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I am thinking of a New Age style Label, where Apple offers support on the iTunes store, and perhaps a free Streaming radio station to give people access to the songs, not a Subscription that is for sale or anything as I think that is a terrible idea.

The artists are responsible for doing pretty much the rest, though I can see a Management group handling touring and merchandising for the Bands, but not Apple doing any of this.


The thing is, they already have that sort of thing in a way - except it requires bands to go thru a middle man agency that takes a 35% cut off the top for getting your music into the iTunes catalog.

Take a look at garageband.com - lots of music but no sales system. Without a DRM tool that artists can administer - your music goes out and disappears.

We don't need less DRM we need ACCESS to DRM to protect digital rights. Big artists can make it up on volume. But the little guy is out of luck.

Anyone remember mp3.com? A great idea that was bought out and dismantled before it's time. As an artist you got paid when people listened alone! Where is that business model today?

I don't even know who Jay Z is, or know any of his music, and Beyonce to me is a character on a SNL comedy skit hanging out with Prince. With that said, I really would be disappointed to see a hip/hop centric music distribution system operated by Apple. Whatever they may do, it needs to be genre neutral.
 
iPods for music
:apple:TV for TV
iPhone for phones
Beyonce for a record label

Apple, are you leaving the computer biz?

"don't you ever for a second get to thinkin'
you're irreplaceable " :p

*iPods, computer peripheral that plays music and now video from your computer, gets the media off the computer and makes it portable. Minimal digression, well worth the risky move in brand recognition they've established with the general public. Although I don't know how much it does for the Macs, as I was in an very upscale local mall the other day and overheard at least two people say something about wanting to go to "the iPod store".

*AppleTV, computer peripheral that plays music and video through the proper A/V system in your home. More of a digression, but nice as a non-portable music storage device and the only way really -- besides hooking up your iPod to your TV every time you want to watch -- to watch high quality movie and TV iTunes purchases. More practical than the iPod, but affordable and serves to cover that fabled 50 feet from the computer holding all the media to the living room, den, study, bedroom, wherever we primarily prefer to enjoy it.

*iPhone, well see, here's where we fall of the cliff. It's an iPod. In that sense it fits the above computer peripheral definition I used for the iPod, and it has contact and calendar support like the iPod. But it's a data/voice *mobile phone*, and a few parts of a PDA with it's Wi-Fi connectivity but limited application support. In the phone category, it loses all credibility as a computer peripheral because you can't even use it as Bluetooth data modem for your computer as you can with a huge number of Bluetooth phones. It's sort of hard to categorize really as it does more than simple phones but less than the more traditional smart-phones. Frankly, it's really a consumer gadget toy, like most up-market mobile phones: a status charm. It will sell some iTunes products. It won't sell iPods. It won't sell Macs. It won't sell Apple TVs. Won't sell any other Apple peripherals. Primarily what it will sell are itself, Apple's quite pricey Bluetooth headset when introduced -- though many customers may opt for quite capable, quality sets that have now come down in price to as little as a third the Apple's price (my stepfather bought last year's Jabra model on sale for $15 the other day; and Jabra tends to be pricey on the whole) -- and it well sell a lot of AT&T contracts. It's cool, it's nifty, there's some interface innovation there, though flawed, but it's an odd one all right. Why a phone?

*A record label, well we already fell off the cliff and are crumpled on the rocks far below, so why not?
 
Mod's note: From this point, please keep this thread on-topic, thanks.

If you'd like to discuss racial politics, please take it to this forum. ;)
 
(Velvet, I wrote and posted this message before I read your message. To play small, benign games with words, it's really about musical politics -- which relates directly to Apple as a record label -- rather than racial politics, so I elected to leave it.)

