Final demise of CD players?

I am expecting that prices for some even great CD players will start falling down any time soon. Suppose you have a decent "dacamp" (an amplifier with a DAC built-in). You go and pick one of them "What Hi-Fi 5-star product of the year", namely less than £100 Sony blu ray player with a FLAC capable USB. You link this blu ray player with your dacamp by the mean of the digital coaxial cable. Stick your USB full of FLACs in, and you can start enjoying, more and more often better than CD quality, music. There's no need for levelling the device as nothing spins inside of your USB. Unless you wish to use your blu ray player for CD playback, which would not be entirely nonsensical idea, actually. What am I trying to say is that highly regarded, inexpensive blu ray players, with their power supplies located outside the box, with built-in FLAC capable USBs, digital coaxial/optical outputs and lack of displays and other outputs are not only a threat to standalone CD players but before all, I would dare to claim, a better option for music playback at all. CD Baby offers now FLACs on titles like Skye by Monarch Trails or even the rarities like L'enigma Della Vita by Logos. You pay less than for CDs and you start enjoying your buys immediately and in a quality that starts to better that of CD. As an additional bonus of using blu ray players instead of CD players, you are able to playback one of them High Fidelity Pure Audio discs, which not only often better SACDs and others in quality, but also significantly in price tag. Selling England by the Pound on blu ray audio disc is only £11 something off Amazon. Now check the prices on SACD for this title and prepare yourself for the shock! CD, SACD and DVD audio are now on their death beds. Long live blu ray audio and high resolution files! The Hi-Fi future does looks bright.

Edited by Darious - October 20 2014 at 04:53

There will always be an upscale market for Cd players (transports and DACs) as long as people are willing to $hell out the money. Remember, high end turntables never went away during the CD craze.

Catcher10 wrote: What do you mean by "High Fidelity Pure Audio discs"? I assume you are referring to SACD and DVD-A, which essentially can hold the same type of resolution like 24/96, whereas a standard CD can only hold 16/44. Both SACD and DVD-A can accommodate 5.1 surround sound for those that want that type of music listening experience. SACD can also hold the standard redbook layer so a traditional CD player can play them, hybrid SACD's have two layers.

Darious wrote: SteveG wrote: There will always be an upscale market for Cd players (transports and DACs) as long as people are willing to $hell out the money. Remember, high end turntables never went away during the CD craze. Yes, the same thing happening with people still shooting film cameras or even hand painting pictures, despite very much able digital cameras being widely available. I'm just wondering what will happen to the mainstream when downloadable high resolution files become significantly cheaper than CDs and seriously affordable and competent blu ray/USB players will become more apparent on the market. I guess that the unavoidable will happen

The same as during the 'Back To Vinyl' trend during the CD craze. Special 'high quality' Cds will still be made for those that still want to hold the physical product. When it comes to business, there is usually little sense involved and specialty companies will make $ome big money.

Argonaught wrote: Darious wrote: Yes, the same thing happening with people still shooting film cameras or even hand painting pictures, despite very much able digital cameras being widely available.  Exhibit A: The multipurpose pocket-size electronic device that does it all (the "phone") Exhibit B: The Cloud.  These two will render unnecessary a whole range of stand-alone electronic devices, such as digital cameras, music players of any nature, GPD's, calculators etc.  Being unnecessary doesn't mean heading for imminent extinction. However, since CDs have near zero resale value, offer no sound quality advantage comparing to non-physical lossless files, are nowhere near as cool as LPs and do not age as well as we were lead to believe, I don't see how they can survive either as collectors item or as a niche product for much longer.

Dean wrote: And I think it is the worse thing that has ever happened in the world of computing because it means that you will no longer own any piece of software or data. You will not be able to buy an album so you will never own it, you will buy a lease that enables you to listen to it.

CD will not die in our lifetime.

I don't see it going away anytime soon.  I like my hard copies.

While the CD might become more unpopular relative to other forms of music media, I can't see it going the way of the eight track.

Catcher10 wrote: Remember the OP is asking about "CD Players"......not the disc itself.