"At the same time, it’s hard not to think that audiophiles are on the wrong side of history. As the rest of the world joyfully listens to Spotify and Pandora on their iPhones, audiophiles still listen to CDs! The march of technological progress has many casualties, and sound quality may just be one of them. The product desires of audiophiles are so idiosyncratic and contrary to popular tastes; they have an uphill battle to protect sound quality against faster, cheaper and more social access to music."
This is not how I see it going down. There are a couple reasons why older formats of music aren't going anywhere and will always serve as compliments to the newer digital formats.
The biggest difference between buying CDs/Vinyl vs. a subscription to Spotify/Pandora is ownership. For the foreseeable future there will be a significant market of people, including audiophiles and DJs who want to own the music they buy rather than lease it. And it's now possible for regular to receive the benefits of both formats by buying CDs, ripping them to a media server and then streaming them to your phone or tablet using services such as Audiogalaxy and Google Music.
The other reason is the lack of innovation in high quality audio formats. As evidenced by the failure of SACD, the demand is simply not big enough to support the research and marketing of new physical mediums designed solely for music. In the future we will be forced to rely on CDs (which are never the weakest link anyways in an audiophiles system) or piggyback onto other, more popular formats such as Bluray for 5.1+ high quality audio.
I can't help but think that for the average person this guy is right. The audiophiles are going deeper and deeper into owning high-quality media to play on their high-quality systems.
I have several large boxes of CD's which I know look at with scorn. I haven't used a CD or even a ripped copy of them in years. I've tried Audiogalaxy, Google Music, iTunes Match, and Amazon MP3. It takes a lot of effort to migrate your music to each of those services.
What I've found by using subscription services is what the author is saying: cheaper, faster, and more social access to music. Audiophiles will continue to have their niche but I tend to agree that that is not the way history is going.
This is not how I see it going down. There are a couple reasons why older formats of music aren't going anywhere and will always serve as compliments to the newer digital formats.
The biggest difference between buying CDs/Vinyl vs. a subscription to Spotify/Pandora is ownership. For the foreseeable future there will be a significant market of people, including audiophiles and DJs who want to own the music they buy rather than lease it. And it's now possible for regular to receive the benefits of both formats by buying CDs, ripping them to a media server and then streaming them to your phone or tablet using services such as Audiogalaxy and Google Music.
The other reason is the lack of innovation in high quality audio formats. As evidenced by the failure of SACD, the demand is simply not big enough to support the research and marketing of new physical mediums designed solely for music. In the future we will be forced to rely on CDs (which are never the weakest link anyways in an audiophiles system) or piggyback onto other, more popular formats such as Bluray for 5.1+ high quality audio.