An honest question: What the f*** does race have to do with disliking certain type of music? "You dislike rap! You are a racist!", oh give me a frigging break! It just happens that I find rap to be crap. I find the entire rap "culture" to be shallow and repulsive, and that includes all those white people in it! I mean, what merit does a "culture" have where the entire point is to show off, wear humungous gold-chains, drive around in luxury-cars that bounce around, disparage women and generally tell everyone what a cool gangsta you are and how you waste your money or frivolous things (gotta get some of that Cristal!)? What positive things does that give to the society? Answer: nothing.



Um, yes it does. The artists they are partnering with represent certain type of music. And their choices reflect their values and priorities. So they value rap and howling women. thanks, but no thanks. I happen to be more oriented towards rock, and their choices indicate that their priorities are somewere else.



What does race have to do with this? Nothing. I dislike rap and the culture that surrounds it. I also dislike R&B with passion. And yes, most rap-artists and R&B-singers are black. No: this still does not have anything to do with race. I also dislike Country with passion, and approximitely 100% of country-singers are white. Does that mean that I hate white people? No it does not. Then why should me hating rap and R&B imply that I hate black people? Becase you are jumping to conclusions and suffer from severe case of double-standards? If I dislike something that some black dude does, I'm racist. I MUST love everything every single black person does, otherwise I'm being racist? No, it doesn't work that way. Even if white people came up with rap, I would still dislike it.

I'm getting sick and tired of people who think that disliking some type of music means that the person is "racist". Liking or disliking certain types of music has NOTHING to do with race, and it has EVERYTHING to do with music!

Okay, first all rap is hip-hop but all hip-hop is not rap. Important distinction. Second with the exception of a tiny, tiny bit of hip-hop, I don't like hip-hop. I just don't like it. That's personal taste. But this whole sale dismissal of "rap as crap" and "hip-hop is garbage", wether born of racism or not, is untenable. We are talking about a truly unique American art form as significant as jazz, that speaks for at least a couple of generations, that has spread around the globe to many races and cultures, who have adopted it's ethic of free speech, standing up for oneself and self-esteem, and also flavored the music with their own additions. No, not all hip-hop has artistic merit, and yes some of it is just crass, as with most popular music. But some of it tells personal stories and stories of a culture within a culture that may be unpleasant to hear, that we don't want to hear, but this is art and it has merit, to listen to these stories and respond to them, negatively or positively.

And rock musicians and their priorities? Many rock musicians are and have been some of the greatest unethical hedonists of human history.

somebody mentioned the grammar in rap and what would he or she have said of most of the works of e e cummings? not all rules of language must be followed all the time.

Anyway, it's ridiculous on its face to dismiss hip-hop. Hip-hop is important and will have far-reaching influence on music of many genres. As Americans, we should be proud that though it has roots and now artists all over the place, as a formal art form it started here.
 
LOL so perfectly said.
I don't think anyone on here cares about the rap 'community'. It's just pure talentless crap.

That statement is the height of ignorance. Bearing in mind I've repeatedly mentioned I don't like hip-hop, it's not talentless crap. I don't like Kandinsky, either, but I can recognize his talent; his manner of expression is not to my taste, but there is artistic merit in his expression. One thing to dislike an art form and its associated culture, another thing entire to dismiss it's inherent value and some people's appreciation of it because you don't have a taste for it. If majority ruled in these matters, you'd have no Apple products. They'd have gone out of business in the late 1980s, at the latest.

But I'll take you at your word: If it's talentless crap, you do it. Pen us a hip-hop track, words and music, play the instruments, record the song as best you can, as you probably don't have training in music production and that's an involved skill, then find a place to upload it. Let the masses decide, at least the masses following this thread. Because if no hip-hop of any kind requires any talent at all, as lyricist or composer, then you should be able to do record a reasonable facsimile of a hip-hop track whether or not you have musical talent or training.
 
Okay, first all rap is hip-hop but all hip-hop is not rap. Important distinction.

Not to me, since I don't care for hip-hop either.

But this whole sale dismissal of "rap as crap" and "hip-hop is garbage", wether born of racism or not, is untenable.

No it's not. It's my personal preference, and I have yet to hear a piece of rap-"music" that is good. Some are worse than others, but none are good.

