RTP Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Recently I see this new thing striking roots at Psyshop: the CompactStick. Heard of it? It's a 2GB USB flash stick with the sound of a CD album in mp3 and wav format ... plus bonus stuff so that people buy it. Good idea? Maybe. A popular idea? Not yet. I was interested and did a google search about CompactStick and the only real thing I got was the very poor (so to say) looking Compactstick website http://www.compactstick.com/ and a german article in an inventor journal: http://www.erfinderprofi.de/journal/tag/compactstick From that article one can practically conclude, that this CompactStick is something only available to the psy scene ("dance genre", "shops in europe, hongkong and Japan" ... yeah, that's Saikosounds what they mean there!) and that Psyshop seems to play a major promoting role in selling it (since there's an explicit mentioning and link to them). Not really surprising though, since the inventors are german (I'd actually like to know who's behind it ... I speculate they are involved with SpiralTrax in some ways, look at the website, the style ... could be just the designer though) and Psyshop is located there ... what is cool is that the inventors seem to be psy fans, otherwise they probably wouldn't have chosen to do this over Psyshop... Psyshop has now an own Compactstick section. Not many releases there so far, but a few ones ... also the new Atmos one. What I'd like to know is what you people think about this? Will CompactStick really become the successor of the CD? And, of course, is it practical? WAV files offer great sound quality, don't they? And is it eventually possible that this format flows over to other music genres aswell (it's not known in other scenes yet AFAIK, only psytrance)? Might we eventually be able to buy Madonna's next album on CompactStick - an invention that originated in our scene? Would be cool, huh? I personally did choose the CD in the one case where I was able to choose. I don't want a tiny flash drive and then have to burn the stuff to CD only to listen to it on my home stereo. All my releases are CD so far and I still want them to be CD in some way. Otherwise it would disharmonize my collection. Besides Wirikuta (the only shop I order from) doesn't have that format yet. When this gets more popular I might think to invoke an own Compactstick section in my shelf though... What do you say? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormion Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 To put it in one word? LAME Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insejn Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Maybe it's a good thing if you're a DJ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drosophila Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 as long as its not intended for hi-fi it can never be any kind of successor... and frankly by still using wav it makes no sense, if u have "infinite" space why keep the old CD format? So I agree w Ormion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormion Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 as long as its not intended for hi-fi it can never be any kind of successor... and frankly by still using wav it makes no sense, if u have "infinite" space why keep the old CD format? So I agree w Ormion! Exactly! 2GB full of what? Plus I don't see why a label should choose this format. Does it help against piracy? Not really. Actually it's even easier since the tracks are already in the mp3 format! Does it have a better quality? Nope. Same ol' WAV and mp3. And like Droso said it's lame cause you simply can't put it in a hi-fi. The idea of extras is cool, but you can already have it with normal cds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTP Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 What I don't really get about it all is why to offer a CompactStick when the same features (extra tracks plus interview or whatnot) could also be achieved by offering a download ... would be cheaper... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drosophila Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 ... and did u check out the price difference? example (from psyshop): Vibrasphere - Lungs of life CD = 13.93 US$ CompactStick = 19.05 US$ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melancholyman Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 My thought is that it's a good thing. It's nice to get the cd in wav, mp3 and bonuses at once. The problem is, most people that are into hifi usually uses cd's and own expensive cd players. I would think this was great if I could just insert the stick in some DAC that shows track name and so on. But that would mean that I have to upgrade from my current cd-player and that this new dac (if it exists) supports my pre-amplifier. Even if it did, it would be expensive to upgrade. Many I'm sure don't have the money or feel that the benefit justifies an upgrade. But if I was upgraded I would prefer the stick as long as sound quality is at least equal. Maybe this is more for people using portable players or are playing music from their computer not that concerned with sound quality. But it's nice to see new stuff and I'm not against it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisk Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 I wrote an article about the new format just before it hit the shelves: http://www.ektoplazm.com/journal/a-poke-in...a-compactstick/ Summary: it won't work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malevol3nt Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 No it's not just for the psy-scene ( ). It was mentioned on TG Daily a while ago , there was a discussion about it. I've no idea how it allready got in the psy-scene so fast tbh. But what's all this talk about the "same-old-wav" quality? You can't make the music sound better just because you have more space available, changing the format won't make you hear anything new. You can't reproduce anything more then wav has to offer, even if you had 10 million$ speakers. It just doesn't make sense to create a new format that's 'superior' to wav. The spectrum of frequencies you can hear fit in the wav format without a problem. Please do read some articles before you post something in the likes of "10 GB would make the music soooo much better", that's just nonsense talk. Anywho, it does feel kind of lame doesn't it? On the other hand CD's felt lame when vinyl was still around. However I'm not really sure what the point of creating a new music carrier is all about? The music 'industry' doesn't make much sense these days. They started expanding this idea of digital downloads, even made some profit out of it. Now they're doing the opposite, trying to creatie a new carrier. It doesn't make sense, if you wan't to listen to the music you bought (or not) on some device that accepts USB input then you might aswell buy yourself a big storage USB stick, and just put the music you want on there and carry it around with you. I don't see the point of having CompactSticks for every album when you can put all of the albums on a single USB stick that you bought yourself. It will not pick up. Especially in the days of so many iPod users, I mean what are they gonna do - hotwire the compactstick to their ipod? Doesn't make sense at all, you buy a compatstick, you can only plug it in compatible players or your PC. Then you have to copy to your PC, then from the PC to your iPod or to a bigger USB stick.. just nonsense. As for DRM or any of that, you can't stop piracy with any form or format. If you can listen to the music, you can copy the music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anoebis Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 It's like minidisc I think, some tests, but it won't take over the market... Digital vs CD will be the future I think, I think there will be enough collectors to keep CD alive, and another part will choose for digital files only (wav's of course, as with todays prices for a terrabite there is no use for other formats any more) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agneton Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Maybe it's a good thing if you're a DJ. You think so? I think it's easier buying CD's than buying a compact stick + CDr's in order to rip the compact stick to the pc and burn a CDr... OK maybe I'm lazy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malevol3nt Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 It's like minidisc I think, some tests, but it won't take over the market... Digital vs CD will be the future I think, I think there will be enough collectors to keep CD alive, and another part will choose for digital files only (wav's of course, as with todays prices for a terrabite there is no use for other formats any more) Probably FLAC's instead. Even if it's a raw copy of the wav, with no compression. It allows tagging and other neat stuff, much better then just having wav's imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTP Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 Many I'm sure don't have the money or feel that the benefit justifies an upgrade. But if I was upgraded I would prefer the stick as long as sound quality is at least equal. Maybe this is more for people using portable players or are playing music from their computer not that concerned with sound quality. But it's nice to see new stuff and I'm not against it.Correct. My soundsystem has no way to play a CompactStick without somewhat annoying workarounds, I'd have to burn the stuff on a CD - in CD format since it can't understand mp3 (older soundsystem that is ), that means I wouldn't even get all songs on one CD in the Atmos case. I'd have to burn 2 CDs. And then, where would I organize the CDrs? I'd practically need the room of three CD cases (one for the Compactstick in its case, two for CDrs) in my shelf just to be able to get the sound on the hifi? That's just not cool. I wrote an article about the new format just before it hit the shelves: http://www.ektoplazm.com/journal/a-poke-in...a-compactstick/ Summary: it won't work. Hey, good article ... and with a well put sentence in it, which I may quote because it's so true: "This seems like a terribly wasteful and roundabout way to download a bunch of files!" Indeed... No it's not just for the psy-scene ( ). It was mentioned on TG Daily a while ago , there was a discussion about it. I've no idea how it allready got in the psy-scene so fast tbh.Ah, it's not only for our scene? Interesting. But if this would be intended to go out big, why start it off in our scene (it definitely started off here ... there's no other release on CompactStick than the ones Psyshop offers)? There is not that much money to be made. I think the inventors of this thing got a connection or might even be involved in our scene. That official website reminds me too much of Spiral Trax (okay, that really could be just the designer ... but also the cover of that test CompactStick thing on the photo, isn't that the image background of the Bakkelit 2.1 cover?) and psytrance-esque undergroundness... anyway... Overall I think it's cool that there are efforts to make something new since the CD is not an optimal format ... and digital music is also not an optimal format for me because it lacks the physical component, I want to hold something in my hand when I listen to the music, kinda. With the stick they tried to combine the sound quality of digital wav releases with the physical component, which is for itself a good idea. But there are too many disadvantages connected to it. As Basilisk put it, why now combining digital music with the delivery problem of physical music when the files could actually just be downloaded? It's a waste of time, energy and money. The "physical component" is simply not justification enough for that. Furthermore when that problem is mastered and the stick has arrived, there's even more hassle for the people like me who want to listen to the stuff not on the PC, but also on their CD player: they need to burn the stuff to CDr, organize the CDrs and in the end this is double and triple work. And the bonus material simply can't make that up for me. It probably works for the people who made the PC their music base, all music on the PC in form of wav or mp3. And CDs are just the backup, they never touch the CD. For these people, CompactSticks are actually a cool thing! But I don't think there are enough people of that kind to make the format profitable and big... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psytones Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 As mentioned, cool idea in it self, see MD for success! CD FTW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malevol3nt Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Ah, it's not only for our scene? Interesting. But if this would be intended to go out big, why start it off in our scene (it definitely started off here ... there's no other release on CompactStick than the ones Psyshop offers)? There is not that much money to be made. Actually I've done some googling and found that tgdaily article, it was something else they introduced a while ago. But it's almost the same thing, here it's named "SlotMusic" and it uses microSD's instead of Sticks: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39812/98/ SlotMusic Pictures Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTP Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 Actually I've done some googling and found that tgdaily article, it was something else they introduced a while ago. But it's almost the same thing, here it's named "SlotMusic" and it uses microSD's instead of Sticks: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39812/98/ SlotMusic Pictures hey, thanks for digging it up, this sounds interesting... So this CompactStick is far from a standard ... but SlotMusic neither. However, I'd find the idea with the SD card + USB adaptor better, then you wouldn't have to transfer it over PC if you wanted to listen to it on a walkman cellphone for example. That makes the whole thing at least a little bit easier to handle. But why did these idiots not put wav files on the card? If it had wav files and all the other content then it would be better than the CompactStick. Oh and the packaging of SlotMusic is gruesome ... I'd lose that little SD card in no time ... the CompactStick can always be stored in its case and filed like a CD, that's not optimal aswell since a lot of room is lost, but it's at least better than SlotMusic, that way I at least wouldn't lose the damn stick. Anyway, it looks like we will get a number of variations of basically the same approach, none like the other and in the end we have a salad and the support for every format alone is too weak so none of them will stand long ... that's probably how it's going to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malevol3nt Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 hey, thanks for digging it up, this sounds interesting... So this CompactStick is far from a standard ... but SlotMusic neither. However, I'd find the idea with the SD card + USB adaptor better, then you wouldn't have to transfer it over PC if you wanted to listen to it on a walkman cellphone for example. That makes the whole thing at least a little bit easier to handle. But why did these idiots not put wav files on the card? If it had wav files and all the other content then it would be better than the CompactStick. Oh and the packaging of SlotMusic is gruesome ... I'd lose that little SD card in no time ... the CompactStick can always be stored in its case and filed like a CD, that's not optimal aswell since a lot of room is lost, but it's at least better than SlotMusic, that way I at least wouldn't lose the damn stick. Anyway, it looks like we will get a number of variations of basically the same approach, none like the other and in the end we have a salad and the support for every format alone is too weak so none of them will stand long ... that's probably how it's going to be. My thoughts exactly. Even using compact sticks instead of slotmusic doesn't really help at all. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a usb stick somewhere. And SlotMusic would be a horror really. I think these 'new' approaches are destined to fail. One factor is wireless internet which is emerging everywhere, you just need some device with wifi installed and you can get your music easily downloaded on your mp3 player (iPhone anyone?). And why carry a 2 gb stick around when your portable mp3 player has way more storage then that. I don't really understand for which group of people these products are aimed for (Maybe the stupid?). You can allready download or rip music and store it on a USB stick. What's the point of having 2 Gb sticks for every album? These products are a waste of plastic, metal, and flash memmory if you ask me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JISNEGRO Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 why still using CD instead of DVD's if they can store more than 4GB? I don't know only with time we will know wich format will be the next dominant, but one thing is for sure CD time is running over Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malevol3nt Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 why still using CD instead of DVD's if they can store more than 4GB?Well, maybe because of a couple of things: 1. ~74 minutes seem to be good enough for most people as a 'standard' in the maximum length of music presented on a single disc. 2. DVD's could potentially have 'extra's' on them, for example images or videos, but then they have to be in a mixed format which makes them incompatible with some CD/DVD players in the market (at least that used to be a problem in the old days). 