who needs a cd player anymore

I never said anything about my cd collection which is around 5k i have been importing that via wav and apple lossless.

I gotta tell ya, I have no interest in devoting that amount of time to the process. Seriously, that's like a part time job. I'm a realist and understand the industry is heading toward hard drive based music, but the original question is "who needs a CD player" and if my options are to listen to CD's or devote months of my life getting my collection onto a hard drive, then I'll take the CDP by a long shot.

I have a krell kid ipod player it sounds fantastic. I think krell is the only company hi-end to make such a player. I hope in the near future other hi end companies come out with ipod players. I have sent my krell kid to the mad modder Mr. schultze at the upgrade company to let him work his magic on it, can't wait to get it back and see how it compares to my ml 390s cd player.

.
Les_creative_edge......owning a piece of music software means nothing to me. I own LP's because that's all there was when I got involved in this hobby in the '70's. I own a reel-to-reel also. When cd's came along, I pretty much stopped buying and playing lp's and open reel tapes. I still keep my turntable, LP's and open reel deck pretty much for nostalgia and because I refuse to give up my vinyl. But, cd's is pretty much where it's at for me now for serious listening. When I got my SqueezeBox, all I could think of was 'how can they improve this thing so that I can get rid of the cd player and thousands of cd's?' Owning a cd or LP has no intrinsic value to me. To me, it's having access to high resolution music, no matter what the format is. If I can look at the artwork and liner notes of an LP online and get kickass sound from a hard drive based system, I'll take it every day. The space and cost of keeping thousands of LP's and cd's gets unwieldy at a certain point. If all of this music and artwork can be kept on a hard drive and played back with great sound, I'm all for it. I'm looking for a 21st century playback medium. I don't get misty-eyed looking at an LP that I've owned nearly 40 years. I get misty-eyed when I hear the music. For me it's the music itself, not the packaging that it came in. I don't need to hold the cd or the LP, I just want to hear it! This whole hobby started because we are trying to recreate the live event. Well, when you go to a live event, you don't get to own anything...all you get to do is to listen to it. The cd is nearing 30 years of age and the LP is over 60 years old. As humans, we don't like change, but it is inevitable. Time and technology marches relentlessly on. I love my cd player and my turntables and LP's, but as soon as I can configure a monster high-fidelity hard drive based system, I'm going to give up cd's and vinyl and never look back.

I own several very beautiful watches that I once adored when I purchased them years ago. I don't wear a watch anymore because it is redundant....I carry a cellphone everywhere and it has a clock built in....so, I don't need a watch...technology killed it. Patek Philippe and Rolex make great finely crafted timepieces. My cellphone is more accurate and it automatically adjusts itself for daylight savings time and when it crosses time zones. In reality those great watches are outdone by technology costing hundred of times less.

So, please someone in this forum help me put together a killer hard-drive based system so that I can shake loose of the 20th century and its old technology.

I'm looking to the future.
.

Mitch4t,
I could not agree with you more. It is the music first and foremost.
Space is a valuable commodity here at my home, if I could only free myself of this incessant need to hold on to my albums. My system is now iPod based and I really have no need for them but I will carry this burden probably till I die.
One more thing, there is nothing like the feeling a true quality watch brings to it's owner. I feel more civilized when I'm wearing one, not less. My co-workers used to remind me that their $9.00 watch keep the same time as my Tag, I knew then what I still know now, it did not...

Glad you're happy! When Chesky, Sheffield Labs, Mobile Fidelity, Telarc, Audioquest, or some of the other quality recording/engineering studios offer their wares as no-loss downloads, I'll consider defecting from vinyl, RTR and CD.

How about LPs and turntables?
CD advocates said 20 years ago that LPs would be obsolete. Now, ipod advocates are saying that CDs would be obsolete.

Two points raised:

1. The real advantage is not having to search though hundreds of cd and wasting time on finding songs.
2. you can enjoy so much more music and thats what its really about.

Usarmyvet91, do you listen to 50~70's jazz and classical music? Many of them are still not released in CDs. Even if they were, the sound quality would be inferior to original LPs. Same goes for mp3 (or encrypted) files.

I guess this is another issue of convenience (and marketing) vs truthfulness, and quantity vs quality of music. They don't need to work against each other and may very well go together, but at least as of now, those enjoy CDs (even LPs, like myself) may not care too much about such convenience and abundance. The way they have listened to music is just fine for them.

You may know very well of how to convert/download/organize music files in a hard drive, but it may not be so easy for many audiophiles, nor may they care, so convenience sometimes does not sell well either.

Here, many people spend several hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for cartridges and cables, several thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars for turntables, speakers, amps and sources, to enjoy sheer beauty of music. Even $20~40 for a new LP.
Now you are telling them how nice is your $400 Wadia transport and your music server of encrypted files, and their love to CDs (or even to LPs) will obsolete soon and be replaced by encrypted music files.
I would be surprised if you get much support here.

When I was in college (25 years ago), a professor in one of my class said that most music would be stored in silicon chips in the near future. Yes, he was right. But I don't remember he said that other music media would be obsolete.

I am a fan of both styles of music delivery. One thing that I love about my music server is the ability to do things like enter "Tony Williams" into a search field and have every album he drums on pop right up. Or type "ECM Records" and there they are. I certainly don't think one side is better than the other but come on...most have to see at least some advantages in either camp.

.
Synthfreek....I'm a fan of both style of deliveray also, but cd players and turntables upwards of $5k??, ....enough already.

As computers and cell phones got better, they got less expensive. Top end CD and analog keeps getting more expensive.

I'm looking for a way out.

Hard drive based is looking more and more like a viable alernative.
.

Mith4t nice set up, really like the room. Take the wadia i170 yes its only a few hundred dollars but it can compete with cd transports that cost thousands you can ask anyone who has the wadia i170. audiogon member nrostrov is sending his wadia i170 to asi to get mods done on it a new clock, power supply etc. asi claims that it modded wadia can match or better the sound of some of the best cd transports from cec to esoteic don't know if this is true however when audiogoner nrostrov gets his back from being modded he will post his findings should be interesting. Remember the wadia i170 is really one of the first high end product to cater to the ipod, its still in its early stages. Their will be better and more expensive ipod transports/players in the near future that will really give the cd transport/player a run for its money. When apple comes out with true hd downloads watch out that little ipod will be pretty sweat.

I do, for now! I just got my 1st DAC (CI Audio VDA2)and am thrilled at how it has rejuvenated my enthusiasm for my CD collection. So much so, that I am curious what 24bit/192Mhz music from a music server would sound like. Anyone out there know? Can 24/192 compete with vinyl with an excellent turntable/cartridge? The previous post about HD Itunes is intriguing. I would hate to be an early adopter for a Windows based music server, only to find a great Apple product out in a year or two, for HD music. Tom

Tvad, drink Diluted but pure cranberry juice(mixed with apple juice to sweeten it) now to enjoy more of those pses in twenty years(I'll be 80 then). I'm also doing Bikram yoga and it sure flushes the system every day. In fact I think I could live with Cds-played on a great system, good food, fresh air, a nice walk and yoga daily. If I had the money I'd try it. Well, a little investing would also be fun-things are bound to pick up-sometime.

I own the I70 transport and enjoy its convenience, but I also just bought a new cdp to replace my current cdp that went on the fritz. Then I turned around decided to repair the broken cdp also even though money wise it's not a smart move. Point is, I like the process of spinning cd's, and still prefer the sound over the wadia. The wadia is simply another option for me to que music and enjoy a different interpretation of my collection.