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CD in 2024

I still buy and use CD, not least because the provenance of files on streaming services can sometimes be questionable.
With CD you can at least pick the best version, which is often the initial release before the remastering squad get to work.

I don't play the discs though.
I have a little slot loading blu-ray drive connected to a Roon nucleus so rip and play.
 
I am glad that a few years ago I took a decision to find a c.d. player that reproduced music in such a way as to make me want to listen to my c.d. collection. We got a roksan blak and that sorted out my quest.
I still play far more records than c.d. but at least I am not disappointed when I choose a c.d. to play.
 
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The British hi-fi press tried very hard to break CD for years. In France we didn’t have companies of the Rega and Linn calibre, which explains a lot.
CD took on very fast here on the continent.
 
chartz said:
The British hi-fi press tried very hard to break CD for years. In France we didn’t have companies of the Rega and Linn calibre, which explains a lot.
CD took on very fast here on the continent.
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It took on very fast everywhere. Hifi press had no influence whatsoever in the wider sense. Record companies had the biggest influence.
 
Absolutely concur with the OP. 25 years of anti-CD/pro-vinyl snobbery started to overturn about ten years ago when I tired of wearing out my Lyra on badly-pressed new mainstream releases that sounded worse than the MP3s they were bundled with.

Factor in how digital technology has blossomed in the last 40 years (*cough* Hugo *cough*; other DACs are available) and the fact that it’s not uncommon to find charity shops selling CDs at three, four, five, ten(!) for a pound and I reckon these are under-the-radar boom times for the format.

I still love (good) vinyl though.
 
paulfromcamden said:
Record companies convinced everyone to buy their back catalogue again on CD and get rid of their records.

Now they're convincing us to upgrade to £40 copies of the same records.

Funny how times change but stay the same.
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Yes, & people fall for it all over again;)
 
paulfromcamden said:
Record companies convinced everyone to buy their back catalogue again on CD and get rid of their records.

Now they're convincing us to upgrade to £40 copies of the same records.

Funny how times change but stay the same.
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The situation was nicely summarized in a scene in the first Men in Black film :)
 
Lurch said:
The charity shops here in Chichester do my head in when it comes to CDs, it's basically daily mail freebies, Now thats what I call music, Max Bygraves or Richard bloody Clayderman.
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It's a bit like that round here the further you venture out of London into the Kent borders.

Thankfully the place down the road junks anything that hasn't sold after a few months so the crud doesn't take over the shelves.
 
MotelBlues said:
it’s not uncommon to find charity shops selling CDs at three, four, five, ten(!) for a pound and I reckon these are under-the-radar boom times for the format.
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Our local Barnado's has stopped stocking CDs and DVDs. I asked and most of their other branches have too. They used to be 3 for £1 at the donation centre near us.
 
Hallo, i have bought an CDT-9000 and very happy with it, i am an "Analogi" but you get very good sampler and ohter fine stuff for nothing second hand, the vinyl hype costs a lot of money, my latest CD was Korn Unplugged...wow what a sound ! kind regards from vienna, Tom
 
purchased a jays transport into my audionote sig 2.1 dac , got rid of roon and q buzz , only vinyl and cd now , cd beats vinyl more than vinyl beats cd for sound quality . but both good , mainly purchasing cd from charity shops and the bay , all cheap no more trying to get streaming to sound right , happy
 
Looking through LPs in charity or other shops was easy; just flick through. CDs, o.t.o.h., are always stacked; frequently with edge info. upside down. I simply cannot screw my neck around and end up taking great handfuls out and the replacing them. Besides, I no longer frequent charity shops as I used to because most have transmogrified into gift shops (in Norwich)

On s.q. grounds, CDs can sound almost as good as records, though there seems more variation in recording quality than LPs. Unfortunately, I don't have that many CDs as I have too many records with the stuff I like and am not into replication, although in two instances of this, there's nothing between CD and vinyl for s.q.. Really can't go much further in either replay without changing horses and presentations, rather than sound quality.

Who knows? some NOS whatever valves in my DAC? Sorry, if it works, I leave it alone.
 
uncl_nigel said:
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.
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I admire the decisiveness of your approach Unc. I'm far too sentimental to let go of physical media. In fact, as I age, my hope is to amass a collection of sufficient size that I don't need to stream over the Internet or from local files. It needn't be massive. I'm easily amused. The only thing I will miss is the vibrant lofi scene.
 
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