I was in Best Buy recently looking for something and I was shocked when I came across the CD section. And a little disappointed it was all of six fee long as others observed. It seems like yesterday when it was isles and isles of CDs and DVDs. As for selection - Tower Records. Now that was a music store! Took forever for them to get to Vegas. You could tell they were on their way out when they opened the Tower/Good Guys super store on Sahara avenue - was bigger than their original Vegas location on Maryland Parkway but had less stuff.
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dark_reign
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And they usually walk out without buying anything because they're out of stock or laugh at the high prices.
Actually they've done really well in recent years, they've turned that company around from the brink of bankruptcy. People I work with love going to that place it's really odd to me.
dark_reign
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Selling mostly just smart TVs and phones isn't a great long-term strategy. Price matching Amazon is great except they only carry a tiny fraction of what Amazon sells. Most will skip the in-store BS and just buy from Amazon.
UnknownSouljer
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B&M caters to a different demo. Some want to have stuff now. They want to see it and touch it. There will always be some that prefer brick and mortar. The real interesting question is what is going to happen to B&M when Amazon makes it viable to have same day delivery on EVERYTHING?
Then even the tire kickers and the impulse buyers will have a hard time justifying expending the energy and gas to go to a B&M.
Armenius
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Autorip only gives you 256 kbps 44.1 kHz, though. They somehow sound flatter than the ancient 128 kbps rips I still have from 1998. I still rip my own lossless copy when they arrive in the mail and don't bother at all with the Autorip.
lostin3d
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The one store we have where I live started shrinking their video section around 3-5 years ago. They would flood the shelves with whatever the corp office decided was the top 5 on release day and pretty much nothing else. That in turn triggered the typical employee response of 'have you checked online?'. This process eventually led to me ordering almost everything online and almost never from them.
scojer
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And a website that wasn't theirs.
lostin3d
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When it comes to music the majority of what I buy comes from HDtracks or Acoustic sounds. Will only buy 24bit/48khz or higher when I can afford it. Around 9 times out of 10 I can easily perceive the difference in comparison to the older CD of the same I still have. I do miss the packaging though. If they don't have what I want then I'll try to get the same or CD straight from the artist and then Amazon. From compression techniques to mastering to personal tastes it really is a case by case situation. I also remember back in the early days of cd's(even until the late 90's and early 2000's) knowing where a cd or vinyl was pressed might affect the source used for it. There was a time when the german/japan cd issues were consistently better than the U.S.
Streaming is mostly done through our Onkyo 32bit/384khz receiver with its builtin apps. Mostly use the free version of Pandora but recently started tinkering with Tune in. Most of the time the mp3 quality is obvious but every now and then the receiver's processor does such an amazing upscale I can't tell the difference.
All 'n' all I want a store like BB to exist but they in of themselves have really deteriorated a lot over the last 10 years. Pretty much a last resort for anything for me these days.
Streaming is mostly done through our Onkyo 32bit/384khz receiver with its builtin apps. Mostly use the free version of Pandora but recently started tinkering with Tune in. Most of the time the mp3 quality is obvious but every now and then the receiver's processor does such an amazing upscale I can't tell the difference.
All 'n' all I want a store like BB to exist but they in of themselves have really deteriorated a lot over the last 10 years. Pretty much a last resort for anything for me these days.
years ago.. i tried the whole digital buying of music. itunes. Went well for a few years until after a few computer mishaps, we hit the 5 activation limit on itunes at the time. So on my new computer i suddenly could not play all the music i had bought. and apple would not clear it up. so i was literally ass out of luck on it.
Since then, i just buy CD's off of amazon. In fact just bought a really old simon and garfunkel CD the other week.
Since then, i just buy CD's off of amazon. In fact just bought a really old simon and garfunkel CD the other week.
caddys83
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Soon Best Buy will nick video games media.
I remember also buying cds from Best Buy and Block Buster Music. I spent more money at Block Buster Music cause it was closer to me though lol
I remember also buying cds from Best Buy and Block Buster Music. I spent more money at Block Buster Music cause it was closer to me though lol
I'm sure the music streaming sites are fine and that most people can' t tell the difference between streamed music and uncompressed, but for me those services are like renting your music. I like to own things, so I will continue to buy CDs for as long as I can.
They price match virtually everyone, so it doesn't matter what the sticker says. That said, I generally buy from Amazon, but I bought St. Vincent's album there, because Amazon couldn't manage to send me a copy without a broken case (literally gave them 3 tries) and that's, unfortunately, a common problem with amazon these days. the packaging is inadequate.