We are talking about a truly unique American art form

So I should like it because it's "truly unique American art form"? As a Finn, why should I give American music special treatment?

as significant as jazz

Funny you should mention it: I hate jazz as well. To me, it's just a cacophony on unrelated notes strung together.

that speaks for at least a couple of generations, that has spread around the globe to many races and cultures, who have adopted it's ethic of free speech, standing up for oneself and self-esteem, and also flavored the music with their own additions.

Which is quite telling about the values and tastes of the newest addition to the line of generations. A truly sad state of affaird indeed.

And rock musicians and their priorities? Many rock musicians are and have been some of the greatest unethical hedonists of human history.

Yep, no argument here. But at least they are not actively pushing their values through their music. They don't use their music as a vessel to brag what great criminals they are. They do not glorify crime and paint themselves as part of the underworld. They do not refer to women as "bitches" in their music. Sure, there are exceptions, but I still don't like their music as such. Well, I DO like some music that contains rapping, but are not considered rap as such (like KLF or Snap!).

Anyway, it's ridiculous on its face to dismiss hip-hop. Hip-hop is important and will have far-reaching influence on music of many genres.

Propably. But that still doesn't mean that I should like it.
 
exactly

The thing is, they already have that sort of thing in a way - except it requires bands to go thru a middle man agency that takes a 35% cut off the top for getting your music into the iTunes catalog.

Take a look at garageband.com - lots of music but no sales system. Without a DRM tool that artists can administer - your music goes out and disappears.

We don't need less DRM we need ACCESS to DRM to protect digital rights. Big artists can make it up on volume. But the little guy is out of luck.

Anyone remember mp3.com? A great idea that was bought out and dismantled before it's time. As an artist you got paid when people listened alone! Where is that business model today?

I don't even know who Jay Z is, or know any of his music, and Beyonce to me is a character on a SNL comedy skit hanging out with Prince. With that said, I really would be disappointed to see a hip/hop centric music distribution system operated by Apple. Whatever they may do, it needs to be genre neutral.

Apple can reduce the cost of there artists to say .70 cent tracks and $5 albums, use there leverate in Itunes and in motion pictures to get the artists more exposure, pay the artists a larger %, and Apple keeps selling more ipods/iphones, Apple TVs, etc..........
 
Not to me, since I don't care for hip-hop either.



No it's not. It's my personal preference, and I have yet to hear a piece of rap-"music" that is good. Some are worse than others, but none are good.



So I should like it because it's "truly unique American art form"? As a Finn, why should I give American music special treatment?



Funny you should mention it: I hate jazz as well. To me, it's just a cacophony on unrelated notes strung together.



Which is quite telling about the values and tastes of the newest addition to the line of generations. A truly sad state of affaird indeed.



Yep, no argument here. But at least they are not actively pushing their values through their music. They don't use their music as a vessel to brag what great criminals they are. They do not glorify crime and paint themselves as part of the underworld. They do not refer to women as "bitches" in their music. Sure, there are exceptions, but I still don't like their music as such. Well, I DO like some music that contains rapping, but are not considered rap as such (like KLF or Snap!).



Propably. But that still doesn't mean that I should like it.

The comments about appreciating hip-hop as an American art form were in general and pointed at Americans on this thread. I had no idea you were Finnish; of course you wouldn't defer to an American style of music.

There are *a lot* of rock music lyrics that glorify not just controversial lifestyles or drug use -- things that I can tolerate to some degree, that I don't so quickly condemn -- but flat-out immorality, not by any religious standard but by mere human decency. These may not be the rule but they are hardly the exception.

"But that still doesn't mean that I should like it."
Of course not. I never meant to suggest and I think I went out of my way to make it clear that my only point was that all of hip-hop should not be dismissed as "trash" or "crap" or whatever because one doesn't like it. Why should I expect you to like it when I don't like it myself?

But Charlie Parker, "a cacophony on unrelated notes strung together"? To each his own, but my stars.
 
