The CD player is dead.......

When it comes to better Sound Quality from the Computer Industry, WHERE'S THE BEEF? WELL, WHERE'S THE BEEF? Don't give me that it's a nice fluffy bun excuse that I can go shop someplace else! WHERE'S THE BEEF? Unless you think that ALL Consumers should be muzzled. Hey, we are a Nation of complainers. Its the only way to keep everyone on their toes. Yeah, wouldn't it be nice World if no-one complained? Hey Pal, it's just what you see!

That's quite a treatise, Pettyofficer. Not sure what it has to do with the subject at hand, but interesting nonetheless.

BTW, the "free market" has nothing to do with price. It is the opposite of a "centrally controlled" economy where everything is run by "experts."

And, as for lightbulbs, Edison held 1093 patents. If you read some history, you'll find that a portion of his inventions were indeed failures because no one bought them. His portland cement piano housing just didn't take off for some reason.

;-)

A Portland cement piano housing......WOW! Even Edison was trying to tame unwanted resonances a century ago....LOL.

What a discussion, 117 posts so far including this one. Here are the points I find most compelling on both sides:

The CD should not die, yet:

1. Owning and having access to physical media is attractive to many, with cover art, liner notes and a tactile sense of substance and ownership that digital files cannot provide - this may be more comforting to ludites and materialists than to those more comfortable being part of the "Matrix".

2. There is a huge standing inventory of CD's in peoples homes, new and used music stores, and public institutions like schools and libraries - the only current mass media form for millions of songs recorded from the 1990's and 2000's. In contrast CD-quality downloads are severly limited compared to the existing inventory of new and used CDs in the world.

3. There is a strong market for #2 above, and it provides access to reasonable quality digital music at a lower cost point and with resale value that is not currently available through Internet Downloads - or am I missing something here?

4. The CD player/disk system is simple to set up as a part of a HiFi system, if more effort to actually use, than well-executed HD or computer based servers (I am not talking using iTunes to load your iPod here, I am talking fully integrated remote controlled music servers).

5. No ripping of existing media required, put disk in and push play.

The CD is dead:

1. Music serves/DACs are theoretically not limited to 16/44.1 resolution, and can play anything from mp3's to 24/192 files (this is the best reason IMHO and all others pale in comparison)

2. iTunes and other music server software are convenient, immediate and complete all-in-one purchase, orgnaize and play solutions, and will absolutely kill in the cradle to grave music service when higher resolution downloads become cheaper and more widely available.

3. Downloading music from the Internet satisfies the human appetite for immediate gratification.

4. Who cares about the value of buying and selling used new and used music when you can just share all of your music files in networks for free (Dooh!), visit any college campus today, most kids don't even know HOW to buy music.

Clearly there are those in the industry who agree with Devilboy, Linn being among the first to quit making ANY CD players. In any case, quality CD players or at least optical disk drives will be around for a long time to access existing media for listening and ripping. I really don't have time to adopt now other than LoFi uses of iTunes, and in my mind the HiFi software applications, hardware and media are not yet mature enough for me to spend the money and make the time. They will be mature enough, but until then, the CD player and CD's are both very much alive at my house (and car, and office).