Compact Disc’s star has well and truly faded. At its peak, at the turn of the century, just short of a billion silver discs were sold in the USA in a year. Fast forward to 2022 and that number had dropped to just 33 million, with the format suffering the ignominy of being overtaken by vinyl (41 million sales). Given that the CD was originally developed to replace records, that is some fall from grace.
Of course, the success of streaming has played a large part in the downfall of the CD. How could it not? The major music streaming services – Spotify, Tidal, Amazon, Apple Music and Deezer – carry many millions of songs and most can deliver higher resolution than 16bit/44.1kHz CD-spec quality. So, given the convenience, choice and source quality we enjoy from streaming services, why am I writing this column in praise of a format that teeters at the edge of mass market extinction?
