Linn Abandons CD Players

I pretty much always rip a CD to hard disk for playback now rather than pop it into the CD player.

It is still beneficial to have CD hardcopies of material even if ripped to disk. A disk restore from backup is faster in event of a disaster, but restore from CD is always a possibility, albeit slower.

Music Servers may still have a way to go from an ease of use perspective though. Its still easier to just pop a CD in to a player, but the sound quality and ease of access to material a server provides (once ripped there) is the best option today IMHO.

Theo,

I agree also I love my record (vinyl)albums for the gestalt of the whole thing, the cover art, the cleaning, the care of putting it on my deck and playing it, being able to hold it in my hands.

Here's were Ivor is different than the rest, it is just like the sondek in that he is not just supplying demand to what the masses think they need. He really is taking a chance by structuring his endeavors and his success around what he thinks is best. Agreed, he is pushing his DAC system at the expense of not selling you and I a CD player along the way. In the past he was willing to stand up against huge groups of nay-sayers and argue his point convincingly enough that people could get beyond their preconceived notions. And only then when they listened... instead of arguing some past theory, they heard their music better.

I just wonder if this is the start of a huge shift.

Happy Listening!

"I just wonder if this is the start of a huge shift."

More immediate and of impact to the high end player market than players in general I would think.

Sales of players as a whole have been in decline for a while already I believe. Most buy DVD or Blu Ray players that can also play CDs. Hook a good DVD or Blu Ray player up to a good stereo DAC properly and the results will likely be quite good. I do that in my second 2 channel A/V system currently ($300 marantz DVD player to mhdt Paradisea tube DAC). But frankly 95% of my digital playback time is logged via Roku Soundbridges feeding external DACs on both my systems, the Roku fed (via wireless D connection) from the same laptop PC used as a music server for both systems as needed.

I worry about how music will be delivered and stored.

Not Redbook music--the system today is fine for that. I can buy a CD used or new, or download a file. However a server, for Redbook recordings, only offers convenience. It doesn't offer a big step up in sound quality from the playback gear I have already; I know 'cause I've compared a few.

Vinyl still beats digital, too, so I have a turntable and I'm happy.

However there are a few high-res digital music files or discs around and I've listened to them on the music servers I've auditioned. Now this is more like it. I would be willing to make changes to hear more of this kind of quality.

The thing is, these files are huge. Downloading an hour of 24/96 takes three hours or more, and the resulting file is enormous. I will need at least three huge hard discs to store a music library of any size ( two backups, but that's not overkill ) and hours of time online to build it.

Archiving properly is another question--more hard discs every couple of years? Burning to Blu-ray?

None of this is ideal. Buying a physical disc is a lot more convenient.

"None of this is ideal. Buying a physical disc is a lot more convenient."

I agree. There is a lot of data to move around even with redbook CD format if you have a large collection, as many here do. Higher res sources are even worse.

Storage is cheaper than ever and network bandwidths continue to increase, however, I do not see the time to soon where physical storage media like CD/optical discs will become completely obsolete.

Given all this though, I am already highly skeptical of the value of high end CD players these days and I think the trend will be towards fewer and fewer of these. Of course, there will always be some high end, very expensive, boutique item CD players bandied around to those who still care. Just fewer and fewer down the road even in comparison to today.