who needs a cd player anymore

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.

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 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

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.

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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.
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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.

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.

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.

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...

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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.
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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.

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.

To say Ipoda and the like are all crap shows you dont really know what can be done with this technology, it can be and often is fantastic, new download technology can even surpase what the redbook cd can do. Its more about the fact many dont want a "virtual" collection...........it has little to do with actual quality of reproduction.
If I were to do a server, it would sound great and I know for a fact it can be killer but I would loose the physical connection with music and I fear I would start to sample and cherry pick tunes instead of listening and discovering new music. Yes call it what ever you want but I and others proudly show our collection of music, to loose that doesnt seem like something I am ready to do.

I will always support the CD. iPods and the like are crap...

One thing that downloaders only will in time miss? That is a real, tangible piece of property to own and value. Yes, you may be able to pull up a play list on an lcd screen but you invariably have nothing real, just virtual details on a screen locked inside some hard drive. People will over time miss not having something real. Today many don't care because the download ideology is just the thing to fill up a hard drives with music track/titles. FINE! enjoy, but you will likely find in time that you are going to miss something, more desirable for humans, something human consumers like, PRIDE OF OWNERSHIP, physical property to value and even display and talk about and share with family and friends as they may view your CD's, LP's or tape collection. Looking up a play list on a lcd screen just isn't the same.

Next since many download only tracks and not complete albums they miss out on the meaning of the artists' albums which often are a snapshot of the artist or group in time. Imagine say only downloading "Money" and "Us and Them" off Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. Imagine what the listener will miss by not having the whole album to listen to. Yes, one can and some do download whole albums but not as many as those who pick and choose only certain tracks.

If all your music is only on a hard drive and it fails you are left with a lot of mess to try to recreate the library you had on it. On top of that the time you needed to download anyways. Well if such effort floats your boat.

But trust me the CD, like the LP or tapes before will not fade way, too many people want a real product and too many will not be bothered to waste time just uploading and downloading music tracks.

chadnliz 3,000 songs of itunes plus music on one ipod touch. I never said anything about my cd collection which is around 5k i have been importing that via wav and apple lossless.

Well 3000 songs is hardly alot of music in these circles and in fact is somewhat of a starter collection so when you get to 1000, 3000, or 10,000 cd's in your collection and look at expense of storage, risk of potential loss of data and give up holding your "baby's" while enjoying the info that many cd's contain (via a magnifying glass) then get back to us. I have looked into it from a disability angle and would like to try but even my 800cd library seems expensive to really do right and I dont want to give up the interaction of playing music on my gear, atleast not yet as I assume its gonna dumb it all down a bit.

Usarmyvet91, yes, I have tried the wadia and have listened to it in other systems as well. Wonderful product. But it is not the same as my Naim CDX2. It is convenient, the attributes you speak of in your initial post were about convenience, not sound quality or musical experience. I pick my music carefully. I am also a fan of the old idea of a well produced "Album", not just a bunch of individually picked songs. I will say though that I rarely will listen to music as background noise, when I listen, that is usually all I am doing and I pick my music carefully from a know library I have put together, so convenience is not all that important. Other people have other tastes, that is fine to. But the Ipod has just not caught on in my system. Great idea though.

Synthfreek, check out Simplify Media

http://www.simplifymedia.com/

Another cool feature is that you can invite up to 30 people and share their libraries as well

Eastein how do you access your entire library through wifi? What app do you use?

I forgot to mention that itunes plays such a big role in how we get out music. I am so happy to see most of itunes have gone to itunes plus. Just think when itunes plus comes out with some sort of hd music downloads for your ipod now we are getting somewhere.

Eastein 5 billion downloads from itunes thats amazing. I know i have downloaded over $500 worth of ituens plus myself this month, that tells you something right their. The future of music is in downloads and high end companys must realize this or they may not be around. Ask yourself this most of the highend audio companies think the ipod is just a device teenagers listen to music via headphones or background music. These teenagers will become future audiophiles one day. High end audio companies should come out with a true high end ipod player or transport ok the wadia i170 is a giant step and wadia has sold quite a bit of these gems. Krell i give them credit they have the kid, i have one and it's very good how good well it replaced my bel canto cd-2 in my second system. I think their is this misconception that ipod can't serve as your main 2 ch setup. I can think of the krell kid as the only true high end player out their and no i would not use the kid in my main 2 ch system however its smokes alot of the cd players out their cost 2x or 3x its price. We need companies to come out with real high end players. Not to change the subject but i bought my niece an ipod touch and she is only 4yrs old and she loves for me to download her fav music mostly hannah montana and the jonas brothers music. Yes their still be the dinosaur cd players out their but it will be on ebay. Yes i do think that their are great cd players out their but their will be a time when we are talking whats the best ipod player out their in the 5k to 10k budget. I did not start this trend to put down cd players or people who have them. I have a ml 390s and yes i love it, i was just trying to put my thoughts on where i would like the future to be.

