The CD player is dead.......

I remember one day in the 1980's, I walked into a local record store and saw some computer softwear on display. I thought, hey, what's a record store doing selling softwear? Looked into it and learned that those CD's was music intended to replace my beautiful LP's. Blasphemy I thought. Computers will never, ever get near my hi fi. Well, years later, I did get a CD player (kept my vinyl rig) and years later, I do have a pretty great sounding music server. Take it for what you will. Took years and years for me to finally find CD sound acceptable. Here, the non-computer savey guys will take years to bite the bullet and realize how great music servers are and do what they need to do to have one set up. Will it sound better than your vinyl, CD, reel to reel or FM sources? Do we care? It will be fun, sound good and will allow you experience hours of uninterupted music of your favorite music. Kind of like FM except your the DJ. That's the key here. It's supposed to be about the music and there isn't an easier way to get to your music. Hey, I still play my CD when I want something special (and my esoteric sounds better than my Berkeley) but the Berkeley sure does sound good. There is no more convenient way to play your music than on a server, but, absolutely not, the CD ain't dead. Not even close.

I rarely use the CD player anymore. I have been using a PC
for several years now, and the hardware has been evolving constantly. I do NOT use MP3's, I, like many others who responded, buy cds and rip them. I am using a Maudio sound card that was designed for studio recording, and it has a sweet 24/96 DAC on board, plus you can output an analogue stereo signal while you feed a digital coax out at the same time (this allows A/B between the card and my DAC). I am convinced that my server sounds at least as good as the cdp(I am using a Pioneer Elite stable platter with a Musical Fidelity DAC).
Having said all that, NOTHING trumps vinyl!
I suspect that it is partly due to the way our brains process sound. There has been extensive reseach on this subject. Go to www.highemotionaudio.com for more detail on the research and how it has been applied - specifically in speaker design.

I am 45 years old and I have approximately 8000 cds (and 10,000 lps). Two teenage sons, a wonderful spouse who likes to spend time with me. A job that requires on average 65-70 hours a week. I am on the board of a radio station and host a regular 2 hour radio show a week. I help produce two significant annual musical festivals, take an occasional guitar lesson and travel to listen to all kinds of live music 4 to to 8 times a month.

What I don't have is, time. Time to learn the intricacies of a computer based system, time to intergrate that computer based system into my listening room full of expensive bulky audio gear, time to burn those 8000 cds, time to regularly back up those 8000 cds and time to download and organize future releases on an ongoing basis. (Ordering off of Amazon is quick and the boxes just magically show up in my office).

If I was 13 again, and starting from scratch, I probably would have everything on a hard-drive and using a Soolas or a Mac/DAC combo as part of a listening room, but I am at capacity to learn and more importantly implement new tricks.

Now I am staring down the reality of running out of space to store my vinyl and cds in an accessible fashion, so downloading may be my forced future if I am going to have access to future releases in, but I am going to hold out as long as I can until the hard drive solutions are more elegant and effective.

Okonrad, your situation sounds like you have a project for your sons. They could tidy this up in no time give the tools and incentive.
My daughters have been invaluable with my learning process. :)