How much longer will CDs be made?

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

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. :)

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.

Vegasears,

What are you smoking tonight?

If you like gagets, quality and consider your front end the start of where the good sound starts, and you have cash to spare, do it!! High end CD players are forms of art ie AMR, Nagra, Ancient Audio Prime CDP!! A media storage system just doesn't have any appeal even if in the future it could meet the quality of some CDP's. I don't think you would see the hard core vinyl guys give up the TT for a media server. Its the same for high end CD for me anyway. (I just wish I could afford one:)