"Eastein, you're splitting hairs. There is a difference between technical obsolescence and obsolescence."

Tvad, maybe, but while VHS still works, most would agree the industry and general public has moved from VHS to DVD and is now heading towards downloads and Blue Ray.

With the adoption rates for iPods, other digital players, and 5 Billion downloads from iTunes alone in a relatively short time span, the writing is on the wall for CD sales first becoming surpassed by digital downloads, then becoming a niche market like LP's.

LPs are obsolete. There is a very small niche market - and this site is where you'll find it's defenders. But LPs are absolutely obsolete. So are tubes for most applications. Add VHS, cassette players, 8-tracks, BetaMax, Super8, & reel to reel, wax cylinders, music boxes, and pocket watches.

Don't flame me, I don't care if you love reel-to-reel or the obvious superiority of BetaMax over VHS. They are all obsolete and you're a hobbyist, not a sustainable market or the future of audio.

What is the future of audio? Well, not CDs. They will be obsolete soon enough. Not because of the sound, but because they are not secure. The winner will be encrypted music files due to extremely low cost for worldwide distribution and guaranteed revenue recognition.

Waynefia - save this link and send it to me in 5 years :)

On the units sold aspect, I believe McDonalds sells "billions" of burgers. Great burgers?? Good burgers? or...

VCR's are a bad example as most people who have used a Tivo or DVD will never go back except for access to their existing tapes. Records are a bit different as they offer something digital didn't when it was introduced and it may still be catching up. Tubes are another example of something that is obsolete in many ways but offers a sound that is embraced by audiophiles, myself included.

from Wikipedia:

Technical obsolescence:
Videotapes making way for DVDs Technical obsolescence may occur when a new product or technology supersedes the old, and it becomes preferred to utilize the new technology in place of the old. Historical examples of superseding technologies causing obsolescence include CD-ROM over floppy disk which allowed for greater storage capacity and speed, DVD over VHS which allowed for greater quality and multimedia functions, or the telephone over the telegraph which allowed for audio transmission instead of coded electrical signals.

vcr's are not obsolete?

I have a wonderful 8 track player I can sell you ;-)

As of about 1 year ago 150,000,000 iPods have been sold and last June hit 5 Billion music downloads, CD's are obsolete and CD players will fade away. Think film cameras, sure they won't go away completely but the landscape will change dramatically in favor of a fully digital distribution model. The only reason I buy CD's is access to the high resolution files to rip to my hard drive.

Unlike my CD player my server based system allows access a 9,000+ song library anywhere I have access to a wifi network on my iPod touch (which also serves as an iTunes remote control) and most of the lossless library is on a 160 GB iPod Classic for the gym, car, airplanes, etc. At home I have a USB dac on my main system, a Squeezebox in a bedroom system.

No need to be defensive of CD players or critical of server based systems, as always in this hobby, YMMV

since my audio aero (phillips transport) gave up the ghost I've been using my old Cal Audio Icon for cds - do I really need more?

need to get a new player, but then I play vinyl 4 to 1 when home. I do have a wadia ipod transport hooked up to my home theatre setup - but all the stuff I loaded to my ipod was in mp3 mode

I'm looking to do vinyl drops on my analog front end - to get the best solution - but I'd probably do that at high res 88 or 96 khz - not sure if we are there yet, but will be

storage is cheap, most non audiophiles are fine with mp3
so manufacturers are not going to go big for us

anybody doing high res digital at home - I'd be interested in your solutions

Jvcvcrman08 nice, I bet the escient mk2 is so much easier than all those maga cd changers.

Davt how were you listing to your ipod? You can go with the wadia i170 ipod transport. Most people can't tell the difference between the wadia i170 ipod transport or a very good cd transport, playing the same music via a dac. The wadia i170 is only a couple of hundred of dollars and it sounds just as good as cd transports that cost thousands more. Just wait till other company come out with better ipod transports that have lower jitter control, power supplies, etc. I think company's have only just began to see the full potential of the ipod transport. I am waiting for someone to come out with a true highend ipod transport or player.

