Is the CD player dead?

Sorry about the provocative title but:

Much of the music I have been introduced to in the last two years has been via downloading mp3s. I have been pointed towards and able to listen to much more music than via the this medium tahn i would have otherwsie had access to. I've become very interested in a few genres that have very high production values.

This has led me to purchase a Naim hifi system (with Shahinian Arc speakers) and also buy much of the best music i have downloaded on CD.

I am finding going back to CDs after mp3s very frustrating indeed. They are such a clumsy medium comparatively... forcing me to either change CDs with alarming frequency or to listen to a whole CD that may only have two tracks on I like.
One of the great beauties of mp3s, or indeed any music held on a computer, is the ability to create playlists, enabling you to listen to only the tracks you want, when you want, in the order you want.

There are/have been two problems with mp3s. The sound quality is less than ideal (even with very good rips) and it has been difficult to play these on a hifi based in the lounge if your computer is in a nother room.

Both these problems have ceased to exist quite recently. You can now rip your CDs to your hard drive in a lossless format (including my favourite, a format called .flac which can also be streamed). This enables one to play .flac rips of cds straight off your hard drive. Interestingly it is quite simple to see that the quality of the flas played directly from the hard drive is better than playing the original cd in the computers own cd drive. I imagine this may be something to do with the error correction that CD players use (but am not sure at all).
Note: if you use Eaxct Audio Copy to rip your CDs you rip them bit by bit... it gets an exact copy (hence the name of it!)

Anyway. Now all we are left with is how do we play this .flac file on our top of the range hifi downstairs in the lounge.

In step SlimDevices with their Squeezebox (www.slimp3.com). This is a wireless hardware device (pretty ugly and cheap looking) made by a bunch of ex-Apple programmers that accepts a stream of digital information (or sound) from an open source software server called the SlimServer (freely downloadable from their web site).
The purpose of the Squeezebox and SlimServer is to allow streaming of music held on your computer in a variety of formats (including mp3 and the lossless .flac) to your hifi over a wireless network.
The Squeezebox has analogue outs and a digital out. The analogue outs are pretty mediocre. The digital out gives you the .flac file with no messing around at all... i.e. it gives you the exactly the same 1's and 0's as are contained on the CD.
Put this digtal out through a good quality DAC (can be got on eBay for less than £400) and you are left with the following advantages:

1) Better music quality than any cd player can hope to achieve (due to lack of CD transport and better quality, dedicated DAC)

2) The ability to create playlists on the fly and play saved playlists

3) All music comes out at the same volume levels due to the inclusion of ReplayGain information into the .flac file (and the ability of the Squeezebox to read it).

4) If you are on broadband and leave your computer on and connected you can listen to streamed radio stations too

In addition the Squeezebox has a remote.. so you don't even have to move whilst you build your playlists etc etc etc

Discuss: Is the CD player dead now... or am i full of crap?

 

Nicely provocative, like it.

Sounds to me like you should be taking your box of tricks down to see someone like WM to show him just how well your hard drive compares against the drive in his Wadia.

Anyone else interested?

 

It's a real wrench, but I can force myself to change a cd now and then. I'm up for it, and to show how seriously I take it at the moment, I'll just bring along the second system player

 

You think CDs are clumsy? You should try vinyl

I'll repeat what I said in the iPod thread - I just don't see the attraction of playlists and have never used them. How does anyone have time to compile them? I remember ages ago when I sometimes made compilation tapes for friends it would take me at least a week to decide on which 10 tracks should be on it :SLEEP:

Michael.

 

Look at my answer in the last thread but playlists take seconds to compile and can be changed easily at any moment. You can have millions of playlists.. all better than one whole CD!

 

Your main problem seems to be that you don't buy Cds you like!!!

Buy CDs where you like more than 2 or 3 tracks and the problem is pretty much solved

Though if it really does sound better than a dedicated CD transport then I'm all for it. I don't see how a CD-Rom can read the CD any better than a dedicated transport though as a good transport will be built to higher standards and be reading the disc slower therefore being more accurate.

I look forward to the Computer and Transport stand off!

 

There are very few CDs I have that I like each and every track of. If I was to ensure that I like every track on each CD I bought i would probably own less than 10 CDs! Perhaps I am more choosy than most?

Here's a guess at CD versus computer CD read differences:
A CDPlayer has to read a CD at a certain speed to accomodate the person listening to the CD.
A program like EAC (Exact Audio Copy) can take however long it wants to read that CD as it not governed by the person listening to it. If EAC finds an imperfection with a CD it will continually re-read it until it kwows it has got the correct data off the CD. A CD Player will use error correction to *guess* at what the CD has on it so it can deliver audio to the person listening to the CD in real time.

It may be immaterial anyway. As long as it accepted that EAC (www.exactaudiocopy.de) can get the exact 1's and 0's off the CD and copy them to a hard disk we are left with a comparison of whether a computer reads 1's and 0's off a hard drive better (more accurately?) than a CD drive reads them of a CD...

BTW. Obviously computer based CDROM drives are inferior to (say) the CD drive in a Naim CDX!

