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CD in 2024

L

lencotweaker

Mostly dreaming of record players
I've been somewhat intensely focused on records and their replay over the last 30 years, and obsessively so in the last 10 years but I've found myself taking a break over the last few weeks in favour of CD! Despite me being a massive vinyl snob (its borderline insane the amount of record players and associated paraphernalia I have here), I've recently started to notice again the huge wall full of CD's I accumulated over the years. I've started listening to them again, even started buying again, and there are some absolutely gems to be had! I'm secretly enjoying them too. Theres real joy going on.

So here are a few observations that led to this:

- new records are stupid expensive and it galls me as a vinyl lifer who's bought records every week for over 30 years. Now that the vinyl revival in full swing, the marketing departments and rip off merchants are in overdrive I suppose I'm just getting properly tired of it all. And let's not even talk about new pressing quality.

-used vinyl is hit and miss. Ebay is a crapshoot. Discogs is only marginally better. In any case, what to even to buy? I've probably got most of the 'reasonably priced' back catalogue I really wanted already. The stuff I didn't get back in the day, especially from the 90's, is now insanely expensive.

-streaming. I have a pretty high end, Roon based, multi-room, streaming set up... and I never use it. I dunno, its either tiresome because it needs an update every single time I rarely use it or its broken and needs me to put my old 80's/90's geeky computer sleuth head back on, or the choice is just plain overwhelming. I only tend to use it if I'm aware of something new or intriguing and I want a quick listen before buying a physical copy.

-over the last couple of years I've been frequenting the charity shop CD sections. In between the seemingly endless Il Divo, Frank Sinatra, Robbie Williams and Dido CD's, there are some really great discs to be had for a quid a pop. 3 for a quid in some cases! I thought the quid I paid for 'World Party - Egyptology' yesterday was a proper little nugget of gold. Oh, and quite laughable armful's of classical CD's to be had. There is so much classical on those shelves I just limit it to major label discs and you just can't go wrong.

-CD's on eBay can also be stupid cheap. Most of the stuff I've bought over the last month or so is not even on streaming services, or on vinyl. The morning delivery from the postman is getting embarrassing!

So there it is, I'm being sucked back into a format I never really fell for in the first place and now I'm thinking about CD replay hardware again for the first time in over 10 years. What I have is sounding really good anyway, an old Denon DVD2900 as transport through Luxman DA-06 DAC on one system and a Naim CDX2 in the home office, but what does top class CD replay look like in 2024 if I wanted to get the best out of this format?

Its a bit of a Saturday night wine fuelled ramble but what say you? CD's in 2024?
 
Yep.

Recently brought my CDs down from the loft and bought a little cd drive add on for my dac.

I wanted to have an internet free listening space, so when I’m listening, I’m just listening, rather than also staring at a screen.

I’m really enjoying going back through my old silver discs. I’ve bought a few too, at very reasonable prices in comparison to the vinyl alternative.
 
Like you, I’m focussed on records. However, the format is secondary. Some great CD players out there but original laser mechs are often not available any more making service harder. If a CD12, PD91, CDS (any variant) or that mental 2 box thing that Sony once made came up in good nick, I’d be after it!

CDs are now super cheap so no issues there but I don’t really agree that vinyl is that expensive. Factor in inflation over 40 years and 4.99 to 25 quid is OK in my book given the relatively low volume nowadays. Quality was always variable - I’ve got plenty of shit from the 80s in particular.
 
I use CD a bit more than vinyl.

I think it's because more new material is available on CD and it is cheaper and more consistent in quality.

Some stuff sounds better on one thing than the other or vice versa.
Not sure if it is my records or my equipment that is the reason for that.

But when vinyl is good, on my Pink Triangle, it will blow the socks off my mid market CD player due to lack of digital haze.
 
I am a 62 year old music lover, borderline audiophile (I have been called worse) and have been open to using both digital and vinyl over the years. The CD set up you have is far from shabby, and no noubt it can be improved upon.

I had been focusing on upgrading my digital front end (Innuos Zen mk3 / Primare pre 60 with onboard DAC) but queried as to whether these ears of mine, the most important ancilliary equipment I have, were capable of realising the value of the spend. I had had recently compared my pre60 onboard DAC with a DAC that according to reviews and price, should have given it a clean pair of heels, but I could hardly hear a difference if any.

