Are CD players dead

why will "CD's live another 50 yrs"? I understand vinyl, it's a niche media to hold analog, but you don't phyiscally need CD's to playback the inferior 44.1 files of CD's. You can get that crap downloaded. Or, you can get the better HiRez files, downloaded. Why do you think companies will continue to produce the discs? It's an unnessary cost to distribute the music.

Plus, the DAC's in a deck, with few exceptions, are not in the same league as those in a stand alone DAC.

This subject is getting a lot of attention, just look at the responses here. Cds' aren't dead or dying anytime soon but with hard disk based music playback getting so good it is easy to see why some think that it's the only way to go.
Once some of the larger record lables start offering high resolution downloads of big chunks of their music libraries it will start to tip in favor of downloads for audiophiles for the simple reason that it's better. A 24/96 file of something that is also on a cd is going to sound better.

That simple.

I honestly don't think that anyone that isn't looking into computer audio is behind right now though. Great cd players still sound great, lot's of cds being produced, LOT'S of used cds out there so it has legs as far as being relevant for quite some time. But.....when everything is working and you have a high resolution recording playing back through a well thought out hard drive based sytem it is very hard to look back.

The original post was: "Are CD players dead"?

Dying.

What HiFi reports that UK record player sales(!) exceeded sales of CD players as of July 2010.

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/vinyl-turns-the-tables-as-decks-outsell-cd-players-3d-makes-a-slow-start-receivers-rule-2010-uk-ce-sales-revealed

The current thread has focused on music formats more than actual CD players. CD sales still exceed downloads by a large amount.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uPgbxW1-MQo/TWEgQlMz84I/AAAAAAAAASM/IBghiPFrEg0/s1600/albumsales2010.jpg

The dirty not-so-secret that the music industry doesn't know how to deal with is that sales of all formats are plummeting. Does this mean that people are buying and listening to less music as a whole? Maybe. My kids are as likely to watch videos (movies, YouTube, TV shows) on their iPhones and laptops as listen to music. Video is displacing (at least in part) audio only as a format of choice for on-demand entertainment for the masses. Affordable home theater systems and streaming HD video on mobile devices weren't available when the CD was on the drawing board.

I also think all this digital complexity and nonsense is helping drive the re-emergence of vinyl. My comlpletely non-audiophile but digitally fluent son bought a Bass Nector lp recently because he was intrigued by the tangible nature of owning a 12" piece of art and cuing the needle on the disk. Once he notices the sound benefits of analogue, he may get hooked, something that CDs will never offer over HD digital formats.

The other elephant in the room with respect to digital music sales is that XX% of music files are changing hands for free. That was happening long before venders figured out how to charge for downloads, and my guess is it will continue as long as people realize they can get something for free instead of having to pay for it.

So yeah, the CD player is dying. But the last CD player I bought sounds noticably better than the one it replaced. Same disks, better DAC and transport etc. When the new one wears out, I will want another one or something that can at do at least as good of job at extracting music from CDs to play my disks. And lets face it, most of those billions of plastic disks out there will last physically much longer than any of the devices designed to play them and everbody posting here.

"And now we turn to our headline fact - that 77,400 turntables were sold in the year to May (a 11% increase). That compares to 41,400 CD players.”

Thanks for that info Knownothing. That’s astounding to me. I feel like I just fell off the proverbial turnip truck.

I would like to point out that another WhatHiFi article , from the year 2009, reports sales of 570,000 BluRay players and that BluRay represents 25% of the video player market, for total video player sales of 2.3 million.

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/the-year-of-the-headphone-2009-hi-fi-and-av-sales-figures-revealed

Also, computers and game systems can be used as players.

Since video players can play CD's (and some of them SACD's) most people don't need a CD ONLY player.

Perhaps the single function CD player is passe, but the CD format can still thrive.

Ken