The Compact Disc: NOT Perfect Sound Forever

I'm old enough to have witnessed the comings and goings of touted media formats. Quad-encoded LPs (never opted in), Reel to Reel Tape (owned a rock solid Sony TC-355), 8-Track Tape (only in a few of my dad's late '60s era Chevys), Cassette Tape (owned several decks including one of the first Norelco portables), Beta (never opted in), VHS (only when stereo S-VHS became available), Dolby Encoding (Ugh), Digital Audio Tape (have 2 machines), Compact Disc, Super Audio CD, DVD-Audio, Blu-Ray Disc (several players), Mini Disc (yup, got a recorder) and I'm sure I've forgotten one or two. When the CD format was launched in the early '80s the format was marketed, "Perfect Sound Forever!". If that meant no surface issues like crackling from dusty grooves, occasional skipping, cross-talk from poorly mounted cartridges/worn out styli, then sure. Where the theory fell apart was in the sound. If anyone here suffered from the first round of Beatles CD issues you know what I'm taking about. Many early CD re-issues of back catalog were created from RIAA EQ'd master tapes (overly simply put this EQ curve is radically inverted for the purpose of being processed properly by the cartridge transducer) and the sound was perfectly re-produced un-inverted RIAA equalization, bright and harsh with bloated bass. Yes!, Er, Yikes!! When the CDs caught on I was working in the music department at The Harvard COOP in Harvard Square Cambridge MA (AKA, The COOP), world-renowned and we sold a lot of LPs. We set up a small bin with a short sampling of CD titles. When revenues for one month hit $20K out of that bin, the writing was on the wall. Eventually The COOP became a CD only shop, and not many years later the department was closed. Quick aside; even though improvements to sampling bit-rates and over-sampling techniques took digital sound into reasonable parameters, whenever I took a project into the recording studio and the heavy lifting was done by digital multi-track recorders the producers would always have an analog multi-track machine on hand to "warm up" the drum/vocal/guitar tracks. In blind A/B comparisons the feeds through the analog deck clearly smoked the straight digital feeds, by A LOT. Back to originally scheduled programming...Indications to me the CD format wasn't going to last came early. The record companies used the CD to "commoditise" music solely for greed, and in the long run the public caught on and a mighty backlash ensued. Napster came along and the major label "distribution clout" disappeared. During the hey-day of CDs Neil Young used his star power to ensure all his releases were supported on vinyl and thanks to a few other big name artists who followed suit one record pressing plant was kept in business. Two decades later recording artists are monetizing their content directly through their own Websites and outlets like Amazon/iTunes. There are boutique vinyl re-issue labels galore that have pressing plants in house, and the majors are also jumping in. Many new releases come with digital download codes, and many others will include the CD version of the album for free! Now THAT puts the legacy of the CD in perspective!