Sure does. Nevertheless I would say that most vinyl buyers are not your average mass market music consumer. That means vinyl will always remain a niche market and will never again rise to its former glory.

I totally agree... I think music should be moved to DVD's since movies are being moved to Blue-ray or HD-DVD. The advantage would be that music can be printed on 96khz 24bit or even 192khz 64bit. The sound quality would be many times greater than the 44.1khz 16bit cd quality. And also surround sound capabilities. That would bring a lot of :):):):):):)

MP3 just doesn't cut it for me.
 
I totally agree... I think music should be moved to DVD's since movies are being moved to Blue-ray or HD-DVD. The advantage would be that music can be printed on 96khz 24bit or even 192khz 64bit. The sound quality would be many times greater than the 44.1khz 16bit cd quality. And also surround sound capabilities. That would bring a lot of :):):):):):)

MP3 just doesn't cut it for me.

There's already a format called DVD Audio that has all the features you list. It hasn't caught on and is popular mostly for classical recordings, where the true digital surround sound capabilities matter the most for obvious reasons, because of the real and often significant physical distance between instruments in an orchestra -- gives you the sense of listening right in the front row or leaning on the lip of the pit. Also, to get true surround, the music must be originally recorded to support it -- or remixed from multichannel masters, which may produce an inferior result if the studio wasn't initially configured for a surround sound recording. That and most popular music in a wide range of genres employs production techniques that are antithetical to surround sound -- multiple discrete channel audio would actually degrade the quality of the recording as far as its producers intended.

I have some hearing fairly significant hearing loss in both ears, so I have can't really tell any difference between a 256kbps AAC and 128kbps AAC. I can, depending on the original recording, tell a bit of difference between a compact disc and a 128kpbs AAC. And I can discern notable difference -- although I was rather surprised I could -- between 128kbps AAC compressed recording played on a device connected via an optical connection, even only in two-channel stereo, and the same device connected via composite ("RCA") connections.

That being said, people with better hearing can tell more of a difference between 128 and 256 bit-rates, and between compressed audio files and compact disc audio. But generally *most* people don't care or can't tell *enough* difference to care between 128 bit-rate AAC audio and the original compact disc. At 256 bit-rate they barely notice. And these scenarios of noticing difference usually only in "side-by-side" comparisons.

So I'm not saying you're not right about the differences in quality, because you are. But I am saying that the music-buying public in general is content with 128 bit-rate AAC and completely satisfied with compact disc audio. For that reason I believe CD audio will remain the standard until it is completely subsumed by electronic distribution. When that will be I don't know -- but I expect farther in the future than most people imagine. CDs are still immensely popular, even though people wanting diverse selections are more often forced to online shopping, having the physical media shipped to them.

Me, I like vinyl. I'm afraid I'm not someone who can logically contend that the analog nuances of vinyl recordings are actually superior to the so-called sterile digital recordings. This may have been true in the early-to-mid 1980s, perhaps a little longer, but digital recording and transfer has vastly improved. I like vinyl because of the *way* it sounds, not because it's superior; for the same reason I like to listen to original mono recordings in the original mono, even though the available stereo remixes arguably *sound* better, or at least fuller. Honestly, I think digital recordings, all things considered, are very probably superior. They're certainly more rugged, transportable and flexible in use than vinyl -- and that will win the day with the vast majority of customers.
 
people stop poopooing apples efforts... they will do an excellent job not meddling in their mess...