I don't use a CD player, having ripped my collection, together with one or two others onto the Zen and prefer it to a player, because of the incredible convenience it offers, being able to access all things digital, including Tidal on my tablet from the comfort of my listening chair.
 
lencotweaker said:
I've been somewhat intensely focused on records and their replay over the last 30 years, and obsessively so in the last 10 years but I've found myself taking a break over the last few weeks in favour of CD! Despite me being a massive vinyl snob (its borderline insane the amount of record players and associated paraphernalia I have here), I've recently started to notice again the huge wall full of CD's I accumulated over the years. I've started listening to them again, even started buying again, and there are some absolutely gems to be had! I'm secretly enjoying them too. Theres real joy going on.

So here are a few observations that led to this:

- new records are stupid expensive and it galls me as a vinyl lifer who's bought records every week for over 30 years. Now that the vinyl revival in full swing, the marketing departments and rip off merchants are in overdrive I suppose I'm just getting properly tired of it all. And let's not even talk about new pressing quality.

-used vinyl is hit and miss. Ebay is a crapshoot. Discogs is only marginally better. In any case, what to even to buy? I've probably got most of the 'reasonably priced' back catalogue I really wanted already. The stuff I didn't get back in the day, especially from the 90's, is now insanely expensive.

-streaming. I have a pretty high end, Roon based, multi-room, streaming set up... and I never use it. I dunno, its either tiresome because it needs an update every single time I rarely use it or its broken and needs me to put my old 80's/90's geeky computer sleuth head back on, or the choice is just plain overwhelming. I only tend to use it if I'm aware of something new or intriguing and I want a quick listen before buying a physical copy.

-over the last couple of years I've been frequenting the charity shop CD sections. In between the seemingly endless Il Divo, Frank Sinatra, Robbie Williams and Dido CD's, there are some really great discs to be had for a quid a pop. 3 for a quid in some cases! I thought the quid I paid for 'World Party - Egyptology' yesterday was a proper little nugget of gold. Oh, and quite laughable armful's of classical CD's to be had. There is so much classical on those shelves I just limit it to major label discs and you just can't go wrong.

-CD's on eBay can also be stupid cheap. Most of the stuff I've bought over the last month or so is not even on streaming services, or on vinyl. The morning delivery from the postman is getting embarrassing!

So there it is, I'm being sucked back into a format I never really fell for in the first place and now I'm thinking about CD replay hardware again for the first time in over 10 years. What I have is sounding really good anyway, an old Denon DVD2900 as transport through Luxman DA-06 DAC on one system and a Naim CDX2 in the home office, but what does top class CD replay look like in 2024 if I wanted to get the best out of this format?

Its a bit of a Saturday night wine fuelled ramble but what say you? CD's in 2024?
Click to expand...
Love CDs. Love their cheapness. Love their excellent sound quality and the fact they take up so little space. Love buying older machines for cheap and enjoying the retrotech of it.
( slightly edited because I repeated myself. I'm at a difficult age :))
 
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Vinyl is finally on its way out in my house, despite my having a rather good turntable and phono stage. I'm recording my LPs to 24nit 48kHz WAV files, well at least those that are not available outside vinyl. The classical LPs went to a new home a couple of weeks back.

Cds get ripped and played form the NAS. Secondhand CDs are often much cheaper than downloads and when you're lucky you get a pre-loudness wars mix.

No online streaming, just my own albums from the NAS via Roon, a NAS and dCS.
 
If you account for inflation, the prices being asked for vinyl releases today aren't that different from what they were in the 1960s/1970s. What has always galled me is the price of "digital downloads" (MP3 quality, in particular). Now there's a ripoff - no physical media or packaging to create and distribute, very little along the lines of liner notes, and definitely no returns!
 
sktn77a said:
What has always galled me is the price of "digital downloads" (MP3 quality, in particular). Now there's a ripoff - no physical media or packaging to create and distribute, very little along the lines of liner notes, and definitely no returns!
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That has always irritated me too. Just as it's frequently cheaper to have a real book delivered to your door than it is to buy the 'kindle' version or cheaper to buy the blue ray disc than it is to download the movie online
 
I’ve used and enjoyed vinyl for over 45 years now, and CD since it’s early UK days in 1984.

Both formats are the main sources in my system as I have no interest whatsoever in the issue of streaming or ripping - with all the built-in obsolescence and continual updating that it entails.
 
