The return of the CD?

I stream almost exclusively, find a lot of new music that way and play my CD ripsthat way. I may have purchased 2 CD's over the past few years, Vinegar Joe wasn't on Tidal and they removed a Charlie Haden title I really liked.

I do have a transport for back up and kept my CD's, something won't let me depart with them, mabe it's not having total faith in hard drives or that streaming services may not exist at some point.

The data should speak for itself but I can't imagine what would drive CD sales back up. One thing that hurts album sales in general is the quality of music, it's rare to find an album these days that I want to play all the wa through, I should specify in "popular" ormainstream music, there have been several albums I'd added to favorites I can play through. Most mainstream may have a couple singles at best and if it was a good album no one puts CD's in cars anymore, in fact, when I was shopping car audio many units don't even include a CDP anymore.
 
So far so good. Appears to be built like and tank and heavy. Sounds great via AES into the Aqua. Won't be able to try the I2S until it's in the system with the Holo May KTE.
 
I have gotten two CD's recently... one was given to me by the artist herself and the other came in an album that arrived yesterday. I ripped both and put them on my server.

I recently unhooked my CD/SACD player since I have not listened to a disk in it in over two years. I can plug it in anywhere to do what it does (rip SACD's through my WiFi network) so there in no reason to take up space in my rack any more :).

Looks like a cool new toy Jack! Congratz. It doesn't have any analog outputs at all... no built in DAC?
 
stereogeek said:
Earlier this year I bought a new cd player. For some reason I enjoy handling the cd's and like reading the liner notes.
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What type of microscope do you use to read the liner notes of a CD?
 
What's a CD?

Someone else said, "it's a great time to be alive" with the ability to easily, immediately access 10s of millions of songs for less $ than we spent on LPs and CDs years ago. You can pretend the old formats are still alive in the sense they're thriving but I think the data shows that's not true, they're only alive more and more as part of a niche market.

The only CD I've bought in the past 5+ years was for my 80 y/o mother, who doesn't believe in streaming because it "slows her computer down with all those files!" (even when the music isn't playing) and still has a landline "because it's more reliable" (but doesn't want to hear me explain that "landline" is piggybacking on her internet connection).

Feel free to love your vinyl or your CDs nothing wrong with that, but personally, my 1000+ CDs are in binders sitting on a shelf somewhere, untouched for many a year. I will not move homes again and cart those with me, so off to Goodwill they go at some point. I get that some folks believe that if it's not in their hands - because they don't own and physically possess it - the music could somehow evaporate and become inaccessible. Strikes me as pretty - no, extremely - unlikely.

To boot, think of all the landfill avoided and unneeded plastics manufacturing. Digital music quality is there, the accessibility and portability are there, the diversity is there. Digital is amazing, streaming is amazing.
 
jmusica said:
What's a CD?

Someone else said, "it's a great time to be alive" with the ability to easily, immediately access 10s of millions of songs for less $ than we spent on LPs and CDs years ago. You can pretend the old formats are still alive in the sense they're thriving but I think the data shows that's not true, they're only alive more and more as part of a niche market.

The only CD I've bought in the past 5+ years was for my 80 y/o mother, who doesn't believe in streaming because it "slows her computer down with all those files!" (even when the music isn't playing) and still has a landline "because it's more reliable" (but doesn't want to hear me explain that "landline" is piggybacking on her internet connection).

Feel free to love your vinyl or your CDs nothing wrong with that, but personally, my 1000+ CDs are in binders sitting on a shelf somewhere, untouched for many a year. I will not move homes again and cart those with me, so off to Goodwill they go at some point. I get that some folks believe that if it's not in their hands - because they don't own and physically possess it - the music could somehow evaporate and become inaccessible. Strikes me as pretty - no, extremely - unlikely.

To boot, think of all the landfill avoided and unneeded plastics manufacturing. Digital music quality is there, the accessibility and portability are there, the diversity is there. Digital is amazing, streaming is amazing.
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'J', I like your mother !!
 
To each their own of course...

I am not into streaming for a few reasons, and of course some are not really issues, mainly my perceptions.

* I do prefer owning my music, weather it is in vinyl, or the files downloaded, etc.
* I prefer the sound quality of high resolution digital (and much higher resolution DSD) then streamed files
* I prefer the sound of vinyl versus streamed files in any form
* I prefer having the artwork and linear notes, especially with vinyl
* I prefer the much much much greater support that the artist gets through purchased media versus streaming
* I have a hard enough time as it is deciding what to listen to now, streaming seems more for music exploration and discovery in my view
* Internet connections do indeed go down and with more scamming, hackers, thugs, etc. out there the more it will affect online connections
* No online connection no music
* Much harder and more inconsistent to take music with you, owning the digital files and easily copying them to your portable works really well

I am sure there are others, but this is what comes to mind.
 
Agree that digital copies, particularly DSD, usually sound better than streamed. Services like Qobuz are closing that gap, and eventually will. The limitations are no longer really technical (sufficient bandwidth from server to endpoint, the right hardware).

Digital - vs CD or vinyl - definitely more portable, less cumbersome or fragile (can't scratch a digital file). I have 20k+ hi-res songs - along with all my photography raw files - sitting on a SSD drive smaller than my wallet. And we can stream in our cars, on our phones or tablets, etc, with nothing to carry, break or get lost/stolen.

For portability streaming wins, with "owned" digital copies being second. Both having the added value they can be used in our hi-end home systems too. Exploration is a huge bonus imo but I've certainly had those overwhelming moments where "I just can't with this!" and end up walking away to do something else. On the other hand I can sit for hours checking out others' lists of hi-res streamed audio.

Unable to speak to SQ of vinyl vs digital as I can't afford the kind of system where vinyl would surpass DSD or hi-res.

But bottom line, I simply don't see CD or vinyl ever making a significant comeback. As long as people have a passion for them, I'm sure they'll continue being around though. I guess I've always had a tendency to embrace the future, even when it's been less thoughtful to do so and just for the fun/new-ness of it.

I think I need a job with Lumin or Aurender or something!
 
In today's virtual world damn near anything is doable. As a life long railroader and railfan I can sit in front of my computer watching VRF (virtual rail fan) on YouTube from over a dozen different locations throughout north America yet I still prefer to be trackside to watch trains. I agree that physical media will be just a niche market going forward and that's ok by me, for if I never buy another CD or Lp I've got 1000's to keep my ears happy ! :)
 
I still buy CDs regularly. Especially as a Classical music listener I find that CD is the best delivery medium as hi-rez downloads are still only a tiny fraction of what is available on CD.

But I don't listen to CDs, only to the ripped files stored on my NAS.
 
Randy Myers said:
I have gotten two CD's recently... one was given to me by the artist herself and the other came in an album that arrived yesterday. I ripped both and put them on my server.

I recently unhooked my CD/SACD player since I have not listened to a disk in it in over two years. I can plug it in anywhere to do what it does (rip SACD's through my WiFi network) so there in no reason to take up space in my rack any more :)

Looks like a cool new toy Jack! Congratz. It doesn't have any analog outputs at all... no built in DAC?
Click to expand...

How are you ripping SACDs via Wi-Fi?
 
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