It's not bashing, not on my part, anyway. Part of it is how long you've used Apple's products. Me, since 1978. So I saw them as kings of a new industry, pushed off the throne, became the also-rans, then tried to innovate before their time but generated enough niche-market interest to stay afloat, then tried brought in Scully who ousted Jobs and in power struggle and tried to turn Apple into any commodity computer maker, except they made their own operating system, too, while still trying here and there to innovate -- so they split their mission at that point and it almost put them out of business. After some wallowing the muck, they bought Next Software, formerly NeXT Computer, one to get the NextStep operating system which provided an instant, outstanding platform upon which to build their next-generation operating system because their internal efforts were far delayed and floundering; and two, to bring Steve Jobs back in, who was widely considered to have difficulties managing the business end of things at Apple, had gone on to build Next, where again he there was trouble on the business end, but yet again he created some incredibly innovative products. Someone or several people on Apple's board determined that Jobs was after all the probably the visionary heralded back in the late 1970s and with the introduction of the amazing but somewhat power-starved Macintosh, decided they needed vision and leadership, and could hire people more suited to the task to keep the books, and that while the computer had chosen power and specifications -- specifications often meaningless to the end consumer -- over lots of innovation, it was possible people would respond favorably to a little more power and spec-obsession along with rekindled innovation.

At the time Jobs came back to Apple, they had their fingers in a lot of pies, really they were all just segments of the computer industry, but they made computers, PDAs, printers, digital cameras -- they were over-diversified. So Jobs slowly and then suddenly killed off all these distractions and focused on Macs. The first big digression was wireless networking, which was a key to Apple innovation when they included both the client and access point devices for these new way of networking computers. It fit and added value to the Apple experience. The next big turn in the road in products, because they also created their own exclusive retail presence, was the iPod. A lot of people, a lot of people here -- you know who you are -- maligned the iPod as the most ho-hum product Apple had created since the Scully years; it was called the first thing that will fail miserably since Jobs got the first iMac shipping. I have to give myself credit for some unusual prescience and note that I thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever made and I bought one the first day they came into the new retail stores. But I did do some reading about it beforehand and discovered that based on how Apple had designed it and integrated it with iTunes it was not indeed just another MP3 player.

All this has worked out well. The Apple brand is amazingly well known. The Apple TV is a digression of sorts, but it is a reasonable way to convince people it's safe to convert to digital media, because now not only can we take it with us, we can view on our nice TVs and listen on our quality A/V systems in our homes in places other than where our computers are. This is especially important with the popularity of laptops, as the last thing you want is your nice, light, portable MacBook wired seven ways to your home A/V system -- locked down more than any desktop computer not connect to a entertainment system.

Now we have the iPhone. It's cool, it's innovative, it's not just another smart-phone, but it comes closet to "just another" as anything Apple has made in a while. It's not only a new device with technology in it unfamiliar to Apple, but it also not only can use but depends upon service from a third party. That's unusual for Apple, as over the past few years they have more and more tried to make the Mac and the iPod require only the foundation of Apple services and products. You can use third-party solutions for these devices, but they only *require* Apple solutions.

So we have an iPod, an Apple TV, an iPhone, an iTunes Store to sell content for these devices -- all work the Mac but don't require the Mac -- and now we hear rumors of Apple founding, cooperating in or underwriting a record label (I don't think the music genre matters). It begins to look like Apple may be over-diversifying again, but this time branching out not just in different market segments, but entirely different markets. It begins to look like they want to become an all-device, all-media company. Sony is one such company and they're struggling with focus right now, and you have to remember they're a very different company with a very different history, a big part of that being that they originated in Japanese, where we know, say, Mitsubishi makes commercial and consumer vehicles, we may have been surprised to learn they make TVs too, but we're downright shocked to discover they made building materials, like cement, in another product group.

Here in the States, the best example of a formerly focused company trying to become an all-device, all-media company is Microsoft. And they've taken it on the chin a lot with that, and are really no farther towards achieving that goal than when set out on that path. Their Xbox 360 has sold fairly well, but they've missed their projected sales, they took a billion dollar loss to repair defective consoles, there are still complaints of innate defects in the console not addressed by the expanded repair program -- and all this on top of the fact the Xbox group, even excepting the billion dollar hit, has never made a penny; they've been losing money on this thing since the original Xbox model. Sony, an all-device, all-media company, made a ton of money on their games console business -- PlayStation and PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 remains to be seen. Nintendo has elected to just do games and they make money on their console business.

