world where downloading music is free, will ever pay for music again. There’s also the creeping feeling that the high resolution download fanfare is really just a setup for Sony’s new and very competitively priced line of media servers. And wait… didn’t we hear an eerily similar pitch in the last decade extolling the virtues of SACD?
</p><p>
At the same time as all this frothy talk of the future is going on, things also seem to be staying the same in grand fashion. Sony/Legacy, the best of the major label reissue arms in terms of packaging and ideas, has released a classic example of one of those never say die monuments to the past
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/harry-we-hardly-knew-ye]