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How much longer will CDs be made?

I "need" to justify spending $5000-$7000 for an outstanding CD player that will work well with my Spectral/MIT system.
My wife would prefer I buy a new flat panel HI DEF TV and Blu-Ray for movies and have money left over.
She says the SonyXA9000ES I use is perfectly fine for music.
She feels downloading HD music is imminent and figures I won't listen to my CDs when I hear the increased quality of Hi Def music downloads. She's comparing the improvement to Blu Ray movies over DVDs.
Personally, with the DVD-A & SACD demise (which I find sad)
and the exponential growth of lo-fi players I no longer know what to think.
Will CDs continue to be made for at least the next 5 years?
All comments welcome.
psacanli
Post removed 
sidssp
1,077 posts
 
Why not get a new DAC instead. Your Sony is perfectly fine as a CD transport. You will need a nice DAC to playback downloaded music anyway. That should be a good enough justification.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
06-01-08: Glory
You have a smart and wise wife, listen to her.

Put your money into HT for her enjoyment and the rest into analog.


Well said Gary, I agree 100%.

Cheers,
John
james1969's avatar
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james1969
347 posts
 
Digital evolves too quickly to make big $$$ investments in gear anymore (IMHO). Your amp/preamp are the heart of your system, coupled to good speakers with wire, you will be surprised at how much less $$$ you really need to spend.

If you are a Mac user, I can recommend the RME Fireface 400 digital AD/DA unit which when set to use the Firewire interface as it's power supply, it is the same as a battery power supply on a laptop. No AC noise, so you are quite far ahead of the CDP race right there. Not to mention it is capable of 192hHz conversion rates both AD and DA. This has been a tremendous tool both in vinyl playback using PureVinyl and digital audio playback. Digital is now computer centric rather than component centric with media to feed.

Now the PureVinyl playback is very interesting. For $250 for the software, you basically use the RME directly fed by your cartridge. Your digital workstation effectively becomes your RIAA analog preamp. With numerous filters to choose from (based on record label).

Start of with a basic turntable and begin the real fun. $$$ is no indicator of good sound in the vinyl arena. You will truly enjoy your system working with analog like Gary mentions above. Women are smarter than you think. :)
vegasears
1,173 posts
 
The Compact Disc will be around for may may more years. They will become a specialty items just like vinyl has become. You may pay $30.00 a disc but then again what are we paying for new vinyl these days. SACD and DVD-A will more than likely get harder to find but if someone wants to buy it there will be a seller. The internet has resurrected vinyl and it will keep the Compact Disc alive for a very long time. FWIW I think video will go disc-less real fast. Quality will go down too speed up digital wireless transfer.
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