That's just an example of Microsoft trying to break into the games market, but they're trying to become a giant media conglomerate. It's not going that well. Really, with the same exception of some decent brand recognition with Xbox, they're still the Windows people.

If Apple wants to be an all-device, all-media company, and they pull it off, it could vault them into an entirely new realm of success as a business and innovator. It's no that if they succeed it would be a bad thing; it's that many of us longtime Apple customers sort of feel like we've been down this road before, at least a couple times, and when they finally hit the dead-end, the result was not good.
 
There's already a format called DVD Audio that has all the features you list.

Actually, there are two formats, and part of the reason they didn't catch on was because of the format war. Sounds a lot like Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, doesn't it?

DVD-Audio (DVD-A) is slightly different than DVD-Video. The main benefit is it uses a high-res lossless protocol (MLP) and can go as high as 5.1 channels and up to 192 kHz sampling rate, 24-bit samples. (For reference CD is 2 channels, 44.1 kHz, 16-bit samples). The other competitor was Sony/Philips' Super Audio CD (SACD) which used a different kind of lossless encoding altogether called Digital Stream Direct (DSD) and I never fully understood it.

In either case, hearing stereo music in high res opened my eyes. On top of that, I enjoy the optional 5.1 surround mixes as well when the original artist or producer is involved in the new mix.

Both formats are essentially dead. They tried to keep DVD-A alive with the Dual Disc (DVD-A on one side, CD on the other) and now MVI (Music Video Interactive, which has it mixed so a DVD-Video player can play it). The drawbacks?

- Format wars kill audiophile technology. When you're trying to convince people CD isn't good enough, you can't have two competing formats.
- While based on DVD neither format offerred any decent video features (my wife hates my DVD-A collection because you only get a photo slideshow while listening to music).

I enjoy the superior sound quality and I get a kick out of the optional 5.1 mixes too. However, most people don't listen to music in their 5.1 home theater room, they listen on their iPods. I always thought cars would be a perfect place for 5.1 surround, and aside from Acura including DVD-A in one of their cars around 2005, it has gone nowhere.

The problem audiophiles have with CD:

(1) The sampling rate of 44.1 kHz leaves some digital artifacting. Many wanted to go with 48 kHz sampling which renders the effect much less noticeable but Sony pushed 44.1 kHz so they could fit a certain symphony on a CD (that's why CDs are 74 minutes; with a slightly higher sampling rate they'd be slightly shorter).
(2) In general CD mixes have been compressed (not as in digital compression like MP3, but they've had their dynamic range compressed so highs aren't so high and lows aren't so low). This was a trend in radio at the time that carried over to CD, so music has more "presence" on crappy equipment and poor listening conditions. This also takes away range and subtlety from sound.

The two of the above are why audiophiles clung onto vinyl. Despite the hissing and popping, it left the full dynamic range intact and didn't destroy the mix with dynamic range compression. DVD-A and SACD came along too late.
 
Actually, there are two formats, and part of the reason they didn't catch on was because of the format war. Sounds a lot like Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, doesn't it?

Yeah, I know about both formats; I think I just mentioned the one because the original post mentioned something about transitioning audio to "DVD".

Reminds me of BD vs. HD DVD, but I think the difference is BD is going to manage to win that format war, although it will take longer to standardize because of the competing format.

I get the problems audiophiles have with non-algorithm-based compression on CD that didn't exist with analog formats. I think it's a valid point. But while audiophiles care, the masses won't convenience and portability. To most music consumers the sound of CDs is better because they don't pop, hiss, or have other obvious artifacts like vinyl, no matter the better frequency range of analog vinyl records. Then add turntable hum and such that is hard to combat without an expensive, high-end table, arm and cartridge installed and calibrated by some who knows what he's doing.

