are cd's dead?

missile

ringo_24601 wrote: »

All it needs is a built in iPod dock and i'd be even happier!

You can get a dock which plugs straight into your Denon. This is the one I use Onkyo DS-A2X iPod Docking Station

Fifer

I buy all my music on CD, but rip it losslessly and never use the CD again. I keep all my music on a dedicated Mini-ITX Linux server and play it using a Slim Devices Transporter. (I've also got a Squeezebox 1, a Squeezebox 2 and a Squeezebox Duet - I'm a bit of a wireless music junky ).

esuhl

Well I hope CDs don't die - I couldn't live with the sound quality of compressed audio!

mymatebob

Just recently resurrected an old record player.

LPs - now there was proper artwork

Fifer

esuhl wrote: »

Well I hope CDs don't die - I couldn't live with the sound quality of compressed audio!

Do you mean compressed or lossy? If you rip CDs to a lossless compressed format like FLAC or ALAC, then you lose nothing. The decompressed file is bit for bit identical to the original and absolutely nothing is lost when it is played back. If you mean lossy, then don't use lossy files.

Lossless files are availble to download from various sites.

esuhl

Fifer wrote: »

Do you mean compressed or lossy?

All right, smartass! I mean lossy!

Lossless compression isn't really that useful for my little 1GB media player as I can still only fit 2 albums on it! It's okay for a few lossy albums when I can't be bothered to carry my CD player & a pack of CDs, though. And there's no way I'm spending over £100 on a larger media player 'cos I'd end up with something that's only a bit more convenient to carry with me and yet would require hours (days, weeks, even!) of tediously ripping CDs to put on there!

CDs are the future! (Even if they are the past too!)

Avoriaz

I hope not, I have thousands of them and I far prefer them to downloads. A large part of my CD collection was purchased second hand in shops or on ebay for a pound or two each.

I quite enjoy the process of selecting a CD and putting it in my player. I do have a small Sony mp3 player but I only use that with headphones when I am out of the house or on holiday.

CD was supposed to kill off vinyl but that is still going.

SACD and DVD Audio were also supposed to see off CD but that hasn’t happened yet.

I think CDs will be around for many years yet.

oldagetraveller

The same was being asked about vinyl, but now people are realising how superior it is to this modern digital stuff there is quite a resurgence.
In my case vinyl never went away and there's nothing like it in quality and musicality played on and through decent equipment.
Yes, I do have a cd player and an mp3 player but they're not in the same class!!
So, no cd isn't dead and neither is vinyl.

DatabaseError

oldagetraveller, absolutely right, vinyl with its analogue sound is much richer than cd, cd is better than mp3, and mps is (just) better than silence. nothing beats hearing a record playing on a decent system, eyes closed and being able to place each member of the band around you using just 2 speakers, though i accept for a lot of modern music (especially dance) mp3 is too good!

superscaper

All depends on the equipment you have to "translate" to the speakers. CDs can contain enough info to put the "error" in it being digital compared to analogue vinyl beyond the abilities of human hearing to detect. Then again some of what vinyl proponents actually like about it is actually the natural errors that occur in the recording and many generations of pressing from the master, which don't occur in CDs. The CDs containing much less/no noise is what probably make them sound unnatural compared to vinyl.

I wonder if there's equipment out there that deliberately introduces noise into CD players to make it sound like vinyl. I'm sure some obsessed audiophile will have thought of it.