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the audio cd is a beautiful standard because it is something truly rare in the field of technology: it is complete. it set out to solve the problem of distributing audio, and it solved it so completely that it will never be obsolete, because it delivers quality far surpassing what the human ear can make out. for the last four decades, audio has simply been a solved problem, thanks to the cd.
it's also drm-free and a physical medium! i love the cd.
if the cd dies and vinyl survives, we riot.
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@autumnull@tranarchy.fish
@hikari it does fucking suck to interact with cds tho, terrible storage medium. hence why nobody really uses them any more, burning a read-only file system onto a thing that is delicate and easy to scratch and doesn't fit in ur pocket is a pain in the ass
I would add the companion format of the jewel case plus insert booklet makes learning the lyrics and further absorbing the aesthetic such a pleausre
because it delivers quality far surpassing what the human ear can make out
Of course, thanks to loudness wars all that quality has been pointless for (at least) the last two decades.
@jernej__s tragically, the cd is too perfect. vinyl wouldn't allow a loudness war :(
@hikari I took these screenshots in 2004:
@hikari This was shortly after I bought Sennheiser HD555 headphones, and was wondering why some songs sounded so bad…
@hikari something i've always wanted to ask an expert on the format: why was there never an extension of the standard for double-sided CDs? it seems like it would've saved so much on packaging and materials. i always assumed it was down to very practical engineering / hardware reasons but i never knew what those were.
but i definitely wanted to burn mix CDs for friends in college with a Side A + Side B.
@jplebreton @hikari CDs have the recording layer on top of the polycarbonate disk, so you'd have to make the CD twice as thick to make it double-sided (extra plastic layer instead of the thin top coat of varnish). I think drives wouldn't like the extra thickness or mass.
In contrast, DVDs have the recording layer in the middle of a sandwich of two thinner disks, so making them double-sided is easy.
As to why they can't make thinner CDs -- I guess the laser wouldn't focus correctly.
@hikari Agree, except for obsolescence. I have vinyl I've owned for 60 years that I can still play, and if anything it sounds better than then because the playback technology has improved a lot.
Were civilization to collapse, vinyl would still be playable with a needle and resonator box, just as it was when I was a kid. Victrolas will work.
Not an argument about the quality of sound, but about the longevity of analog technology. Digital permanence is not guaranteed.
@robpike that's true, but vinyl is rather unusual in this regard! analog technology can also be obscenely complex. VHS and LaserDisc are both examples of that I think, there can never again be new players for those formats.
@robpike perhaps there'll be no video or software record of our civilisation for our successors to enjoy. it's nice that they'll have some audio, but only music…