It's like music hobbyists prefer CDs, and that's most people serious about their music; you have to be both a music hobbyist and an audio-engineering hobbyist and a something of a technician to be an audiophile. There just aren't enough audiophiles to create a market. Split format just made it harder to create that market. Laser disc was vastly superior to consumer video tape of any format, was a single format -- Video Disc died so quickly -- and still it never caught on. You'd wonder why, but I think it was a simple as the players somewhat to very expensive for most of the time, and then the discs so large and you had to swap out discs and even flip discs on some players. People perceived them based on size and slight inconvenience as inferior to VHS. Laser disc was just starting to enter the rental market when DVD came along and wiped them out, even though MPEG-2 was more heavily compressed (algorithm based), etc. But they fit the CD form factor and by then people were so familiar with CDs, they embraced DVDs.

Forget to mention: If you have a local Fry's, they have an oddly large selection of DVD Audio and SACD, more the former than the latter, in case you ever just want to browse and don't have something specific you want to order online or something.
 
The other competitor was Sony/Philips' Super Audio CD (SACD) which used a different kind of lossless encoding altogether called Digital Stream Direct (DSD) and I never fully understood it.

The math is confusing but the sound is amazing. Both formats deliver eye-opening clarity. But as you imply, it's a shame few people will ever hear that clarity. I agree that both formats have gone nowhere. And I think for most people who aren't audiophiles (and who settle for the quality of MP3s), the better sound quality simply isn't enough of a temptation. Most people began buying CDs not for better sound quality, but because the recording industry began phasing out other options.

Sony pushed 44.1 kHz so they could fit a certain symphony on a CD (that's why CDs are 74 minutes; with a slightly higher sampling rate they'd be slightly shorter).

Legend has it that people from Sony and Phillips called none other than Leonard Bernstein and asked, "What's the longest symphony you've ever conducted?" To which Bernstein answered, "Mahler's Third." They asked him how long it lasted, and Bernstein told them, "Seventy-four minutes." (Of course, that was his interpretation of the symphony.) It was assumed because of their initial high cost that CDs would appeal only to wealthy audiophiles who, in the opinion of Sony and Phillips I guess, listened exclusively to classical music.

DVD-A and SACD came along too late.

Agreed. It's a shame, really.
 
Legend has it that people from Sony and Phillips called none other than Leonard Bernstein and asked, "What's the longest symphony you've ever conducted?" To which Bernstein answered, "Mahler's Third." They asked him how long it lasted, and Bernstein told them, "Seventy-four minutes."


Let's try and dispel that myth from none other than one of the Philips engineers... I think the myth has come about from marketing. ;)


The disk diameter is a very basic
parameter, because it relates to playing
time. All parameters then have to be
traded off to optimise playing time and
reliability. The decision was made by the
top brass of Philips. 'Compact Cassette
was a great success', they said, 'we don't think CD should be much larger'. As it was, we made CD 0.5 cm larger yielding
12 cm. (There were all sorts of stories
about it having something to do with the
length of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and
so on, but you should not believe them. In
the next section, playing time, we will give
more details.)

http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/cdstory.pdf
 
If Apple starts a record label I hope it's not all crap.

Accept it, Jay-Z and Beyonce are crap.

Don't deny it.
 
The math is confusing but the sound is amazing. Both formats deliver eye-opening clarity. But as you imply, it's a shame few people will ever hear that clarity. I agree that both formats have gone nowhere. And I think for most people who aren't audiophiles (and who settle for the quality of MP3s), the better sound quality simply isn't enough of a temptation. Most people began buying CDs not for better sound quality, but because the recording industry began phasing out other options.



Legend has it that people from Sony and Phillips called none other than Leonard Bernstein and asked, "What's the longest symphony you've ever conducted?" To which Bernstein answered, "Mahler's Third." They asked him how long it lasted, and Bernstein told them, "Seventy-four minutes." (Of course, that was his interpretation of the symphony.) It was assumed because of their initial high cost that CDs would appeal only to wealthy audiophiles who, in the opinion of Sony and Phillips I guess, listened exclusively to classical music.



Agreed. It's a shame, really.

