It seems like ever since the dawn of the new millennium consumer audio has been fixated with digital audio. As the old saying goes however, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. While digital formats such as streaming audio grab the headlines, analog audio has remained a viable alternative for old and new music lovers.
Based on data from the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) Mid-Year 2024 Recorded Music Revenue Report retail music sale revenues increased from $8.4 billion in 2023 to $8.7 billion in 2024.
According to the data unsurprisingly streaming accounted for 84% of total revenues with U.S. paid music service subscriptions growing to 99 million. Not faring as well, digital downloads declined for the 14th straight year with sales figures down to $173 million for the first half of 2024.
Smashing digital downloads, the RIAA study goes on to state that physical media revenues for the first half of 2024 grew 13% to reach the figure of $994 million. Driving that analog audio number were the sales of vinyl, which grew 17%. CD sales were just about flat, but sales of CDs did creep up 0.3% to reach the figure of $236.7 million. Moreover, going back to 2023, the Year-End 2023 RIAA Revenue Statistics report revealed that while LP sales surpassed CD sales, CD sales revenues increased by more than 11% to reach a figure of more than $537 million.
So, what does this data really mean? Realistically what it means is that after enduring the evolution of digital audio, consumers are either rediscovering physical, analog media or new, youthful listeners want to claim ownership over the content they consume in ways that streaming media doesn’t allow.
Lightapalooza took place in late February, and the growth of the event has mirrored the rapid ascension lighting fixtures and controls.
Offering his own theories why analog audio is experiencing a resurgence, Rick Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Indy Audio Labs, a company whose brands include Aragon and Acurus, notes that with all things equal and with a network that’s capable of delivering high levels of performance, the reemergence of CDs and vinyl comes down to control.
Breaking down the CD format to its most basic level he says the product is basically a local digital storage solution that provides users’ full control. He contends that streaming media a nice platform for discovering new music and providing easy access to a wide range of music, but CDs are the most direct way to access the information the recording engineers and artists had intended.
“My most valued recordings are always available to me in good quality via CD whereas with streaming sources, I have found that licensing arrangements with record labels can change over time and all of a sudden, a favorite album of mine on a playlist is simply gone,” says Santiago.
“While I have made many playlists over the years, I am not really in control of any of the content on these lists unless I physically own it. I don’t see this changing any time soon.”
Reiterating a similar sentiment, Paul Hales, CEO, Pro Audio Technology and Theory Audio Design, says the benefit of physical media such as analog audio is the generally higher level of quality these formats provide. After years of listening to low-fidelity recordings, there became a public appetite for higher-quality music.
“Our belief at PRO and Theory regarding audio content is ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ What we mean by that is if you have well designed and accurate speakers, they will reveal all the flaws in low-quality, poorly recorded, or overly processed content,” states Hales.
“The plus side to a good speaker is it also reveals all the magic and sparkle you get from high-quality music—subtleties in the recordings that lower quality speakers simply cannot recreate. For that reason, we strongly believe in high-resolution music [i.e. CD-quality or streaming via Tidal or Qobuz], and we encourage our customers to do so as well. High-resolution content allows listeners to get the most out of their speaker system and ultimately provides the best audio experience.”
Paul Bochner, owner and president of Rochelle, N.J.-based Electronic Concepts, a company that provides state-of-the-art smart home solutions that include audiophile-level audio systems emphasizes that music lovers never really abandoned analog audio.
“I think in the Hi-Fi world of things and the people in it … CDs really have not gone anywhere,” comments Bochner. “While there are incredible DACs [digital-to-analog converters] in the market the purists still want to have a transport in their systems. While most often our clients are streaming there are still some that will always prefer the CD or Vinyl if they are doing critical listening.”
He also notes that unlike digital audio, formats such as vinyl and CDs provide listeners with an intangible emotional attachment that streaming can’t provide.
“I think there will always be that level of nostalgia of holding the cover and the inlay, reading the lyrics and being connected to an album vs sitting there with your iPad or phone and getting distracted,” he states. “Same goes for vinyl. You put a record on, and you sit and wait for the side to finish and it kind of forces you to focus on the music. I have this problem with streaming where I never finish a song. It’s too easy to just keep picking new stuff or hop on Facebook or Instagram. Putting on a CD or Vinyl is like saying, “okay I’m going to focus on this now, so it is easier to get lost in the music.”
Santiago points out that when it comes to making the transition from home theater and formats like immersive audio to stereo there are important differences between the formats that must be recognized. According to Santiago, consumers should follow the same demonstration processes they do with other components such as loudspeakers when evaluating home theater electronics. Part of that auditioning process he continues, should be the evaluation of stereo, analog audio content.
He suggests the brain is the most “sophisticated, real-time processor on the planet,” and while there are measurements that can be used to describe common audio attributes, engineers can’t measure everything.
“As a live musician and sound engineer myself, I have experienced this hundreds of times. This experience helps me know what attributes I am listening for as we develop both 2-channel and home theater electronics with music as the gold standard,” states Santiago.
Echoing that sentiment, Bochner recommends using the power of system and component demonstrations, and to simply use your ears. In the vast majority of his comparative listening sessions Bochner suggests there is something special to the sound of CDs and analog audio compared to streaming media, even when streaming content is run through high-end DACs.
The good news, Santiago notes is that because the home AV market does support stereo analog audio, as well as state-of-the-art immersive audio the home AV industry is prepared to meet the demand of consumers that want to enjoy a choice of digital and audio formats in their homes.
Going back to options offered by his company, Santiago, points out that Aragon is specifically designed for stereo audio reproduction. The Arcurus, meanwhile, is able to support analog audio formats such as CD, and immersive audio owners can enjoy 2-channel audio and spatial audio. To meet the demands of two-channel, stereo audio, Santiago also boasts the brand’s amplifiers are designed to drive a variety of loudspeakers without compromise.
“Aragon amplifiers are designed by Indy Audio Labs to drive the widest possible range of loudspeakers with very consistent results. They deliver extended, flat high frequency response, well beyond 100kHz, plus extended, flat, low-frequency response below 10Hz,” explains Santiago.
“Combining this with our massive analog power supplies and exceptionally fast slew rates, Aragon amplifiers extract the best out of any loudspeaker load presented to them. That is why this relatively little-known American made brand is chosen as the reference electronics for many loudspeaker companies and professional sound studios.”
“There is a new generation of listeners that is outgrowing their AirPods and starting to raise families and live in their own spaces and they desire a better shared audio experience—not just the isolated experience they grew up with,” adds Santiago.
“As their income grows and they can afford more, it is our job to market to them and to let them know the level of enjoyment of music experiences that is possible in the comfort of their home. Whether their music background was from school or from gaming with friends or via iTunes, music as a hobby and a pastime, with better gear as an enabler, should continue to expand in the future, hence the increasing popularity of even so-called ‘legacy’ music formats. At least this is the future that I am hopefully expecting and starting to see play out.”
The post 2024 Lighting Controls and Fixtures Report appeared first on CEPRO.