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Interested in Improving the Sound of Your Stereo? Consider Records
Introduced in 1982, the compact disc was intended to provide better sound than the 40-year-old long-play record album, popularly known as the LP. Using a laser rather than a diamond needle for playback the compact disc was smaller, more convenient to use, and less susceptible to damage than the LP. A bonus was that the format was said to offer "perfect sound forever." "Forever" isn't that long these days; improvements in digital sound have come along in the last twenty years and the music industry introduced two new formats this decade that are designed to improve upon the "perfect" sound of the compact disc. Those formats are the Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) and DVD Audio (DVD-A.) Over the years, various audio publications have criticized the sound of compact discs, describing the sound as "harsh", "brittle" or "sterile" compared to the sound of the LP. After years of research, SACD and DVD-A were introduced several years ago and introduced sound that was said to be cleaner and more natural than that of the compact disc. In addition, these formats offered multi-channel sound, and artists such as Pink Floyd offered special multi-channel versions of their albums to entice sales. It hasn't worked, and sales of both formats peaked in 2003. What is interesting, however, is that both formats still trail the LP in sales! The day will never come when records again become the dominant music format. The convenience of portable players for CD, SACD, and DVD-A discs and MP3 files outweighs the advantages in sound quality that records offer over those formats. Nevertheless, it appears that a small but steady market for records remains very real, and that that market exceeds that of the new "improved" SACD and DVD-A formats, which will probably soon go the way of the forgotten Elcassette, Minidisc, and 4 track tape formats of the past. ©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm that operates several retail Websites, including AluminumChristmasTrees.net, a site devoted to vintage aluminum Christmas trees and accessories, and RarePinkFloyd.com, a site devoted to rare records, compact discs and memorabilia by the band Pink Floyd.
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