Hello Synthfreek and all others.
I DO have a Music Server
it`s an ESCIENT MK2 in the same cabinet
under the 4 Sony CD changers.
That shows the album covers,
artist names and track titles
on my TV screen.

Well every time I read posts like this about anything going obsolete, I like to post a link to an article, by a well known audio writer. I cannot find it right now. But this was a real serious article that even gave a time frame, that has come and gone several years ago. But basically it said 2 channel music will go by the wayside, in the same way the LP obsolete and dead. I have always wanted to see where this guy is these days, and send him the link to his article.

Obviously 2 channel is as strong as ever, and vinyl is far from obsolete. My guess is CD and players will be around for quite awhile.

Yep, use my cd player about every day. Haven't used my Ipod in months cuz it just doesn't sound all that good.

Personally, I think that my modified squeezebox feeding my Classe DAC-1 is much better than my Denon DVD-2900 doing the same. I find that the soundstage is clearer, deeper, wider...I also find that the bass has a bit more punch, which I hear improves even more if you upgrade the power supply.

In terms of browsing through CD's...I like using Squeeze-center. You know sometimes when you are listening to something and it reminds you of something else that you enjoy...it is so much easier to add a song to a playlist instead of getting up, finding a CD, putting it into the player and finally sitting back in your seat...only to then discover again that you don't like the rest of the CD...and have to repeat the process all over again.

The truth is that you would be very hard pressed to find a CDP that produces the same bit-perfect stream that a computer can. I think the death of the CDP will be when they are able to figure out the best way to convert the 1's and 0's of a computer into a signal that a DAC can read...either that or some type of device that skips the whole SPDIF thing...

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I bought a SqueezeBox and I love it. I really love the convenience of it. It sounds pretty good too. I like it so much that I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on it's big brother, a souped-up ultra-modded Transporter to see if it rivals a top-flight cd player. If course we all want the sound of the cd in its purest form...but if a hard drive/server based system can get me closer, I'd rather get rid of the cd player. I'm not getting rid of my player yet, but as soon as I find a server based system that is the sonic equal, the cd player will be gone in heartbeat and I won't look back.
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I have a Sooloos running it through an Alpha Dac. Once you get use to sitting in your chair and selecting songs, it would be very difficult to go back to to a CDP again.

Hey Cruz, they probably just play any old tunes like the old carousel Cd player on scramble or whatever and you just never know what will come up next. Definitely widens your exposure.Just doesn't help me with Classical-somehow I'm just not into shuffle play that much.
I guess those of us who like Classical and jazz music, according to our taste and mood at the time, with higher quality reproduction, are the ones who need CD/SACD/HDCD players and of course one of these Berkeley audio DACs in the near future hopefully.

This new way to liten to music opens so much more different type of music to the listener.

How does the method of play back open up the listener to different types of music?

I'll gladly pay shipping for any cd's and cd players you want out of your life. Seriously, I understand why your approach works for some but the idea of not being able to pick up a cd I've been curious about, bring it home, and listen to it without first saving it to iTunes isn't very intruiging.

I have over 1300 CD's and enjoy looking through them to see what I can find, the fact that they are all in alphabetical order makes them very easy to find. I'm using an HK 7600 for transport through a PS audio DLIII into a Musical Fidelity tube stage, which seems to do the job just fine. When I need even more connection to the music I can tap into the 500 LPs.

03-07-09: Bobf
Mavbe some of us still enjoy that part of the hobby like when we used to sift through albums.

Bingo Bob, this was my biggest dilemma importing all my cd's into my computer. While I am quite numb to it now, it felt very soulless 8 years ago, to be sitting in front of a computer screen, looking at a bunch of words in lines, trying to decide what to listen to. 2 weeks ago I moved a large portion of my cd's to shelves above my computer, and since doing so, I have listened to a lot of music outside of my normal playlists that I haven't listened to for a while, music I forgot I even had. It is nice to physically browse through your music and to know it is not upstairs in closed boxes, waiting for a hard drive failure to see the light again.

When you get over 10,000 songs in itunes, it takes some effort to keep them organized, and you can really get lost.

Sonically, lossless files to a DAC3 sounds great to me.

The same people who still need a turntable. Music lovers.