Is the CD showing its age?

[3db]

I buy all my music on CDs. I want the physical backup.

However CDs do NOT last forever. CDRs have a life of about 10 yrs. CDRom have a longer life, perhaps 30 yrs.

I did a quick and dirty Google search on "CD deterioration" - here are a couple of articles that stuck out:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130244610

http://stason.org/TULARC/entertainment/audio/general/10-32-Do-CDs-deteriorate-with-time-What-is-their-life-span.html

That's funny because a lot of my CD collection is well over 20 years old and going strong.

 

[Adam]

The CD is like Betty White.

Well, kind of. My excitement at the thought of unwrapping a CD has never made me feel dirty.

 

[wlmmn]

Interesting no one brought up this point, but the CD is showing its age in that the 16-bit, 44.1kHz should be considered outdated and recordings should be released in 24-bit, 92kHz like most recording studios record at anyways, only to have to dither down the resolution once the mastering studio gets a hold of it. Unfortunately, the market never pushed audio resolution further from a resolution standard established in the early 80s, and so playback ability of audio recorded at higher than the redbook standard is very limited. Video playback's resolution has been moved forward from DVD to Blu-Ray, why hasn't CD's resolution been moved forward with the same support in the marketplace?

Don't get me wrong, I love physical media for all of the great reasons stated above, so my argument isn't for the removal of physical media, but rather that it's ridiculous that buying a digital disc of music called a CD means buying audio recorded at a 30+ year old resolution standard. Imagine if you could ONLY buy BetaMax movies in 2012, and Blu-Ray movies required a special, very hard to find player, the discs of which are near impossible to back up and hardly any movies were released on since the format "died" (from a marketing perspective) 13 years ago.

 

[markw]

Well, I've got some pretty amazingly fine sounding redbook CD's so I can't really fault the format. I've also got some fairly pedestrian ones, too, but again, I can't lay the blame on the format.

As for downloading, mass market tends to go for the fast and dirty formats which aren't any better than redbook. In fact, they tend to be lower quality but, hey, that's what the mass market demands.

As for the high-glitz, super fidelity formats, they appeal to a very limited few in the overall scheme of things. If you really, really want change, and you get it, odds are it will NOT be in favor of a higher fidelity format.

...be careful what you wish for. Remember Beta/VHS

 

[Irvrobinson]

Video playback's resolution has been moved forward from DVD to Blu-Ray, why hasn't CD's resolution been moved forward with the same support in the marketplace?

Don't get me wrong, I love physical media for all of the great reasons stated above, so my argument isn't for the removal of physical media, but rather that it's ridiculous that buying a digital disc of music called a CD means buying audio recorded at a 30+ year old resolution standard. Imagine if you could ONLY buy BetaMax movies in 2012, and Blu-Ray movies required a special, very hard to find player, the discs of which are near impossible to back up and hardly any movies were released on since the format "died" (from a marketing perspective) 13 years ago.

Video and audio aren't comparable. Video resolution, even for Blu-Ray, is far less than reality. 16/44.1K audio on the other hand, properly recorded and reproduced, meets or exceeds the hearing ability of most people, and certainly the dynamic range likely to be used in a home system. 24 bit words make a lot of sense for the recording studio where you need headroom to limit overload and reduce the chance of mistakes, which reduces costs, but 24 bit is of little use for home entertainment. I suppose one could say 24 bit words would do no harm for home use, but there isn't much of a qualitative argument for going beyond 16 bit words in playback.

192K sampling purports to solve audible problems with digital filtering, but since modern 16/44.1K DACs measure nearly perfect in every way out to 20KHz, it is a mystery to me what problem higher sampling rates are really solving either.

On a personal note, I've downloaded several tracks from the HDtracks website, of music I own in CD format, and I can't honestly hear a difference. I can hear a difference when some older recordings are remastered even on CD, like MSFL does, but so far all of the 192/24 tracks I've sampled sound no better than my best CDs. I'm a skeptic. This isn't like video at all.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I would think anyone with 2,500 CDs is likely not part of the generation talking about the death of the CD player.

For all intents and purposes, I would think the CD is already dead for the average music listener. We here, we aren't average. For God's sake, we still have people talking about their vinyl collection and the NEW albums they are purchasing on vinyl. We just aren't normal.

We will always be those people who are off buying esoteric gear for way to much money just because it offers us that little bit more of extra quality.

But, the home music server is the iPhone or Android phone in someone's pocket. You plug it into the USB port on the new receiver, or the 1/8" jack connection. You start your playlist which was setup on the PC. Your entire collection may be there, and you don't have a 15" screen, but a much smaller screen that you touch directly.

Some of our kids may love CDs, but about the best we should be hoping for is that they aren't getting MP3 downloads, but high resolution audio and that they are getting better pieces of gear to listen on.

The CD death march is on. It may never be as 'dead' as vinyl, but when we likely will see 250+ GB digital music players you can walk around with. A FLAC CD at 300MB per disc, we could pretty quickly see almost 1,000 full length CDs in your pocket... or on your home system... or wherever else you want it. I would expect that we will see, at some point, high end Android type audio players come to market as this shift continues.

 

[j_garcia]

No doubt the CD, and physical media in general, are on their way out, but that does not mean it isn't/wasn't a viable format.

 

[BMXTRIX]

No doubt the CD, and physical media in general, are on their way out, but that does not mean it isn't/wasn't a viable format.

I think the big thing with the CD is that when it came out it was revolutionary. It introduced us the the little silver disc. It completely changed our expectations of what music had to offer.