 

As I replied in the other thread (this is getting silly, let's stick to just this thread ) you misunderstood me. The physical process of creating a playlist is dead easy and quick. It's deciding what should be in them that takes ages and is the bit I can't be arsed with.

I nearly always listen to CDs in their entirety. The only reason I wouldn't is if I was interrupted part way through one or the rare occasions when there's just a particular track I want to listen to.

Michael.

 

Uh-oh

Are you sitting comfortably?.... Then I'll begin

https://www.audio-forums.com/as-rediect/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3017

 

Oh yippeee!!! Another digital is just 1s and 0s (or not) discussion :SLEEP: :banghead:

Michael.

 

That thread is just too huge and goes on too many directions to read (esp at 1am).

However, logic, and my ears tell me that the writing is on the wall for CDs. They are not flexible (vis a vis playlists, accessability of the music, and having to change the damn CD every 8 tracks or so) and the sound quality can be exceeded by losseless formats held on a hard drive.

Please do not bother mentioning vinyl (as someone has on PinkFish just now).

Michael. Perhaps try being a bit less precious about the music you add to playlists... play around... they are very simple to change/add/edit/delete/reduce etc etc.

I've gotta go to bed! Nite nite.

MC

 

I don't know why I get so angry about such statements. I have to take a break. I wanted to post something but I erased it before pressing the 'submit reply' button.

 

Are you sure about this? It might be worth doing some comparisons.

 

and then your computer hard drive crashes and the 120gb of music you have ripped all goes sput... (my laptop is currently ingesting it's own hard drive at the moment so i know this can happen)
i like having a physical carrier for my music although if that carrier was ROM or some other solid state means then i think that would be the perfect solution. just have a storage system which allows you to plug the ROM into the replay device which can access a large matrix of them and you've essentially got your server without the danger of losing it all to the whims of chance (or a 6 year old with a glass of water). the only problem is that cd's / dvd's cost pennies to make whilst solid stade storage is expensive (relatively).
cheers


julian

 

i AGREE ABOUT THE COMPARISONS

 

:ffrc: :ffrc:

 

Whoops, that last post flew off before it was ready.

I agree about the comparisons.
Currently I am effectively comparing a Naim CDX with a an old Arcam Black Box DAC!. I am on the look out for a good quality DAC and hoping to get a DAC that is better quality than the one in the CDX for less than £500 (second hand). I don't know if this is realistic or not though. There are a couple on eBay at the moment:
A Tag McLaren Dac 20 (which may go for more than £500)
and a Musical Fidelity X-24K 24/96 (which will probably go for about £200. I have no idea if whether could possibly be compared to the DAC in the CDX.

Just to make my point as concisely as possible.
Music held on a CD is only a bunch of 1's and 0's. The important thing is to get that to the speakers as purely as possible. Some of the weak points (there are probably more) with the CD are:

1) The *mechanical* transport/laser arrangement and the fact a certain amount of correction (or guessing) goes on.
2) The DAC and the transport being in the same case
3) The power supply being in the same box (well, I am in the Naim world!)

If it can be proved that you can get the exact 1's and 0's to a DAC from the CD using lossless files then it must follow that the audio reproduction quality has the potential to be better than a dedicated CD player.

Why I am so excited is that if this is true, audio reproduction (in the digital domain only) is about to take a big step forward. Audiophiles are about to get all the convenience of streamed music and playlists that have up to now only been available to those are not too bothered about the sound quality.

 

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Oh Well partial ignorance is bliss I surpose

"Better music quality than any cd player can hope to achieve (due to lack of CD transport and better quality, dedicated DAC)"

Sorry MC, I cannot believe you wrote that, let alone actually agree with it

One other thing worries me too

"There are a couple on eBay at the moment:
A Tag McLaren Dac 20 (which may go for more than £500)
and a Musical Fidelity X-24K 24/96 (which will probably go for about £200. I have no idea if whether could possibly be compared to the DAC in the CDX."
Are you using the cdx as a bench mark?, if you wishing for aquality digital reproduction MC , then I feel looking along the chain a bit more will dramitcaly improve your chances.
FWIW MC, I've run Levinson/Benchmark/wadia/msb platinum/DCS dacs from a *Quality sound card & PC* with cheapo and ludicriously expensive cables & mains gear, I still feel there is a fair way to go yet, however the ability to store/achieve and access massive amounts of music is great without question, this will appeal to a lot of people, when the technology is correct I will invest, until then I'm happy with swopping cd's

 

I'm sticking with CD; I barely listen to albums all the way through, but never got a multiplayer becuase 1) they sound crap and 2) I keep fit getting off my bum and changing CDs/records.

MP3s are a sonic disaster - if MLP came as a CODEC I'd start thinking about a music server, but I'd never digitise my vinyl.

Playlists for compilations are stupid. Just have an idea of the sound you want, and then go with it. ALL my compilations are made this way and most people like the spontanaeity (sp??) of it

Penance - ace quote - Andy Warhol's a great track! From a greater album