The Future Of Music?

[Teifiterror]

I was reading a post on the Hi-Fi choice forums and decided to ask the question here.

"What do you see as the future format for audio in 10 years time?"

As a self confessed audiophile I belive quality of the production is the most important aspect of the frormat which is why I hope higher cpacity formats such as SACD and DVD-A become more widespread. But my main concern is with the high uptake of low quality/low bitrate mp3's that are being downloaded by the general public from websites such as itunes. This obviously has ease of use advantages but the lack of high quality rules it out for me.

So what are eveyones views on this on this?

 

[Teifiterror]

Some good points there 9designs2.

I do think that the quality of the recording is seriously letting us down these days. And anyone who heard X&Y (I HATE coldplay so dont start!) would know what a bad quality recording is (not that the music was good in the first place!).

I find it interesting how lots of people are returning to vinyl as they are unhappy with the quality of CD's etc. And hopefully this is something I will be moving 'up' to in the next few years as funds allow. So how can it be that a supposedly old technology still produces one of the best sounds around? compared to all these modern high bandwidth bitrate digital sources? Cd etc. They nay be easier to live with, but are they easier on the ears?