who needs a cd player anymore

With a music server or ipod based system, you can get sound that is just as good as your favorite cd transport or player when combined with a good dac. I don't think some people realize this. When i say music server or ipod based system to someone they think back ground music. More and more audio company's are comming out with these types of server based/ipod players and they are getting better and better. In a few years i believe cd players will be the minority. This new way to liten to music opens so much more different type of music to the listener.

Everything will be on a memory chip in a few years. Have you seen the micro SD cards now? YIKES! So small you'd better not sneeze or else they'll blow away! Movies and music will be on them. Then likely we'll be forced to kiss the cdp goodbye, unless they don't sound good enough. But that will improve with time as with anything else. I can just see it now, reviewing a certain chip's sonics. CD's will then become nostalgia item like albums.

I have a Sonos music system and while it's great for convenience and extensive media exposure, it's not as good as a primo cdp. Neither is the Buffalo NAS which contains all my CD's ripped to it and can be played over the Sonos. They're both good, but not as good as a higher end cdp, i.e. the Ayon CD-3 I just reviewed. To me the difference is still enough to merit having a cdp. People think that all the other technology is walking away from cdp's. Not so, the disc players are upping their ante quite well. From budget to high end players they're sounding a LOT better than even five years ago. The bonus is that they're being made more and more with "Digital Input" function which allows the other sources to use the DAC of the cdp! Now that's a win/win for me.

The same people who still need a turntable. Music lovers.

03-07-09: Bobf
Mavbe some of us still enjoy that part of the hobby like when we used to sift through albums.

Bingo Bob, this was my biggest dilemma importing all my cd's into my computer. While I am quite numb to it now, it felt very soulless 8 years ago, to be sitting in front of a computer screen, looking at a bunch of words in lines, trying to decide what to listen to. 2 weeks ago I moved a large portion of my cd's to shelves above my computer, and since doing so, I have listened to a lot of music outside of my normal playlists that I haven't listened to for a while, music I forgot I even had. It is nice to physically browse through your music and to know it is not upstairs in closed boxes, waiting for a hard drive failure to see the light again.

When you get over 10,000 songs in itunes, it takes some effort to keep them organized, and you can really get lost.

Sonically, lossless files to a DAC3 sounds great to me.

I have over 1300 CD's and enjoy looking through them to see what I can find, the fact that they are all in alphabetical order makes them very easy to find. I'm using an HK 7600 for transport through a PS audio DLIII into a Musical Fidelity tube stage, which seems to do the job just fine. When I need even more connection to the music I can tap into the 500 LPs.