I need a new CD player what is the general opinion on future of compact disc looking at 3000$ Yamaha or is the wiser choice going to hard drive I know this question is a little hard to answer.
If you decide to go with a CD player, you may want to consider a transport & DAC as separates since you'll be able to easier upgrade in the future (the DAC) when that technology advances.
Personally I rip all my CDs to FLAC. I have about 8K titles and having them out was a real pain. Now they are all in storage (wallets) and live on my server. I use Roon to stream to a Lumin X1 that I very much like. When I buy a CD (rare these days) I rip it with an Iomega CDROM. I use Yate for tagging. The sound is glorious. Not sure why anyone would use a builtin DAC.
That said, I mostly purchase DSDs these days (512!!), or LPs.
CDs are cheaper than ever right now so it is a great time to invest. Soon mass scale manufacturing will end and the prices on the used market will increase.
In case you ever think of streaming: CDs are better than streaming since you can choose which mastering to buy and listen to. Streaming services generally have the most recent mastering which is mastered loud with reduced dynamics and more compression (to sound better on earbuds and Bluetooth speakers). A lot of good audio equipment will sound better with earlier mastering when the CD sounded a lot closer to the master tape. By buying second hand CDs you can easily get these earlier versions of the albums. Not so with streaming
I moved back into 2-channel music about 3 years, and am absolutely loving it. SACD is my preferred source, with Vinyl and then Redbook CD's in succession. I upgraded to the Yamaha S-2100 player, which I think features the same Transport as the S-3000. It produces fabulous sound, and has been completely reliable.
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