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  • Compact Disc

    Compact Disc by Barry, Robert;

    Series: Object Lessons;

      • GET 20% OFF

      • The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.
      • Publisher's listprice GBP 9.99
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        4 772 Ft (4 545 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 20% (cc. 954 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 3 818 Ft (3 636 Ft + 5% VAT)

    4 772 Ft

    db

    Availability

    Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
    Not in stock at Prospero.

    Why don't you give exact delivery time?

    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Short description:

    The compact disc promised to be the perfect medium for recorded sound, but it presaged the end of physical media for good. Its history shows that the materiality of media can never simply be wished away.

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    Long description:

    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

    The story of the compact disc is also the story of the end of physical media. It is the story of how the quest for perfection laid the grounds for the death of a great industry. For in the passage from analogue media, like records and tapes, to digital formats, like CDs, something changed in the nature of media and in the relationship we have with music. Music became code, a sequence of 1s and 0s, a flow of pure information. The material structure of the medium itself was always supposed to disappear. But the physical has proved to possess an uncanny knack for returning.

    Today the CD is a zombie medium, still popular amongst certain avant-garde record labels and Japanese consumers. Against all the odds, the spectre endures.

    Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

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    Table of Contents:

    Introduction
    1 The Little Disc
    2 The Faithful Disc
    3 The Wounded Disc
    4 The Undead Disc
    Postscript
    Acknowledgements
    Select Bibliography
    Index

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