I think it depends. I've done double blind tests on a website (NPR?) and I got 80 or 90% correct, but in some cases it is hard, but if you're familiar with an uncompressed recording you can tell on many albums. In some cases, you may not, simply because of the hyper compression used on most recordings since 2000 or so.
dark_reign
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I check the Best Buy website and it shows the product is in stock. Then I get there and it's not in stock. An employee tells me to buy it from Amazon. lulz
I haven't had any issues with poor quality Autorips. I noticed that somewhere along the line, Amazon changed encoders from Lame to some other encoder.
They work fine for putting on my car's stereo and I get instant gratification and don't need to wait the 2 days for the disc to show up before enjoying my purchase.
Vinyl sounds sooooooooo much better than digital especially with a good cartridge installed.
The frequency range is vastly superior to common digital compressed formats, even, flac is not as good in my opinion. CD's can go bbuy buy but please keep vinyl.
The frequency range is vastly superior to common digital compressed formats, even, flac is not as good in my opinion. CD's can go bbuy buy but please keep vinyl.
GoldenTiger
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Same here... The auto rip is seriously convenient.
Zepher
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These were the last CD's I bought. Amazon had a price error on tons of CD's that day. Someone put the decimal in the wrong place.
Armenius
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My biggest beef is especially the big labels still flattening the audio once the stems are mixed for some reason. Someone needs to tell them listening to music on radio stations isn't a thing anymore. It's one of the reasons vinyl hasn't gone away.
I haven't had that happen, but then I don't buy tons of CDs from BBY. OTOH, I do often buy UHD disks there, mostly because I like getting the Steelbook versions when possible.
twonunpackmule
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I but CD's, MP3s, and Vinyl. I typically buy vinyl for the records that I love. Some have alternate track sequences and transitions. Like, The Seer, by The Swans. It was worth it to me to have that both in CD and Vinyl form.
Best Buy has always had a shitty selection. So, pulling out entirely was something I did years ago.
Best Buy has always had a shitty selection. So, pulling out entirely was something I did years ago.
Comixbooks
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Slayer was the last CD I picked up there. Ultima Online was the last game. Picked up a few logitech mice and keyboards but that was online.
Saturn_V
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At least a decade for me. I don't think I ever bought a CD from them. But I stopped buying pop music two decades ago, and BestBuys, Targets, and WalMarts are only going to stock what's pop and trending. I used to spend a bundle in Tower Records back in the day. I miss that shopping experience- but all good things.
But it's kinda odd buying a CD from Amazon, ripping it to FLAC, putting it back on the shelf to never touch it again.
twonunpackmule
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There was a brief moment when they stocked Touch and Go releases. That was a fleeting moment.
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MavericK
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The last CD I bought, I later found out the digital release had bonus songs that weren't on the disc. So it doesn't seem like they really want to sell physical media anymore.
My biggest beef is the loudness war. Not everyone listens to music with crappy Apple earbuds, some people actually have a hifi system and would like their music not phucked up from the get-go. Looking at you Green Day and Metalica. One band that is bucking this trend is A7X starting with their album The Stage and it sounds great.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=avenged+sevenfold&album=the+stage
Hagrid
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I still have them....next to my 3.5", 5.25", and 8" floppies. Haha.
Ok, I don't have any of that. Unless you like the whole CD, it's cheaper, faster, and easier to buy it online.
If you buy the CD, you might still end up ripping it to play on your phone/tablet, so really no point.
Ok, I don't have any of that. Unless you like the whole CD, it's cheaper, faster, and easier to buy it online.
If you buy the CD, you might still end up ripping it to play on your phone/tablet, so really no point.
I'm with you on the loudness wars. FFS, just master a version Radio and/or DAPs and a master for CDs. Or just do it for CDs and people can run the wave file through some hypercompression tool.
That said, occasionally hypercompression works. I can't remember what tune it is, but there's an older Foo Fighters song that's compressed to hell and the distortion is good...but that's not the norm.
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Zarathustra[H]
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I still consider LAME's standard VBR preset (formerly --alt-preset-standard) to be acceptable in most cases.
In the now famous Hydrogenaudio A/B test they used --alt-preset-standard (encoded, and then uncompressed back to wavs) vs direct wav CD rips and had their community A/B test it on their own equipment (which tended to be rather high end). Their userbase were unable to determine which sample was the mp3 and which was the direct rip more than ~50% of the time, so in other words, equivalent to guessing at random.
Just to be on the safe side, I jump it up one step to the "extreme" preset.
I just don't see the point of bothering with FLAC's and the like.