IMHO it’s because many Japanese audiophiles see streaming as a dead end and are more than happy to sacrifice convenience for quality.
US audiophiles (perhaps Western audiophiles in general) are happy to sacrifice quality for “all these titles are a click away!”
This kind of goes with the US philosophy as a whole that quantity over quality wins in virtually any market.
One interesting point about physical media in Japan is that it’s not just the audiophiles that stick with it. The casual listeners have also stuck with it far longer than elsewhere.
There are a few factors at play here I think. First and foremost is that the industry in Japan is strongly anti-streaming. Record labels there remain very reluctant to make catalogs available online. I think Spotify has launched now, but it was much later than elsewhere.
Along with the labels are the hardware manufacturers, the giant Japanese corporations that all have an interest to keep hardware sales going. Japan is amazing at building physical hardware and optimizing it to the nth degree, but they’re horrible at software (other than maybe video games). When music started moving to files, open encoding standards and commodity hardware, Japan was in big trouble. Sony ruled the world with the Walkman, but got destroyed in just a couple years by Apple because they refused to support mp3 and didn’t have the vision to write the software ecosystem around it.
So there aren’t really any big players in Japan trying to move away from CD, and in fact they actively discourage it.
As an interesting anecdote, here are a couple photos I recently snapped at Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo. The blank media section! Bonus points for spring the cassettes 
:
Good for them.
The best thing about physical media is your album can never change into a completely different version overnight as is the case when a remastered edition is delivered to a streaming/digital service.
This is an example of what happens then:
That having been said, I’m shocked at the blank cassette single media (the five minute per-side UR-10 cassettes in your first photo.)
Or, indeed, an album vanishes completely overnight.
We’re currently subscribed to three streaming providers and I plan to cut at least one of them by buying everything I have bookmarked in my library. I don’t like music in my library disappearing!
Yes on the sudden remaster. Not to mention albums that disappear from streaming services. This is why I buy most music I like when I can - even downloads.
Qobuz’s Sublime Plus might seem expensive but given the discounts on high-res and how much I buy anyway, it pays for itself many times over.
As for the UR-10 tape, you’re sharp!
Hi Bill,
I agree that in general the US has a quantity over quality approach, which is reflected in our high consumption, high waste and many other troubling statistics.
However, I would argue that those of us on this forum, and any dCS owner in general, has made a choice for quality, which also applies to music recordings/formats (unless of course, you are playing MQA–zing!–jk, sorry!) ; )
Re: the steaming files disappearing, I also agree with you 100%. I would hate to lose cherished versions of the songs I love. Just because one goes digital doesn’t mean only streaming. I stream HD radio jazz and lounge (and others) via Roon, for casual listening, but anything I really like I buy/download to a dedicated music server, as do many other “fully digital” folks here.
Cheers,
R
Hi Sourav,
Yes … and we have been in touch with your dealer to appraise him of our findings, I believe your RTT is on its way back to them as I write this.
BR
Phil
I’m glad you returned the thread to its subject! As a fellow RT owner, I look forward to learning the outcome of the examination/servicing.
Was there any issue found in the unit ?
Regards,
Sourav
Hi Sourav,
I was wanting to leave that for your dealer as obviously they’ve been very involved and I haven’t wanted to bypass them but as you’ve asked here then no - absolutely no problems were found.
Your RTT was initially (at our request) run up by your dealer before it was returned to our US service centre so that they could take a listen to the unit first then back at base it was run up against the dCS US demo RTT and it was judged by the service centre as being quieter running than the dCS US demo unit.
BR
Phil
Hi Phil,
Did the service center find that the noise in my transport is within acceptable range while listening to a song with quiet passage in between ?
Regards,
Sourav
Hi Sourav,
Yes … it was found to be quieter than the US teams own demo unit on both CD and SACD playback so all fine.
BR
Phil
Ok
Regards,
Sourav
