Music Downloads Overtakes CDs – Implications for CD Rippers

A recent report from Forrester Research show that online music downloads is expected to overtake CD sales within the next three years, starting in 2012.  And in March 2011, a study from the Strategy Analytics’ Digital Media Strategies with confirmed the unmistakable trend as online music revenues are projected to reach $2.8 billion as CD sales fall to $2.7.  How will this affect audiophiles who love ripping their CDs to their PCs?

If you are ripping CDs to uncompressed WAV files, the trend may threaten the long-term prospects of getting CD titles from your favorite artists as most will likely put their works out in download sites like the iTunes appstore.  CDs won’t go the way of the vinyl LPs in the short term, but releasing one’s opus in CD will no longer be the primary distribution channel for artists. This can be a concern for audiophiles who want to hear new music as they get released.  What they will get are MP3 files on paid download sites which are not up to par with CD quality music.

Fortunately, there will be download sites that will post these music materials in lossless compressed FLAC format or MP3 at high bitrates of 320kbps that have near-CD quality sound.  It will be a matter of identifying the sites that do.  Most download sites today post their MP3 files at 128kbps bitrates which is not acceptable among audiophiles.  But for mobile listening on iPods, mp3 players and smartphones, they are good enough.

No doubt, CD ripping will still be the norm for many audiophiles archiving CD content while music downloads will be the easier option especially among non-critical listeners on their portable gadgets. The worst that CD lovers can expect is not getting their titles as early as they can today.

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