Are CD players dead


I went to an audiophile meeting today and the owner of the store said Cd's and cd players are dead. He said you need to start learning about computer audio or you will be left behind. Is what he is saying true?
taters

Showing 3 responses by knownothing

Reports of the death of redbook cd's are premature.

CD's will survive for quite a while in the market space between availability, cost and convenience. By title, CD sales still reign supreme, correct? That will not last forever, but I regularly use CD, lp, and computer downloads, and assume I am not alone. I like liner notes that I can hold in my hand, and physicval media, whether lp or cd/sacd, has some appeal to me.

I love the convenience of the whole iTunes experience, but not the sound quality. I love the sound of HD digital downloads, but not the lack of availability of content or the clunky interfaces (hardware, software or retail - aside: I will lavish effort over all things vinyl, but can't be bothered with worrying about asynchronus versus non-asynchronus USB conversion etc., go figure). My feeling is that once a HD format is combined with a front end that is as simple to use and widely available as iTunes, then I will embrace electronic media as my first preference, but will continue to spin lps and cd for quite a while.

I suggest you download a free copy of iTunes onto your computer and play with it for a while with a pair of cheap headphones as a gateway drug. If you are interested in going further, then you can move onto the hard stuff - stand alone DAC, boutique playback software, HD downloads, and all that. A good DAC can make a modest cdp sound pretty good too if the player has a decent transport mechanism...

The CD is dead, long live the CD!
The original post was: "Are CD players dead"?

Dying.

What HiFi reports that UK record player sales(!) exceeded sales of CD players as of July 2010.

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/vinyl-turns-the-tables-as-decks-outsell-cd-players-3d-makes-a-slow-start-receivers-rule-2010-uk-ce-sales-revealed

The current thread has focused on music formats more than actual CD players. CD sales still exceed downloads by a large amount.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uPgbxW1-MQo/TWEgQlMz84I/AAAAAAAAASM/IBghiPFrEg0/s1600/albumsales2010.jpg

The dirty not-so-secret that the music industry doesn't know how to deal with is that sales of all formats are plummeting. Does this mean that people are buying and listening to less music as a whole? Maybe. My kids are as likely to watch videos (movies, YouTube, TV shows) on their iPhones and laptops as listen to music. Video is displacing (at least in part) audio only as a format of choice for on-demand entertainment for the masses. Affordable home theater systems and streaming HD video on mobile devices weren't available when the CD was on the drawing board.

I also think all this digital complexity and nonsense is helping drive the re-emergence of vinyl. My comlpletely non-audiophile but digitally fluent son bought a Bass Nector lp recently because he was intrigued by the tangible nature of owning a 12" piece of art and cuing the needle on the disk. Once he notices the sound benefits of analogue, he may get hooked, something that CDs will never offer over HD digital formats.

The other elephant in the room with respect to digital music sales is that XX% of music files are changing hands for free. That was happening long before venders figured out how to charge for downloads, and my guess is it will continue as long as people realize they can get something for free instead of having to pay for it.

So yeah, the CD player is dying. But the last CD player I bought sounds noticably better than the one it replaced. Same disks, better DAC and transport etc. When the new one wears out, I will want another one or something that can at do at least as good of job at extracting music from CDs to play my disks. And lets face it, most of those billions of plastic disks out there will last physically much longer than any of the devices designed to play them and everbody posting here.
Pettyofficer wrote: "A Monopoly of Products/Formats will only lead to cheaper manufacturing, and less Sound Quality. A decade later people will find something amiss with their Computer Audio Music, and regress back to CD". Gee, I agree with much of what you wrote in this thread, but I have a hard time with this statement. There is no analog poetry or magic in lasers and shinny plastic disks. The only thing I see that CD has going for it in the long run is the current standing stock of titles in a reasonably durable format. Hopefully we will progress forward to combine the ease of use of iTunes with the quality of HD formats.

Speaking of iTunes, it has been pretty well established in this and other threads that the stand alone CD player is dying as a tool for mass marketers to sell, and for the masses to buy to play music. The CD player is not being killed by HD tracks and low volume and difficult to implement audiophile computer software however. It is being killed by universial disk players, and by iTunes and all the iPods, iPhones, iMacs and yes, even PC computers that run this crappy format. A bit ironic isnt it. Remember when Steve Jobs wouldn't do color on the Mac until Apple could "do it right" in high resolution and high color density? Too bad Apple wasn't that descriminating with audio resolution in there products. Hopefully we are not stuck in an infinite loop of mediocrity. In any case, I do not believe "competition" for non-disk driven digital formats is going to come from either analog or redbook.