June 30, 2023 / By mobanmarket
In the 1980s, the CD nearly pushed the LP to extinction. Nearly. For all the claims of “Perfect Sound Forever,” the main thing offered by the CD was convenience.
Then, in the mid-1990s, the MP3 and the Internet made it easy to extract and distribute the information encoded on a CD. Secret websites raced to be the first to distribute free MP3s of new recordings, sometimes even before they were released. This went on for years, undermining record-company profits, before Napster came along and gave the record industry a high-value lawsuit target: no more suing widows and small children.
In 2001, Napster was shut down. A few years later, iTunes legitimized (and monetized) marginal-quality music downloads. By that time, the record industry was in free-fall.
Rhapsody—the world’s first music streaming service—started up around the time Napster was shut down, but streaming didn’t get a foothold until several years later, and when it did, it was mostly free and ad-supported, and the quality was—of course—low. Sales of physical media kept falling—except for vinyl LPs, which at first held steady and then started rising. But that’s a story for another day.
Technology has always driven change, but the mass market, with an assist from corporate beancounters, dictates key decisions, and few of those decisions went our way . . .
. . . until, in 2008, the Chesky brothers started HDtracks and music downloads went high-rez. Over the next decade, more high-rez download sites came online, and the catalog grew, both for high-rez and CD-rez. Often the high-rez versions were the best, most authentic versions of that music available—relatively “flat” digital masters, the as-yet-untainted source of the dynamically compressed recordings we’d grown used to on CD. (It’s not always the resolution that makes high-rez downloads superior.) Downloads of older recordings, often, were near-transparent digital transfers from the original analog tapes—the best digital versions available. Suddenly we had access to record companies’ crown jewels, often for the price of a compact disc. They’re still out there, often discounted. Grab ’em while you can.
More recently still, streaming went high-rez. First (in the US) came Tidal, offering MQA (footnote 1). Qobuz crossed the Atlantic, and then Amazon entered the fray. The result: For 50 cents a day, you can have access to a vast library of recordings in the best available quality.
What is that noise I hear? Is that the sound of audiophiles—complaining about high-resolution streaming?
Let’s consider the most common objections.
Streaming lacks the tactile qualities of vinyl: It’s true. I enjoy handling my records—the cleaning, the brushing, the liner notes. Streaming has none of that. It can nonetheless be satisfying. In my library, with the aid of Roon, downloads, ripped CDs, and music streamed from Tidal and Qobuz mesh seamlessly, presented in an information-rich (metadata-rich) context. (Other server software offers a similar experience, but Roon is the best I’ve encountered—not that there isn’t room for improvement.) You get to keep your records, and you can listen to them whenever you want to. Or just hold them—that’s fine, too.
The sound of streaming isn’t as good as downloads or physical media: If you’re a vinylphile, you’re bound to think your vinyl sounds best. If you’re a high-rez fan, you may think downloads served up from your server sound better than the same music does when streamed. And yet, for the cost of a single vinyl reissue or a 24/192 download from one of the more expensive download sites, you can access a vast library of music in the best available digital quality—for two months.
Streaming services don’t pay musicians enough: Estimates place royalties (earned by musicians) at a fraction of a penny per stream. But if you’re worried about musicians making money, Taylor Swift earned $185 million last year. Over the decade that just ended, U2 grossed more than $1 billion, from touring alone. The musicians who have always made money—those with large followings and major-label deals—still earn plenty. The rest have always struggled.
Is it harder now than it used to be, or easier? The contemporary model seems more musician-friendly: The technology that almost killed the record industry—and that makes streaming possible—also, obviously, makes music distribution easier. Today, a musician can make a record cheap, promote it online, and sell it through BandCamp, SoundCloud, and so on, all without major-label backing—and they get to keep a bigger share.
If you’re worried about record companies—does anyone worry about record companies?—their 2018 revenues were up 9.7% over 2017, giving them their best year since 2005. All of that increase—and then some, since revenues from downloads and physical media were down—is streaming revenue, which rose by an astonishing 32.9% in 2018 to reach 47% of global recorded-music revenues. 2019 numbers aren’t available as I write this, but it seems certain that streaming constituted more than half of global recorded-music revenues in 2019.
If you care about musician incomes, the best thing you can do is subscribe to a music streaming service, or more than one, and listen. The logic is air-tight: Streaming is taking over music distribution—whether we want it to or not—and the more money streaming services make, the more money musicians make from streaming.
High-rez music streaming is one of the finest developments in the history of hi-fi. There are no serious downsides. Embrace it.—Jim Austin
Footnote 1: Some question—passionately—whether MQA should be called high-rez. I’ve written plenty on that topic, and I’m not interested in revisiting it.
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