How much longer will CDs be made?

I mean I agree that putting anything near 1000 into CD, SACD, or DVD-A playback at this point is really a lost cause, and 5000 or 7000 is REALLY a terrible investment... You can get excellent if not 9 out of 10 Redbook sound these days from very low priced players and Universal DVD players.. Save until the full on lossless hard drive takes over and feeds a great quality dac.

I mean even putting 3000 or something into a DAC is a WAY better investment at this point, then you can at least use it with any means of source or transport in the future, and believe me when I say future, because it will not be necessary to have CD at all to a point, you don't need them now...

Even a computer these days is rarely coming with optical drives anymore, everything is on memory sticks, and drives that hold everything, or direct download for less money same exact digital information and transfer.

The point here is CDS will still be a means of software delivery.. But how will you play them back? People will start converting them more and more toward a small hard drive and put the discs away, wasting too much money on any optical drive at this point is a risk..

This is NOT even remotely close to VINYL going away or not, this is EXACTLY like a TAPE deck going away, where can you purchase Cassettes??? It has to do with conveinence software and reliabilty out of a disc that is easily stored and replaced by the same digital means vs. carrying around a Disc.

Vinyl has had about what 4 times the life on this planet than CD? And for good reason, its still going to require a Needle and table to play, you can't just load it on a Drive and get the same experience or sound, thats been the point the whole time, As for digital who cares if its transported back to your ears off a Chip or a Disc?? Nobody if it sounds as good and is even more accessable and libraried.

Yes you can buy CD for some years to come, but don't think you can buy them as much locally is the point.. Tower records fell, best buy will have mostly only newer titles or ones that are always in demand. Maybe even that will go away further, and some will say screw it, Now I have to order all my cd's anyway, why not download it and have it now, no shipping, same sound, Digital pictures etc... Of course the websites have some work to do to get us the un-compressed files in ultimate availability, but I have a feeling that will happen, its like the IPOD nobody would have believed it 4 years ago, and you think it will stop there?

Nothing wrong with CD so don't get me wrong, but the real point is I would not invest heavily in a Optical disc drive, it seems insane to concern yourself with owning a Teac NEO drive clamp, or anything in these price ranges unless you have a ton of cash and it makes no difference.

I think the point is being missed by a few on this thread, Digital is not dead at all.. So I am not sure who said that in this thread, As a matter of fact this thread is quite the opposite, Its advancing quite rapidly, it is, was, and will be the continuing standard in the industry with ZERO doubt.. That is the Exact reason to stay away from huge investment into an optical / transport playback device…

CD's are still a good investment of the software itself because you will need to get the data from somewhere, but a Hi priced Optical drive will be pointless to play it back in real time, because you will copy your disc over once to your new Toy like a new easy and perfectly good sounding file retrieval system, and feed a dac without the mechanical transport needed anymore… This is where I think some guys are in denial or going to be really pissed one day when they are out buying CD's thinking "Damn, Now I go home and fire up the 7000 dollar transport, and knowingly I see all these new devices for about 1000 bucks I could put all my albums on feeding my dac and it sounds as good, at least as good, and is more conveinent, and I could still have my discs and throw them in the closet."

Again buy all the CD's you want, no problem, no loss, you will pay the artists or the companies providing you the info one way or the other and plastic discs to get this info into your home is again perfectly fine.. But I would not invest in a high priced optical reader of any sort, hell most of these machines will have a very good optical drive to transfer your data off the disc internally right there to your file system, and will not sound any better using a esoteric transport, I guarantee that day is coming and faster than most want or will admit too

Psacanli
Sony Blu Ray audio is already being used, and is just as you say, Neil young just did a deal to do all his stuff on blu ray hi res 2 channel audio already. It exists, I am shocked this is not well known already. It was only a few weeks ago, but it is happening so don't worry sony will not miss the boat on this one as you guys seem to fear.

Neil Young to Release Archive on Blu-ray

Posted May 6, 2008 03:37 PM by Josh

Blu-ray Movies At a Sun Microsystems conference held today in San Francisco, rock-legend Neil Young announced that he will be releasing his highly anticipated (and continuously delayed) archive project on Blu-ray. The first 10-disc set will chronicle 1963-1972, presumably one disc for each year. In addition to including high definition audio recording of all his songs (including previously unreleased works), the discs will include videos, handwritten manuscripts, and other memorabilia.

Young selected Blu-ray as the medium to release his archive, not only because of its huge storage capacity, but also for its ability to be updated via BD-Java and BD-Live. He expects that as more material becomes available, it will be provided to fans via a web interface for download.

He commented, "Previous technology required unacceptable quality compromises. I am glad we waited and got it right".

The first set is expected to be released this fall under the Reprise/Warner Brothers Records brand.

Source: Blu-ray.com | Permalink