3. DVD's are more prone to scratches - as far as I know. And they're more expensive then CD's. Or they used to be. 4. Most Audio manufacturing plants were designed to work with CD's, upgrading them now wouldn't really make much sense (economically). Especially in the days where CD sales have dropped so much. Well I'm not really following the news about the disc formats so I may be wrong on a couple of things but those used to be the problems anyway. Someone enlighten me on the differences today, I've no idea really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkarbiter Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 Totally lame. I prefer my cd and artwork thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest D N H Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 well i have a different perspective on this (perhaps I belong to the classification of stupid) in the previous argument in this subject i was going to express my view about it but it had to be stopped there. cd or digital? but this is also a similar subject if not the same. Primarly the digital way in acquiring music in non physical format available can not be disregarded. Especially when it comes to underground artists who deserve full appreciation for donating their creations through the net. But imo the physical release -CD or Vinyl- feels so different. It holds an essence which is with no match. A compact disc is an inerasable audio format (the same stands for vinyl). What is written on it will be there. It has marked the disc. In contrast with a hard drive. The inspired cover artwork, aside from conceptualizing the sound, gets a role of exciting the imagination or often inspires images and visions during the process. And this corporeal presentation of the music; case, digipak or cardboard box, the pro printed disc, it is something you hold it, you feel it, you own it. Maybe it has to do likewise with a kind of romanticism of a (inner) search in a vinylstore or on the web, "underground" or mainstream and grabbing the trove into your hands. Undoubtedly all this helps a release to obtain occurrence and more visible existence. But for sure music has the precedence. And the priority is to obtain the music. The self-created wav cd release well-defined by draeke, is a good mode, although maybe a bit procedural or pricey for quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest D N H Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 listening music from the pc or ipod files feels somehow soulless in comparison with a physical release. the compactstick format can be seen positively under some conditions. the stick should have its release artwork printed on it, anaglyph patterns, embossed logo or something on it... something like that which personalises it and seals it. this physical format like the cd must be inerasable. it is foolish to have an album release which you can erase it or write something else on it. the audio quality of compactstick should be equal to .cda (could be better?*) with wav (or flac if it is more suitable) not be at disadvantage. now the new hi-fi systems and dj cd players come with a usb port so music streaming should be just like the cd’s. the storage of the compactstick depends on the release like sole cd/double cd…1gb /2gb.. mp3s are unnecessary. not least the compactstick due to its kind of physical format excels compact disc in sufferance; no more scratches and scuffs. undoubtedly compact disc is a sensitive physical format. i have heard the aspect of cds suffered diminished volume caused by long play. 19.05 US$? pricy indeed. * does anyone remember super audio cds and super audio cd players (which were highly expensive)? Super_Audio_CD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkarbiter Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 A compact disc is an inerasable audio format (the same stands for vinyl). What is written on it will be there. It has marked the disc. In contrast with a hard drive.Vinyl may not be erasable... but it doesn't last forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NEMO.BOFH Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 No it's not just for the psy-scene ( ). It was mentioned on TG Daily a while ago , there was a discussion about it. I've no idea how it allready got in the psy-scene so fast tbh. But what's all this talk about the "same-old-wav" quality? You can't make the music sound better just because you have more space available, changing the format won't make you hear anything new. You can't reproduce anything more then wav has to offer, even if you had 10 million$ speakers. It just doesn't make sense to create a new format that's 'superior' to wav. The spectrum of frequencies you can hear fit in the wav format without a problem. Please do read some articles before you post something in the likes of "10 GB would make the music soooo much better", that's just nonsense talk. Anywho, it does feel kind of lame doesn't it? On the other hand CD's felt lame when vinyl was still around. However I'm not really sure what the point of creating a new music carrier is all about? The music 'industry' doesn't make much sense these days. They started expanding this idea of digital downloads, even made some profit out of it. Now they're doing the opposite, trying to creatie a new carrier. It doesn't make sense, if you wan't to listen to the music you bought (or not) on some device that accepts USB input then you might aswell buy yourself a big storage USB stick, and just put the music you want on there and carry it around with you. I don't see the point of having CompactSticks for every album when you can put all of the albums on a single USB stick that you bought yourself. It will not pick up. Especially in the days of so many iPod users, I mean what are they gonna do - hotwire the compactstick to their ipod? Doesn't make sense at all, you buy a compatstick, you can only plug it in compatible players or your PC. Then you have to copy to your PC, then from the PC to your iPod or to a bigger USB stick.. just nonsense. As for DRM or any of that, you can't stop piracy with any form or format. If you can listen to the music, you can copy the music. You buy the cd, you insert it in your pc, you rip the cd, you compress it to MP3 and then send it to your ipod... Nope it will NEVER work! And this discussion is a bit offtopic I am affraid! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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