iTunes Continues to Dominate Music Sales

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

Is this much of a surprise? Given that Apple's iPods continue to dominate the market, iTunes' success was bound to follow - and it has. According to recent reports by the NPD group, iTunes sales accounted for a staggering 25% of the entire overall music market in the US, and accounted for 69% where digital music is concerned, towering over the likes of Amazon.com, which holds just 8%.

These numbers are very revealing as to the future of the music sales landscape. Physical CDs have been decreasing in popularity since the digital music scheme of things exploded, but believe it or not, it's still the CD that holds the majority of the sales. Digital music downloads are expected to eclipse the sales of physical CDs by the end of 2010.

I've expressed my own opinions on this many times before, and my mind certainly hasn't changed. I'm still the kind of person who loves walking through a real music store, rummaging through the selection and leaving with a couple of new discs to go home and rip. But, I seem to be part of a dying breed, and I'm personally wondering just how long it will take before the physical music store will disappear, if ever.

Who's with me? Do you prefer to purchase the real CD or hop online to download it? Are you opposed to purchasing music on other physical media, not on CDs?

iTunes-purchased songs now account for 25 percent of the overall music market--both physical and digital--in the U.S., says an NPD Group report released Tuesday. However, CDs are still the most popular format for music lovers, winning a 65 percent slice of the market for the first half of 2009. Digital music downloads have jumped in recent years, said NPD, hitting 35 percent of the overall market for the first half of this year, compared with 30 percent last year and 20 percent in 2007.

Source: CNET News​

 

[MacMan]

Physical discs have their place in.....

From our front-page news:

Is this much of a surprise? Given that Apple's iPods continue to dominate the market, iTunes' success was bound to follow - and it has. According to recent reports by the NPD group, iTunes sales accounted for a staggering 25% of the entire overall music market in the US, and accounted for 69% where digital music is concerned, towering over the likes of Amazon.com, which holds just 8%.

These numbers are very revealing as to the future of the music sales landscape. Physical CDs have been decreasing in popularity since the digital music scheme of things exploded, but believe it or not, it's still the CD that holds the majority of the sales. Digital music downloads are expected to eclipse the sales of physical CDs by the end of 2010.

I've expressed my own opinions on this many times before, and my mind certainly hasn't changed. I'm still the kind of person who loves walking through a real music store, rummaging through the selection and leaving with a couple of new discs to go home and rip. But, I seem to be part of a dying breed, and I'm personally wondering just how long it will take before the physical music store will disappear, if ever.

Who's with me? Do you prefer to purchase the real CD or hop online to download it? Are you opposed to purchasing music on other physical media, not on CDs?

iTunes-purchased songs now account for 25 percent of the overall music market--both physical and digital--in the U.S., says an NPD Group report released Tuesday. However, CDs are still the most popular format for music lovers, winning a 65 percent slice of the market for the first half of 2009. Digital music downloads have jumped in recent years, said NPD, hitting 35 percent of the overall market for the first half of this year, compared with 30 percent last year and 20 percent in 2007.

Source: CNET News​

Sure, physical discs have their place in..... the history books! Yes, physical discs have all that cool cover art, and liner notes, but soon, thanks to iTune's new 'Cocktail" feature, Apple will up that by providing all of those features and more!

Downloaded digital music is easier to store and back up; physicals discs are easily scratched and broken and are considerably harder to back up. Who needs that... NOT ME! Besides, they are a real pain in the you-know-what to store and care for. Again, no thanks! I've got a life to live, thank you very much.

By the way, Daniel Eran Dilger has an excellent post on the differences in quality between the new Zune's vs that of the iPods vs actual physical CD disc's, all written by a Microsoft employee! Very interesting piece, and how the quality of Microsoft's 'lossless' compares to that of CD's and Apple's AAC! The guy really seems to know (he's an engineer after all!) what he's talking about.

