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CD Players Demise?
Are CD players going the way of the cassette deck?
I'm in this business, and I can tell you that CD player sales are indeed drying up.
Check it out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8368895.stm
Cordially,
Tom
--
Give one heart. Get back two.
That's the paradox of I Love You.
--
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our Redeemer
And the only breath of life for these times in which we live
Replies to This Posting
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RE: CD Players Demise?
I only buy one, if mine is broken and mine hasn't broken in over 10 years.
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RE: CD Players Demise?
Your lucky yours has lasted for 10 years. I think CD and DVD players have short lives overall. I have had several DVD players and my CD player died a long time ago. We have another, but I know what you mean Tom because I think the Ipods and mp3 players that can played on multiple types of systems will be the way of things. I know I play my nano, first generation (have had it for years) in one of my portable systems, it charges it and sounds good. Just my thoughts, but technology is moving faster all the time. I hope your business can stay in tune with this, no pun intended..LOL
*******************************************************
Happiness is sharing love in someone's heart.
"Loves the Only House" -
RE: CD Players Demise?
We have a 6 disc CD player in our living room. I use to have one in my room but I didn't use it because when I get a CD I put it on my computer, that way I can listen to many different CD's.
DVD players have a very short life span which is annoying! I bought a new one last year on boxing day and so far it's been pretty good.
Brains or Beauty?
"Brains. Everyone is beautiful only some people are smart." Photographer David Livingston -
RE: CD Players Demise?
I think they are. I can't tell you when the last time I used a stand alone CD player to play a disc at home. My goal is to rip all of my cds into FLAC format and have a home server that can serve the music up anywhere in the house. The cds are great backups.. well.. except for the ones that are rotting away. Always seems to be a cd from a boxed set that it happens too also, don't know why that is!
-Darren
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My Songs | Twitter | My Blog | Facebook -
RE: CD Players Demise?
I have about 5 CD Players and I use them everydays because I love musics. I have too much money into these CD that I hates to see them go away. But I have brought CD where the people put the Songs on the CD didn't do a good Jobs at it. The only Bad thing is When you Buy it the Stores say you open it. It yours to Keep No refund for that. Which I Hated when I try to get one that work. I would Hate to go to buy over 500 CD that I have nows. Some I listen a lot and some I listen one a years.
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RE: CD Players Demise?
I think they are. I can't tell you when the last time I used a stand alone CD player to play a disc at home. My goal is to rip all of my cds into FLAC format and have a home server that can serve the music up anywhere in the house. The cds are great backups.. well.. except for the ones that are rotting away. Always seems to be a cd from a boxed set that it happens too also, don't know why that is!
-Darren
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My Songs | Twitter | My Blog | Facebook
Darren, I am no expert nor am I a novice, somewhere in the middle I guess but what the heck is FLAC format and how does that work?
As far as cd's rotting, I have started to load them on my pc and save them to my passport hd that I can save for how ever long that will last.
Thanks,
Leigh
*******************************************************
Happiness is sharing love in someone's heart.
"Loves the Only House" -
RE: CD Players Demise?
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac
If I ran away, I'd never have the strength
To go very far
How would they hear the beating of my heart
Will it grow cold
The secret that I hide, will I grow old
How will they hear
When will they learn
How will they know -
RE: CD Players Demise?
I love buying a CD, I don't by alot..due to lack of money. But the ones I do I cherish! Like my Martina ones haha They have their own special holding place. An old record that was turned into a bowel; which when I was cleaning I realized it was a Bryan Adams record.
Brains or Beauty?
"Brains. Everyone is beautiful only some people are smart." Photographer David Livingston -
RE: CD Players Demise?
We have a 6 disc CD player in our living room. I use to have one in my room but I didn't use it because when I get a CD I put it on my computer, that way I can listen to many different CD's.
DVD players have a very short life span which is annoying! I bought a new one last year on boxing day and so far it's been pretty good.
Brains or Beauty?
"Brains. Everyone is beautiful only some people are smart." Photographer David Livingston
Most [people don't realize that lasers are consumables like record player needles and car tires. They all wear out.
--
Give one heart. Get back two.
That's the paradox of I Love You.
