MDT Classics is no more

[rosman20]

I use many different sites in countries to purchase CDs.  I'm so sad about MDT, which was a great one in the UK, and I also have lost a wish list of about 100 items.  I have been adding to it for so long, and assumed it would stay, as the MDT website was just changed.  UGH!

[Alan Howe]

The lesson is: write everything down on paper. I've learned this from bitter experience too.

[eschiss1]

I used MDT not to buy CDs but to track upcoming new recordings not out yet, especially of all sorts of unusual classical (of course, if I'd bought a CD or two from them they might have lasted longer, moreso if more people who think and act as I do did...) Fortunately for me selfishly there are other sites similar to MDT that still provide this service, it seems.

[Alan Howe]

I bought the vast majority of the CDs I wanted from them; their prices were competitive and service excellent. Still, for us in the UK, at least there's Europadisc and Presto...

In five years' time, will Amazon have the monopoly, though?

[eschiss1]

No idea. Personally I suspect most of the predictions I made about 2019 in 2014 were extremely wrong, so I won't try to guess.

[TerraEpon]

Well to me it seems that the huge push toward large box sets (be they be for composers, orchestras, conductors or performers) in the past few years far beyond those that have been in previous years is a clear sign they are aiming to, as it were, close the book on releasing (past?) stuff on CD. Just my own gut feeling, especially since apparently a lot of the CD pressing plants have shut down recently.

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I'm sure it'll be a download-only industry in a few years' time. Mind you, sales of e-readers seem to have slowed, with people continuing to prefer actual, physical books, so who knows...

[Mark Thomas]

You're right, I'm sure, although UK classical CD sales rose by 10% last year. Unfortunately CD sales generally have plummeted across the world, so the end is undoubtedly nigh.

[Ilja]

Oh, I'm sure it'll be a download-only industry in a few years' time. Mind you, sales of e-readers seem to have slowed, with people continuing to prefer actual, physical books, so who knows...

The relation between book and e-book sales has always been less than straightforward, and e-book sales are still on the rise. The decline in sales of specialized e-readers is real, but this doesn't appear to apply to high-end devices so much as to entry-level readers. Rather than to a newfound fondness for paper books, this is probably more due to the use of ever larger smartphone screens, with screen sizes approaching and sometimes surpassing those of smaller and cheaper e-readers.Bit of a nitpick, sorry. On with music.