The CD Music Format Revival 2022

In 2023 the compact disc celebrates its 40th anniversary. After having completely wiped out vinyl records during the 1980s and 1990s, this music medium was short lived and pretty much was given up for dead after just being ‘king’ for around 20 years.

The Cause of CD Decline

With the inovative advance of streaming, CD soon declined into obscurity, fuelling this was the resurgence of vinyl particularly from music audiophiles, who had soon realised that their beautiful music had been wrecked during conversion for steaming by the platforms such as ’Spotify’ and ‘Apple’.

Why the increase in CD sales?

But now in 2022 the CD medium is experiencing an unexpected resurgence in popularity among music lovers, inflated by the increasingly strong demand from vinyl collectors, the price of vinyl records has been souring year on year, and even more so in recent months.

Music lovers, those who still want to hold a physical version of the albums they listen to, are increasingly falling back on to buying compact discs again, you can buy them easily and cheaply from online shops, boot sales, auction sites and even charity shops.

Why? You ask, because of the previously low demand for the compact disc and there being millions around the world, the prices of CDs are very attractive, a typical used CD sells for between £1-£5 a piece and its vinyl equivelent sells for around five times this price, taking into account the CD will have better audio for the majority it all makes starts to make sense.

So it’s not just about the sound quality?

Now bear in mind that there are many rare and collectable CDs and Vinyl Records that greatly exceed the mentioned prices but the CD trumps vinyl for availability and quality the majority of the time.

If we talking ‘nostalgia’ or ‘cool’ then Vinyl wins hands down, then add to that vinyl will always be the original making its desirability and investment options an attractive decision.

Vinyl will always be more valuable to collectors, but don’t be foolish and buy for investment as this is about as easy to accomplish as picking the lottery results, but certain records will always hold value because of the artwork covers and inserts (particularly posters), and the history.

Now the ever ending debate!

What sounds better CD or Vinyl?

Well no one except you knows that answer, because it is you who is listening to it and how you think it sounds, if you have both vinyl and cd versions side by side then you can decide, its no one else ’s verdict, what ever you like is the one, but I will say the only thing I would add is that new music maybe recorded 1990s onwards is very possibly going to sound better digital or in CD format, this is because the music was made to be played this way and modern technologies can change sounds that are very pleasing to our ear.

This does not mean it would sound like that if played live but we’re not at a concert, we’re running down the road or sitting at home.

Vinyl will nearly always sound better for older recordings made prior to the 1990s and especially anything recorded before 1982.

What do the artists prefer?

Physical sales, those that we carry home are financially better for the artists than downloads, but I expect the ideal world for all is a combination of all.

Our Conclusion

Choose the format that suits you, whether that’s CD, Vinyl or Streaming. Or even maybe the cassette tape, lets not go there now!

If you enjoy music and listening to an artists breadth of material and not just the hit song then CD for newer artists and Vinyl for older music is the way to go, stream if you just like the odd song here and there, streaming does have some plusses but not enough for me.