Major change in the music industry

[Gonzalez]

This is a very interesting thread! I've grown up with hi-fi all my life, my Dad built a terrific mono system back in the Fifties (sand-filled home-made speaker cabinet built into the corner of the lounge, Goldring Lenco turntable, no idea what the amplifiers were) on which he and some audiophile friends used to play records to each other in the evening. I sat on the stairs listening to Solomon playing Beethoven piano concertos. I cannibalised the system when I went to university, until I could afford one of the budget hi-fi turntables and a Pioneer something-600 amp, and some bookshelf speakers so I could go -stereo! Cutting a (very) long story short, I have progressed through Rega Planar 3 turntables, Cambridge A60 Amp (now on display in my lounge, how nerdy is that!) etc etc all the way to a Klimax DS, Mark Levinson No 32 Reference Controller and pre-amp, Spectral power amps, Madrigal cd transport and digital audio processor, LP12 turntable, Avalon Ceramique speakers - stunning sound, and I get great pleasure from my music collection which goes back to 1960's vinyl - and my Dad's old Solomon records!
I download studio masters when I can - thank you Linn! - as well as purchase cds to rip (from Amazon). I get cross when I find sites that will not sell to me here in Luxembourg (HD Tracks, for example).
But I also download every month quite a few mp3 tracks from e-music, which I put on my iPod. Often to test-listen newly issued albums from Harmonia Mundi or BIS, or to pick up old stuff that I didn't buy years ago. This month it was Madness and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. There's a lot of good jazz there. I listen to this when I am travelling, and with some Koss headphones the sound is pretty good. It's certainly good enough in a hotel bedroom or on the train.

So I think that I have had a continually improving quality music supply over the years. I certainly hope that downloading sites will continue to grow, and that progressively more and more FLAC will be available. That seems to be the case with classical music, and judging from my Gramophone subscription there is no shortage of new recordings, including many of very minority interest. Will this continue? The future must surely be in downloading, and I reckon that there will be enough high quality availability, but efforts still need to be made to make it easier, so that we do not have to fiddle about with special software to sort out album art and to re-tag tracks!!
But I suppose that so long as Briain and a few other invaluable forum members keep up their good work we'll manage!!