Or, whether or not the story is apocryphal or merely mythic, they thought classical recordings would run the longest of anything expected to fit on one disc. (Funny, I have a Bernstein recording of Mahler's First -- my favorite Mahler, actually -- and it runs quite a bit shorter. I swear I have the Third lose around here somewhere, but it's not on my Mac and it's not Bernstein. I have a Mehta recording of the Second and it actually runs 80 minutes -- but of course that's *Mehta's* interpretation. As an aside, why is Mahler's Ninth likely the least interesting of his symphonies but the most well-known and popular to entire generation? Is it all that one line of dialog in that movie "St. Elmo's Fire"? Just bizarre.)

I actually got a CD player in Christmas 1983 or Christmas 1984, when I was maybe a sophomore in high school; my parents paid an outrageous price for a Sony deck because I was such a music nut. I got that, and, I think, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and a selection of Bach fugues, but the one I definitely remember getting with the deck was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Dark Side of the Moon was definitely picked as an early release because it *did*, at least at first blush, seem to "sound better" or possess greater fidelity compact disc than LP -- don't even mention consumer cassette tape to me. It was and remains a great recording. Only later did I discover that the much hyped enhanced sound quality was questionable. But CDs were surely more portable and convenient.

I wouldn't even consider MP3 when we have AAC which is at any bit-rate superior in fidelity to MP3. But of course AAC is definitely a compromise, too. Thing is, I don't think most people perceive a quality difference between even a 128-bit AAC and the original CD recording. You could probably get them to hear it, but they don't just hear. At any rate, I used to be able to quite clearly hear the difference between CD and a good analog recording. But I have progressive hearing loss, and now have as much as 40% loss in both ears, worse at certain frequencies; thing is, I don't miss it because it's happened so slowly; it's hereditary and degenerative, not due to injury or infection. In its way, it's convenient -- except for the tinnitus, the high-pitched "ringing" in the ears, but that's thankfully improved by anticonvulsant medication I take for a seizure disorder (no, really, I'm not that big mess; these conditions are all merely moderate and overall just annoyances). I used to spend a fortune on audio equipment, and I'm still particular about appropriate power-ratings for the size of a room and speaker placement, etc., but my wife isn't attuned to these issues of audio fidelity, and I can't get hear the difference anymore, so I can get away with if not cheap equipment, at least just passable speakers and economical models of A/V receivers from quality manufacturers.

At any rate, I think the average music consumer has sort of a hearing loss like mine; theirs is not physical, but rather has more to do with how much attention they pay to the audio quality. Which I really can't fault because music is one of the few truly precious joys of life and is to be enjoyed, and if they enjoy it on any media, then that's good and vastly better for mankind than people who never learned to appreciate music at all.
 
Yuck yuck yuck . Could they have picked two more crappy artists if they tried.

It won't matter what genre they choose. Rock,pop, rap , experimental neo garage n bass-big big mistake. Don't do this apple please. It wil be your undoing. Look at sony. It all went downhill when they tried to make their own content. I think sony are one of the most despised labels by many artists.OK they are still around but remember when sony had the same sort of cool cachet apple have now?

apple this will be the biggest mistake you ever make, please don't do this, it will all end in tears.
 
At any rate, I think the average music consumer has sort of a hearing loss like mine; theirs is not physical, but rather has more to do with how much attention they pay to the audio quality. Which I really can't fault because music is one of the few truly precious joys of life and is to be enjoyed, and if they enjoy it on any media, then that's good and vastly better for mankind than people who never learned to appreciate music at all.

That's so true. I too have pretty bad tinnitus and progressive hearing loss. I still do quite a bit of recording, but just for myself now. I no longer engineer for other people, because I just can't be sure what I'm hearing is what they're hearing. I've started thinking about Beethoven and how he wrote his ninth symphony when he was deaf. It amazes me that he could still "hear" all the instruments in his head and know how to combine them. His unique sound didn't change with the 9th but instead came to full fruition.
 
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