The Death of the CD?

[teamsaint]

I really hate the little plastic cases. But otherwise they are great, really. I hate entrusting everything to a hard drive.

As for all the technical stuff...........how do you people KNOW(and understand) all this stuff ?!

[teamsaint]

I am also puzzled by anyone suggesting that CDs get scratched. Like others I have several thousand and none of them have ever suffered in that way.

It is difficult to envisage how or why one would scratch a CD, anymore than one would scribble on the pages of a book.

A few teenagers round the place seems "up" the scratch rate.

As for those automated things in banks , tesco, wherever, I just refuse to use them whenever i can. People need jobs.

[amateur51]

As for those automated things in banks , tesco, wherever, I just refuse to use them whenever i can. People need jobs.

[DracoM]

I'm still buying them.

[Ferretfancy]

I used to spend many hours of my spare time tweeking sound equipment, experimenting with pickup cartridges, graphic equalisers etc.etc.before the arrival of CD. At last I was able to scrap almost all of it, with the exception of my trusty Linn turntable, and Quad FM4. It was all replaced with an excellent system, digital up to the loudspeakers themselves, and at last I can relax. In the end it boils down to whether you can subdue your excessive critical attitudes which were nurtured by audio dissatisfaction, and enjoy the music. It's all an illusion which can never approach the real thing.
That's why I'm unwilling to be embroiled in all that download stuff about bit rates which leads to a lot of vulnerable digits being stored on hard disc, or in Apple's Cloudland.

[MrGongGong]

As for those automated things in banks , tesco, wherever, I just refuse to use them whenever i can. People need jobs.

http://www.despair.com/motivation.html

maybe ?

[pmartel]

I have my computer hooked up to my vintage Marantz 2230B receiver feeding a pair of Canadian Energy 22 speakers. The sound is quite 'delicious'.

Anything I record from audio streams online is now usually done at 192khz. Depending on the stream, mostly it sounds amazing with only a slight hint of 'artifacting'.

At least thanks to the internet, I'm able to hear things I would not be able to get in this part of the world

[pmartel]

I really hate the little plastic cases. But otherwise they are great, really. I hate entrusting everything to a hard drive.

As for all the technical stuff...........how do you people KNOW(and understand) all this stuff ?!

I've been a technophile since my young days. Being a veteran audiophile, I've putzed about with various equipment over the years.

My job is demanding technically as I work for the local cable company doing troubleshooting and helping people hook up things over the phone.

This has made me VERY technologically adept. In some ways a good thing. I have a full studio in my computer, photo, video and sound editing

[Frances_iom]

I suspect quite a bit of the problem is that 192k samples/sec (which is what is meant 192kHz signals)+ 24 bit samples is totally wasted on the human ear - hower it is a better choice for the mixing and filtering process before the final production (quite well explained in the article I referenced) - if you try to do any sharp cut off filters digitally then you need much more headroom in the bits otherwise you run into representation problems (eg if you use 8 bits/sample this handles -128 to + 127 but if you need to represent +129 then you have run out of bits - one approach is to convert to floating point but easier to use more bits and handle in integer format - many of the early digital processing systems did not have the computing power of today's computers and several shortcuts were taken - I suspect it is the presence of these shortcuts and the artifacts they imposed that could be heard in some of the early CDs - even today I suspect some of the filtering software may still have some problems that could be fixed by better mathematics in their algorithms

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

http://www.despair.com/motivation.html
maybe ?

... or should that be ...

[Flosshilde]

I was speaking on Friday to the service manager at my local BMW dealer. They'd replaced the radio under warranty when my ("Friday") car was in for another repair and the idiots had forgotton to see if there was a CD in the slot.

Not to mention the one who'd left the CD there in the first place

[old khayyam]

I will never leave analogue/vinyl. It turns on instantly. You can see it with your eyes, and feel it with your fingers as well as your (ears/mind/soul). You can repair it rather than replace it. You can adjust more than one setting at any one time. You can read the cover like a newspaper, a good book, or an ancient manuscript, which can contain in-depth artworks.

The first thing that goes wrong with a cd is the central clip on the jewel-case breaks off, then the disc is loose, then it gets scratched, then you realise they are not indestructable, then you resign to paying another £5/£15/£25 on new copy, then you realise later re-issues have been redesigned and are not as good, etc.

We talk now of digital resolution finally comparing to analogue; imagine how good analogue would be if we had continued to innovate in that field. Digital attempts to represent the music, but its just a sample - broken down into code. Analogue is the music.

[mathias broucek]

Not to mention the one who'd left the CD there in the first place

It went in to have the seat fixed. I wasn't expecting the radio unit to be replaced otherwise I would indeed have removed the CD.

Off topic but am not impressed that in less than two years from new it's had a new prop-shaft, new ignition coils, new spark plugs, an engine mapping software reboot, amendments to the servicing computer, a new CD player and repars to one of the seats. It's a company car so I can't even get rid until 2014..... Perhaps I should change jobs!

[cloughie]

It went in to have the seat fixed. I wasn't expecting the radio unit to be replaced otherwise I would indeed have removed the CD.

Off topic but am not impressed that in less than two years from new it's had a new prop-shaft, new ignition coils, new spark plugs, an engine mapping software reboot, amendments to the servicing computer, a new CD player and repars to one of the seats. It's a company car so I can't even get rid until 2014..... Perhaps I should change jobs!

An expression including 'life' and 'get' springs to mind.

[rauschwerk]

The first thing that goes wrong with a cd is the central clip on the jewel-case breaks off, then the disc is loose, then it gets scratched, then you realise they are not indestructable, then you resign to paying another £5/£15/£25 on new copy, then you realise later re-issues have been redesigned and are not as good, etc.

How extraordinary. None of my CDs has ever got scratched. Replacement cases hardly cost a fortune, anyway.