Compact Disc as a format

Interesting and good to hear about your conversion to computer audio. I may feel the same sometime in the furture, but I have not felt the urgency to do so yet, until the quality of the playback hardware and software matures and stabilizes, and the availability and variety of music downloads improves.

I agree with Grannyring and I still like the simplicity of grabbing a disc, putting it in a player and selecting what I want to hear. I have two great sounding players that both do hi-rez so any download I want can simply be copied to DVD and played like any other disc.

The declining stock of CD's on the shelves at retail stores is a bummer and does reflect the preference of many for the convenience of the I-pod both for personal, portable listening, and also in vehicles, as well as the reluctance of the retail market to risk stocking the shelves with product that may not sell. Amazon is still going strong and, as with many other portable retail products, a more convenient and, considering gas prices, less costly method for listeners to purchase what they want to hear. The reviews on Amazon provide at least some level of feedback (unavailable at Best Buy) that us boomers used to get from the propriators at our local record stores.