Are CD players dead

(continued from previous post) Not so dissimilar to reading. I enjoy a quality hardcover book with a pleasing font printed on good old paper. The nook, iPad, squinting at a cellphone yeah yeah has value, but not so much for me. Messing around with computer files for more than an hour or so gives me a headache (and typing out this post may too (c:
The thrills I got in the early halcyon years of home computing have abated for me and no longer tick my clock like they did regardless what comes along. Aging has something to do with, but hey - time is precious.

I have been researching this and I am still not convenced I can beat the sound of either of my CD/DVD players using a digital transport and DAC - without spending a lot of money. Both my Ayre C-5xeMP and MUSE Erato II players do hi-rez, which means I can download available music and burn hi-rez DVDs to play on the players. The computer audio gear still doesn't seem sorted out and appears to be changing monthly. I was just reading how some believe the 2011 Mac Mini is not as good sounding as the 2010 version due to shared USB ports and other issues, and the life expectancy of a DAC before it is upgraded/improved seems to be less than a year. I am sure I will be moving toward a computer source when things stabilize, but I will probably still keep one of my disc players around as a backup and a baseline of what sounds great.

Pettyofficer, I was only prognosticating, not advocating. I like CDs and SACDs, and vinyl, and even cassette tapes, and have a healthy number of each, along with some pretty respectable equipment for playing all of them.

But I have also watched the selection of CDS, and the places you can buy them in my city, shrinking faster than a cotton t-shirt in an overheated dryer. So my guess (but not my preference), is that pretty soon now the music companies will start to ask themselves "why are we still producing and shipping the round plastic disks?"

I think there is one significant difference between the fabled death of Vinyl and the supposed death of CDs. If Vinyl truly died, huge collections of LPs might be rendered useless - outrage! The music industry doesn’t have that concern with CD’s because they can be downloaded.

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Cd's and vinyl will live at least another 50 years because hard-core audiophiles will never give in to the inevitable changes. However, as a viable medium of choice for the general public, the cd has one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel. Do a little survey of people that you know that buy music that are not audiophiles, you'll find that cd's are passe and old technology. The overwhelming bulk of music is not bought by audiophiles. Cd's and vinyl will always have a place in the high end, but its days of mass market appeal are dwindling rapidly.

10-10-11: 77jovian
My brother is a university music professor. He made a CD compilation for his students and most had no device to play the CD.

The above quote is a harbinger of things to come, the younger generation could care less about a cd player, much less a cd. Digital players are constantly getting better, smaller and more portable.