Yep I use CD quite a bit here also alongside Vinyl & streaming.
As to the OPs Q about good current CDPs/Transports. For CDP I would say you would struggle to do better than the Lector CDP 707TL. There's currently one on eBay @ £1600 and no bids [£5k RRP] I had its predecessor the CDP7TL and it was an awesome bit of kit, pretty much matching the Bardo/12" Enterprise Mk4/Koetsu RSP I had at the time.
For transports then top of the Heap for sensible(ish) money is the Audiolab 9000CDT, the 6000CDT is very good, punching well above its £349 price but in an upper midrange or higher system it will show its shortcomings. Into the OPs DAC the 9000CDT would really sing as mine does into a heavily pimped Black Ice DSD.
 
leroyd said:
I am a 62 year old music lover, borderline audiophile (I have been called worse) and have been open to using both digital and vinyl over the years. The CD set up you have is far from shabby, and no noubt it can be improved upon.

I had been focusing on upgrading my digital front end (Innuos Zen mk3 / Primare pre 60 with onboard DAC) but queried as to whether these ears of mine, the most important ancilliary equipment I have, were capable of realising the value of the spend. I had had recently compared my pre60 onboard DAC with a DAC that according to reviews and price, should have given it a clean pair of heels, but I could hardly hear a difference if any.

I don't use a CD player, having ripped my collection, together with one or two others onto the Zen and prefer it to a player, because of the incredible convenience it offers, being able to access all things digital, including Tidal on my tablet from the comfort of my listening chair.
Click to expand...

I have the same pre (and probably amp). Front ends are Primare BD32 (CD, SACD, Bluray), Technics G and Melco N1A. The Technics (Goldring 1042 / Primare phono amp) is very good but inconvenient, the Melco is convenient, but not (via USB to the Pre as best connection) so good, the BD32 is moderately convenient and via its analogue outputs, by far the best sounding.

(I must try to work out why the Melco, controlled with Bubble UPnp, despite mostly doing seamless track joining, sometimes misses the first couple of seconds on the next track. Bach's St. Matthew was unlistenable. If I rewind and give it another go, it progresses seamlessly. Odd.)

So, a CD supporter here ! :)
 
Darren said:
Love CDs. Love their cheapness. Love their excellent sound quality and the fact they take up so little space. Love buying older machines for cheap and love the fact that they take up so little space.
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Sums it up perfectly for me. I currently have four players in the house. Before a house-move cull, it was double figures…
 
I use vinyl and I recently bought a Wiim to use through my Cyrus Pre2 Dac QXR. I use Amazon hd.
However I prefer cd through my Cyrus cdi.
I don't know why but it just sounds better to me. Weird I know.
 
Brett said:
I use vinyl and I recently bought a Wiim to use through my Cyrus Pre2 Dac QXR. I use Amazon hd.
However I prefer cd through my Cyrus cdi.
I don't know why but it just sounds better to me. Weird I know.
Click to expand...
I did an A/B comparison of some of the same songs (same albums) that I have on CD and streamed from Amazon HD. Now it should be noted that the CD was being played purely using it's digital out in to the same DAC as the WiiM Mini that was the source for Amazon. I came away thinking (but not entirely convinced, because the A/B was complicated by the two sources not being totally identical levels for some reason. So as well as switching inputs I had to faff about with chaning the amp volume), that Amazon was very mildly EQ'ing the tracks to be ever so slightly forward in the mids. I did the comparison in the first instance to find out if Amazon were going full out with remastering the songs. That doesn't appear to be the case, because there wasn't a significant enough difference for what I could hear to be actual remastering. But there did appear to be a very slight mid forwardness to Amazon over the CD.

For reference the CD is an Audiolab 8200CD, which as I said was being used as a transport only, using the Coax digital out. The manufacturer claims that the said "CD output" is "very low jitter". What I'm intending to do next is use the optical out option on the Audiolab rather than the Coax, and do the comparison with Amazon again.

Edited: I should add for full transparency sake, that I also did an A/B comparison between Deezer and Amazon HD (because I wasn't sure if Amazon were EQ'ing the tracks and I was pretty confident Deezer - who only do CD quality anyway - would have no reason to, and so were less likely to do so), and could hear absolutely no difference between then (and this comparison had zero level issues as obviously they both came from the WiiM). So from that I'd need to conclude that Deezer also mildly EQ their tracks. Which seems unlikely, because why would they bother? given they're only providing CD quality. From which I think its fair to conclude the difference I heard between Amazon and CD were either imagined or because I couldn't get the volume levels exactly matched between them when doing the comparison.

All very off topic, sorry.
 
I like CDs , marginally prefer records but value both and both have their pros and cons, I don't have any Internet access in my listening room so the whole streaming malarkey isn't a consideration.
 
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