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 2 responses by realhifi

This subject is getting a lot of attention, just look at the responses here. Cds' aren't dead or dying anytime soon but with hard disk based music playback getting so good it is easy to see why some think that it's the only way to go.
Once some of the larger record lables start offering high resolution downloads of big chunks of their music libraries it will start to tip in favor of downloads for audiophiles for the simple reason that it's better. A 24/96 file of something that is also on a cd is going to sound better.

That simple.

I honestly don't think that anyone that isn't looking into computer audio is behind right now though. Great cd players still sound great, lot's of cds being produced, LOT'S of used cds out there so it has legs as far as being relevant for quite some time. But.....when everything is working and you have a high resolution recording playing back through a well thought out hard drive based sytem it is very hard to look back.
Good point on the not finding cd quality downloads. If that should ever break (read: if iTunes ever becomes cd quality 16/44) THEN things will take off like a rocket on the computer music side of things.

That of course assumes most of the people actually care if Apple does that!