--
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our Redeemer
And the only breath of life for these times in which we live -
RE: CD Players Demise?
My goal is to rip all of my cds into FLAC format and have a home server that can serve the music up anywhere in the house.
-Darren
-----
My Songs | Twitter | My Blog | Facebook
That's where we are moving to Darren. It's the best method of playing back simply because you can store it in one place and play it in many. And you have doubtless discovered for yourself that it also sounds better than a CD player because the problems of retrieving a stable error-free digital stream in real time from a spinning optical disc are done away with.
I suspect in 5 years there will be few if any CDs available on the market. (Ditto for the DVD.)
We will all be buying hi-res FLAC files from the record companies.
Cordially,
Tom
--
Give one heart. Get back two.
That's the paradox of I Love You.
--
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our Redeemer
And the only breath of life for these times in which we live -
RE: CD Players Demise?
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac
If I ran away, I'd never have the strength
To go very far
How would they hear the beating of my heart
Will it grow cold
The secret that I hide, will I grow old
How will they hear
When will they learn
How will they know
Yes. FLAC is similar to Apple Lossless, except that it is free, i.e. not a proprietary system.
Compresses a file to about 60% of the original, like Apple Lossless (ALAC) with no loss of sound quality. And as Martina fans, we more than most will not put up with any loss of sound quality.
--
Give one heart. Get back two.
That's the paradox of I Love You.
--
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our Redeemer
And the only breath of life for these times in which we live -
RE: CD Players Demise?
We've got a Sony CD system that also has a hard drive built into it. It's just the job for us because we still like buying actual CD's to play. Suppose we've got the best of both worlds really, as we can then put whatever we want on the hard drive and make playlists etc. I think we will miss buying CD's when that day ever comes! (Mind you, we probably said the same thing about vinyl, yet we've still got hundreds of LP's that haven't seen the light of day for years!!).
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My Baby Loves Me Just The Way That I Am! -
RE: CD Players Demise?
FLAC is definitely the way to go. As Tom and DSgamby pointed out it's the same quality as the files on a CD but 50-60% smaller.
The way I rip CDs to FLAC is running them through Exact Audio Copy, which will make sure you get each and every bit that it can read off a cd and then convert those WAV files into FLAC.
CD players are interesting beasts, because the do run into errors and they have error correction built in, so it tries to compensate for a bit of dirt or a smudge on the cd itself. If it runs into a small problem it just guesses what it should be playing and fills in the blanks.
The CD itself is a flawed beast. A while back I read an article about the differences between a store bought CD and a CD-R that you can burn music onto. Well, anyone that's ever seen a CD-R knows that the disc is a darker color than a store bought pressed music CD. It turns out that a vast majority of CD players actually have an easier time reading CD-Rs with the darker color than your store bought CDs, thus giving you a more accurate sound.
This is where the interesting part of the test came in. They took a few CDs and ripped them using something like Exact Audio Copy (or EAC itself) and then burned that same music back onto a CD-R. There were some professional listeners who could actually tell the difference between the original CD and the copy of that disc burned onto CD-R. The REALLY wild thing was they all agreed the CD-R copies sounded BETTER than the original!! This all just really proving what Tom said, extracting a CD using EAC and encoding to FLAC is truly about the best sound you can get out of the format, possibly even better than the existing CD that you're ripping.
I think I've gone on long enough, maybe should make this a blog post as well. If you can't tell, I love to geek out on audio stuff!
-Darren
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My Songs | Twitter | My Blog | Facebook -
RE: CD Players Demise?
I think they are. I can't tell you when the last time I used a stand alone CD player to play a disc at home. My goal is to rip all of my cds into FLAC format and have a home server that can serve the music up anywhere in the house.
Sounds like I should hire you. Not that I'm anywhere near that point but I've always wanted a room that will play music automatically with the flip of a switch, why not the whole house too!
I still use my mp3 cd player (cd player/disc man that plays regular cds and cds with mp3's burned on it - for anyone wondering)! I love the tangibility of cds. -
RE: CD Players Demise?