Now, 700MB is 'small'. The music from the CD is still excellent, but we can get more from music and the CD can't hold 'more'. So, we have to go elsewhere. Instead of a new physical format, the digital lossless copy makes more sense. Likewise, for true collection management, digital gives so much.

The CD is king of the physical media for what it delivered IMO. High quality, incredible portability, and a fair price for decades. My Van Halen 5150 just plays fine after over 25 years of being in my collection. Plays like the day I bought it. Amazing stuff right there!

 

[sterling shoote]

I think the big thing with the CD is that when it came out it was revolutionary. It introduced us the the little silver disc. It completely changed our expectations of what music had to offer.

Now, 700MB is 'small'. The music from the CD is still excellent, but we can get more from music and the CD can't hold 'more'. So, we have to go elsewhere. Instead of a new physical format, the digital lossless copy makes more sense. Likewise, for true collection management, digital gives so much.

The CD is king of the physical media for what it delivered IMO. High quality, incredible portability, and a fair price for decades. My Van Halen 5150 just plays fine after over 25 years of being in my collection. Plays like the day I bought it. Amazing stuff right there!

I just purchased 5150 from my local used book store for $6.00. I ripped it to my computer's iTunes library, converting it to an ALAC file. From there, I sent it to my iPhone @ 256k. As they say "it's all good". One thing for sure, seems that while the latest methods for delivering music have made music more convenient, I can't say that any of the new and improved audio formats sound better than CD, not even SACD, Blu Ray, or HDTracks. On the other hand, CD's can sound, at least to me, as good as anything else out there, and they are so pleasant when compared to LP's. With CD's there's no snap, crackle, or pop. CD's have better bass response, longer playing times, easier manipulation, and, of course last longer than LP's. Plus; the equipment to successfully play CD's and convert it to analog is typically less that the cost of a good turntable and cartridge

 

[j_garcia]

I don't know what SACDs you guys are listening to that you can't hear the difference because I definitely can hear it without question on SOME presentations. So it really depends on which ones, who did them, how good the masters were, etc... On the other hand, there are definitely CDs that are so close to what the SACD version provides that it really is almost no difference. The fact is, the ones that I can really tell a difference on ARE rare though, and while I do appreciate it, I actually don't feel I absolutely need that extra 10-15% of quality to be happy with the sound as compared to CD.

I bought an SACD player because I got a great deal on it and a few choice SACDs with it. Once I had it hooked up, I could hear that my speakers were now the limiting factor so I bought new speakers

 

[sterling shoote]

I don't know what SACDs you guys are listening to that you can't hear the difference because I definitely can hear it without question on SOME presentations. So it really depends on which ones, who did them, how good the masters were, etc... On the other hand, there are definitely CDs that are so close to what the SACD version provides that it really is almost no difference. The fact is, the ones that I can really tell a difference on ARE rare though, and while I do appreciate it, I actually don't feel I absolutely need that extra 10-15% of quality to be happy with the sound as compared to CD.

I bought an SACD player because I got a great deal on it and a few choice SACDs with it. Once I had it hooked up, I could hear that my speakers were now the limiting factor so I bought new speakers

Not to get off track but what SACD's sounded better to you than the same material on CD, comparing stereo to stereo? In my music collection which has a little something from just about every format out there I can honestly say the only album where I'm certain I hear things differently from the same material in different formats is the earliest version of Journey's Escape and later versions on LP or CD. I think that's because later versions were mixed differently. At any rate, over the last 30 years, I've occasionally experimented in the recording studio with live vs recorded in many formats attempting to understand what sounds better. So far, the winner is DAT but that's a subject for another thread. Back to CD's and SACD's. On paper SACD sounds better but to my ears I just can't distinguish a difference. Maybe I need to try some of the SACD's you have auditioned.

 

[j_garcia]

Yes, I always compare stereo to stereo even on the multichannel discs. One I noticed it on right away was Patrica Barber's Cafe Blue (MoFi, stereo only).

A buddy of mine has a some audio recordings of his own as well as copies of other material to DAT and I do feel it sounds quite excellent.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

 

[gmichael]

I still buy my music on CD's. SACD's are nice, but the selection is slim. Once I get them home, the plastic case goes in the garbage. I only keep the discs and store them disc wallets. They take up much less space that way.

I rip copies to my PS/3 for use on my main system. I rip more copies to my CDR in the basement. I download them all to a laptop to sync with wife's Ipod. Then I make copies for my car. What more could you want?

 

[j_garcia]

Instead of tossing those cases (super jewel - SACD/DVD-A) you need to send them to me

 

[little wing]

Because I don't want my laptop on a tether to the audio system. The laptop also has a rather annoying fan, and selecting music from a 15" screen is a lot less user-friendly than a wall of CD cases. I also have to rip all of my ~2500 CDs to a hard drive to really make it work, or pay for a lot of that music again. (I figure about 70% of my CD collection is actually music I might still listen to, so that's about 1700 CDs or so, which is the real PITA.)

I completely agree. I have about 400 or so CDs and a pretty good player to listen to them on. My CDs or my player are not going anywhere. I am not one to give into new technology just because it's there. I just bought my first flat screen
Streaming and wireless is nice, but I am old fashioned. I like reading the inserts from the disc. And I like getting up and putting the disc in the machine

 

[gmichael]

Instead of tossing those cases (super jewel - SACD/DVD-A) you need to send them to me

Sorry. Too late. They filled 4 giant garbage bags. Now the CD's all fit in a few wallets that take up just one small drawer.