Daniel's post can be found here:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/08/18/letters-from-microsoft-an-employee-tosses-his-zune/

 

[Rob Williams]

For me, it all comes down to both openness and quality. iTunes offers nothing more than 256Kbit/s for their songs, and while that's sufficient for most people, I prefer to have all my music in a lossless format, and I certainly don't plan to pay the same price for a lossy digital version when I can go out and get the actual CD and rip it however I like.

Then there are proprietary formats. Apple updates their codecs whenever they feel like it, while codecs such as FLAC and Monkey's Audio are open-sourced, and are continually updated (plus, a lot of devices support them).

By the way, Daniel Eran Dilger has an excellent post on the differences in quality between the new Zune's vs that of the iPods vs actual physical CD disc's, all written by a Microsoft employee!

I can't comment on the Zune aspect, but I completely agree with Apple's AAC. I've always found it to excel over MP3 at lower bit-rates. In some cases, even a 256Kbit/s track can almost sound lossless. I can't help but laugh at this Daniel fellow, though. He's actually comparing lossless audio quality when using earbuds? You've got to be kidding me!

Also, while he tests both lossless and lossy audio on the iPod, he makes absolutely no mention as to him testing lossy audio on his Zune, so it doesn't seem like a very fair comparison. It could be that the Zune has trouble buffering whatever codec he's using, but it's hard to know without an actual comparison. Plus, how much does it matter to have lossless audio while on the go, really? I'm the type of person who really cares about quality, but 320Kbit/s is just fine for me on the go. I have my entire music collection on my 120GB iPod as MP3 and still have 40GB free. If that were lossless, I'd need two 120GB iPods to store it all.

 

[MacMan]

Your confused about Daniel...

For me, it all comes down to both openness and quality. iTunes offers nothing more than 256Kbit/s for their songs, and while that's sufficient for most people, I prefer to have all my music in a lossless format, and I certainly don't plan to pay the same price for a lossy digital version when I can go out and get the actual CD and rip it however I like.

Then there are proprietary formats. Apple updates their codecs whenever they feel like it, while codecs such as FLAC and Monkey's Audio are open-sourced, and are continually updated (plus, a lot of devices support them).



I can't comment on the Zune aspect, but I completely agree with Apple's AAC. I've always found it to excel over MP3 at lower bit-rates. In some cases, even a 256Kbit/s track can almost sound lossless. I can't help but laugh at this Daniel fellow, though. He's actually comparing lossless audio quality when using earbuds? You've got to be kidding me!

Also, while he tests both lossless and lossy audio on the iPod, he makes absolutely no mention as to him testing lossy audio on his Zune, so it doesn't seem like a very fair comparison. It could be that the Zune has trouble buffering whatever codec he's using, but it's hard to know without an actual comparison. Plus, how much does it matter to have lossless audio while on the go, really? I'm the type of person who really cares about quality, but 320Kbit/s is just fine for me on the go. I have my entire music collection on my 120GB iPod as MP3 and still have 40GB free. If that were lossless, I'd need two 120GB iPods to store it all.

For starters, your a little confused about Daniel, it's not Daniel who is comparing anything with anything.... he's just reporting on what an employee wrote! He's simply quoting him, nothing more. Daniel just happens to be one of the biggest names in the blogging sphere at the moment. For now, until this Micro-softy posts his promised YouTube video, he's keeping his name anonymous.

For one, I think it's a little immature for anyone to smash a Zune! Regardless, if he doesn't like it, he should just either sell it, or better yet, give it away.

 

[Rob Williams]

For starters, your a little confused about Daniel

My bad. I saw the author right above the story, so I figured it was him.

For one, I think it's a little immature for anyone to smash a Zune!

Well, it's just one disgruntled user anyway... who happens to use freaking earbuds for lossless music. I wouldn't hold to much credence to what he says, to be honest. If you truly care about audio quality enough to use lossless, you don't stick to earbuds, even while on the go. And yes, I actually do wear my Ultrasone's when I'm listening to music outside the house.