Thanks for the info about Exact Audio Copy. May want to look into that. Darren did you have to use an additional program for the conversion to the flac format? And how do you play your music in that format? PC? Maybe you should start a blog on it. It's pretty interesting and if I am going to back up my cd's, I might as well do it the right way. I will have to get another hard drive, just for music LOL. Thanks again all.
*******************************************************
Happiness is sharing love in someone's heart.
"Loves the Only House" -
RE: CD Players Demise?
The way I rip CDs to FLAC is running them through Exact Audio Copy, which will make sure you get each and every bit that it can read off a cd and then convert those WAV files into FLAC.
dbpoweramp ( http://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper.htm ) and ripstation ( http://www.ripstation.com ) are other choices for PC users who might want a less tweaky way of doing it. I use Max on my Mac and store it on my QNAP NAS and find it perfectly acceptable (although it can't always find the artist and track info).
CD players are interesting beasts, because the do run into errors and they have error correction built in, so it tries to compensate for a bit of dirt or a smudge on the cd itself. If it runs into a small problem it just guesses what it should be playing and fills in the blanks.
The CD itself is a flawed beast. A while back I read an article about the differences between a store bought CD and a CD-R that you can burn music onto. Well, anyone that's ever seen a CD-R knows that the disc is a darker color than a store bought pressed music CD. It turns out that a vast majority of CD players actually have an easier time reading CD-Rs with the darker color than your store bought CDs, thus giving you a more accurate sound.
This is where the interesting part of the test came in. They took a few CDs and ripped them using something like Exact Audio Copy (or EAC itself) and then burned that same music back onto a CD-R. There were some professional listeners who could actually tell the difference between the original CD and the copy of that disc burned onto CD-R. The REALLY wild thing was they all agreed the CD-R copies sounded BETTER than the original!!
I've experienced this too. It is my understanding that some of the sonic difference is due to the way the laser pickups handle reflections. On a pressed CD, ones and zeros are seen as bumps and lands. On a burned CDR, these become pits and lands. The laser light is reflected off a bump differently than a pit. It bounces and refracts through the plastic until it reaches the edge of the disc at which time it reflects back and is picked up by the laser while it is trying to read something else. The digital filters have to fix all of this before sending the stream to the converter. Some optical pickups handle this better than others obviously. Back in the early 90s, die-hard audiophiles (OK, OK, I confess...
) would paint the outer circumference of the CD with a green marker of a particular shade which absorbed the red laser light and kept it from bouncing around inside the plastic.
This all just really proving what Tom said, extracting a CD using EAC and encoding to FLAC is truly about the best sound you can get out of the format, possibly even better than the existing CD that you're ripping.
I think I've gone on long enough, maybe should make this a blog post as well. If you can't tell, I love to geek out on audio stuff!
-Darren
I ripped my 1999 White Christmas to FLAC.
Absolutely stunningly beautiful. Your ears will be gaga, if that's possible.
I have never heard it sound this good. And I've marvelled at the good sound for a decade now, but never like this. Now I want the 24-bit studio master.
Cordially,
Tom
--
Give one heart. Get back two.
That's the paradox of I Love You.
--
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our Redeemer
And the only breath of life for these times in which we live -
RE: CD Players Demise?
I think they are. I can't tell you when the last time I used a stand alone CD player to play a disc at home. My goal is to rip all of my cds into FLAC format and have a home server that can serve the music up anywhere in the house.
Sounds like I should hire you. Not that I'm anywhere near that point but I've always wanted a room that will play music automatically with the flip of a switch, why not the whole house too!
I still use my mp3 cd player (cd player/disc man that plays regular cds and cds with mp3's burned on it - for anyone wondering)! I love the tangibility of cds.
I use this do that http://www.linn.co.uk/digital_stream_players , although I haven't expanded to the whole house. (Now you know how I discovered this company was giving up on CD players.) I control it using my iPod touch or Suzanne's iPhone.
Also, there are companies that will rip your CDs for you too, if you have many and want it done quickly. Musicshifters is one I've heard about, though I haven't used them. I'm sure there are others, but I like to do it myself at my leisure and I can control how I want it tagged in the database.
Cordially,
Tom
--
Give one heart. Get back two.
That's the paradox of I Love You.
--
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our Redeemer
And the only breath of life for these times in which we live
