Since the early 1980s, the CD has dominated the music market. But meanwhile, the MP3 format is draining water from the disc. Should you bet on MP3s or do CDs have a future?
Clear superiority of MP3
In 1982, the compact disc (CD) became the epitome of the digital age. The silver discs replaced the usual records with incredibly fast speeds and brought the music industry sensational sales. After all, many music fans bought their favourite albums again in what was then a new format and literally rallied around every new release on CD. Around the same time, the renowned Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen was working on a format called MPEG-1 Audio Layer III, the abbreviation of which is much more commonly known: MP3! CD-R blank CDs ushered in the turning point
At that time, of course, nobody could have foreseen that the same format would cause CD sales to collapse. But at the end of the 1990s, however, the music industry was confronted for the first time with a sharp decline in CD sales in the wake of the Internet and the advent of music exchange services such as Napster. Inexpensive blank CDs, broadband internet and above all the MP3 format made it possible to download and burn complete albums to the hard disk free of charge - and without any audible difference in quality for most music fans. If you compare the advantages of MP3 with those of the standard audio CD, you get a clear picture. Even if the MP3 files were not compressed too much, they are almost indistinguishable from the titles of an audio CD. In addition, unlike the silver disc, they can be played back on many media, can be changed as required and make it possible to store entire music archives on an iPod that is hardly larger than a credit card.
CDs for permanent archiving
What speaks for CDs is the possibility of permanent archiving. If a music collection is located on a hard disk and it becomes defective, the files are usually irrevocably gone. A recorded music CD, on the other hand, stores the data for decades. It is clear, however, that this will not be enough to revive the stagnating CD sales. Many shops, such as Amazon, have long since been offering MP3 versions of their classic CDs as well as MP3 versions for download for a fee and are thus generating magnificent sales. Comeback of the record
The failures of the music industry can no longer be made good. The MP3 format of the Compact Disc has long since dug up water and sales. While it can take days or even weeks before a CD is delivered, an MP3 file is available for download immediately. Curiously enough, the carrier medium of all things celebrates a comeback that has been ousted from the CD: The record! More and more music fans swear by the (allegedly) superior sound quality of the records. So it could soon be the case that a technologically outdated medium could replace its much more mature counterpart.