Are Disc Players Dead?

Vinyl isn't dead. It just smells funny.

"Apparently lossless digital isn't as perfect as many would lead us to believe"

Files can be better than original CD. The reason for that is that CD player cannot read the same sector many times, playing in real time, thus interpolating data when scratches on CD are longer than 4mm (quits at 8mm). Digital file can be ripped using EAC or MAX as data files reading sectors many times until proper checksum is obtained.

Nglazer - many people still don't use computers seeing them as confusing, buggy and not as reliable as abacus.

I use Mac Mini with Benchmark DAC1 thru Apple Airport Express with short Toslink. It works without any problem for a long time. Computer did not hang-up since I bought it almost 3 years ago. Sound is exactly same as one from CDP directly to DAC. I have external firewire hard drive and two backups. One of the backups I keep at work in case of fire of theft.

Dhl93449 - Maybe I was lucky, but I never experienced failure of stationary hard drive. Just in case I have 2 backups, but I agree with you that CD on the shelf is safer (unless you have fire or theft). I have three hard disks containing exact copies (one at work), but in addition I have still all CDs on the shelf.

I'm not worrying about scratching CDs either, but rather about better playback of used scratched CD that I bought. Ripping such CDs as data CD will improve quality (copy better than original).

I agree about CD-R and especially DVDs not lasting long - unless you pick better media that uses higher quality die guaranteed to last 100 years (Taiyo Yuden). On the other hand I will be deaf in 20 and dead in 40 years - why to worry now.

Good point about media obsolution. I'm already thinking of getting large Solid State (Flash) drive to copy my hard drive into it. Flash drives have limited number of write cycles but last forever with reading and have no mechanical parts - perfect for long lasting reliable music server.

Nglazer, I hear you. I'm also getting mad with all the stupid system errors but that's why I bought Mac. From this point on everything went without any problems. Computer works like swiss watch and now I understand how bad the Windows is. Since many people prefer dedicated server and MacMini is not that expensive it is better and safer way to go.

I agree with you that hard disk based music server, instead of computer would be easier and better for many people but it is too expensive and not flexible. Separate DAC allows me to upgrade it in the future. The same goes for external hard drive.

I'm far from recommending this route to everybody. I would always advice against it to elderly, computer illiterate people, including my mother. To her CDP is way too complicated.

Abucktwoeighty, It is not time consuming at all. Instead of putting CD int CDP insert it into computer and play while you rip. Do only disk that you listen to and eventually you'll go thru all of them.

"LP's are another story..." - that's true, and it has to be done right. Early digitized music was A/D converted using jittery clock. This jitter appears as noise and cannot be removed ever. The only remedy is to A/D it again if analog master still exist. Good A/D hardware might be pricey.

That's true, all drives eventually fail, except drives that are not in use - backup. Just in case I keep second backup at my work. Both backups are protected from mechanical damage and static electricity (one is in the fireproof safe).

Total cost of it was less than $200. One can argue that both backups can fail in some strange event. If it is nuclear explosion I'm not worrying, but if it is anything else I still have CDs - music is not lost, only some amount of labor. It wasn't a lot of work to start with since I ripped what I was listening.

Al, I agree about statistics. When president of my company walks his dog outside, they both have three legs (statistically). Also tattoos are major cause of motorcycle accidents.

Dhl93449 - Taiyo Yuden guarantees 100 years. The issue is dye. Long lasting phthalocyanine dye (Mitsui Gold, Mitsui Silver) is more expensive than cyanine dye and can last 200 years on gold but is more sensitive to light and laser power variations. Cyanine dye is by itself unstable and has to be stabilized. I'm not sure what Taiyo Yuden uses but they invented CD-R technology and are known to be very reliable and long lasting. I went thru perhaps 500 Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs and never had bad one or one that failed. I have many about 15 years old CD-Rs working fine.

As for hard drives - I might be very lucky but I had only one disk failure at work and one at home (laptop) in last 25 years. Currently I'm running 6 hard disks at home and 2 at work for many years without any problems. In addition to these 6 drives I have two backups - just in case. Very often people who have failures are more likely to write but even then my drives (Fantom G-Force) have pretty good review. As soon as prices of SS drives drop down more I'm getting one for music storage.

"I had 5 hard drives fail in 5 years."

We have whole bunch of computers at work, perhaps 30, and one or two failures over 20 years. We end up replacing computers earlier (10 years or so) because they're getting outdated - that might be the reason. What is the brand that gave you 5 failures in five years?