Or better still... why fix something that's not broken?
It is, a broken technology in retrospect when you consider it's a moving part to transfer digital data when there's no need for any physical movement to transfer digital data. Vinyl is different because it's not digital data, it's physical texture. You need motion to identity texture.
Finally, if the CDPs worked for ever... would it not eat into their sales/profits? Any company worth its salt makes money by selling upgrades/improvements/new versions to their existing customer base.
Anyone expecting something to work forever needs a reality check lol.
The issue is not CDP's from companies but optical disc technology itself.
I agree, any company worth it's salt makes it's money by making upgrades and improvements, which is why they should move away from cd's for delivering music or at least start moving away as there can be no further improvement and upgrade to the delivery system of data from a cd to the lens. It's only holding them back from new emerging form factors.
Take all the younger generation who use laptops without any optical drive at all, the companies are totally missing out on that and losing to online delivery, the only alternative to that is sd cards, usb sticks, esata drives or pci express drives.
I myself use a laptop without an optical drive and if I ever wanted to hook up a usb dac I'd have no option but look for an online source.
CD players going bad fast is one thing, cd's themselves go bad due to poor handing or manufacturing. There can be no further improvement in CD optical delivery technology as the medium is already obsolete and not further researched into. The delivery method is the same and has been the same since 1990, there can be no profit expected from holding onto a dead delivery medium, only the electronics post the delivery.
In the case of solid state, the receiver instead of a lens is a physical stationary medium with a lifespan potentially as long as the material it is made of while the source would be the only item at risk of damage.
From the media companies' perspective, flash drives are too easy to pirate. With CDs one has to make the effort of ripping them
Poor excuse if anyone has really used it IMO.
There is also the issue of a large established user base who have equipment to play CDs but not usb drives.
The evolving model is actually online rather than usb drives. Eg. ITunes and the like
Yep, sadly India's quite a bit far behind in that area. (No thanks to our tech illiterate government who don't allow all major online streaming services)
There is such an alternative. A Music PC
(Seriously.)
Totally different form factor from the one that should exist though.
Don't forget -- we still have digital downloads
But yes, I do agree that CDs and DVDs are more suited for archiving than for day to day use.
Probably they should start shipping in SD card (okay, a shiny SD card with album art etc.
), or like Apple ships Mac OSX Lion in a thumb drive.
EXACTLY MY POINT!!! Thank you
SD cards are amazing in that regard, I've had an sd card since late 90's which has been in use daily on tons of different pc's and it's never had an issue while I've run through dozens of discs and usb drives to completely not using any optical discs today, I dont have ANYthing on an optical disc anymore because the delivery medium itself is so fragile it's like throwing your money at a burning fire.
Why petrol/diesel in the age of hybrids, clean energy propulsions??
I plan on going eco as soon as I can and away from fossil fuel nonsense.
Solid State will be the best and last physical media for all kind of storage but they are still expensive compared to CD/DVD. I play a lot of audio and video files from the USB port of my Blu ray player and hardly use the Disc......
Its true that most CD Drives these days die out after few months of operation.......this never happened during the VHS days......
)
Same here man, I've completely stopped using optical discs for 5-6 years now, I wish I could get original uncompressed solid state audio in the form of usb or sd sticks.
The shift from CD-player to online/streaming/cloud-based music has already happened. I am surprised most of you missed it
I haven't missed it, stopped using discs years ago. However I constantly wish there was a solid state medium purchasable online / at stores in uncompressed non propriety format.
CD player sales have been down more than 40 percent year-on-year; they are going the way of the LP player and the dodo. (see what Linn has to say:
High-end audio maker Linn declares death of the CD player | Technology | guardian.co.uk)
In a few years, most music will be released in downloadable format and CDs will be released for high-end niche consumers (like they are for LPs). CD medium has many disadvantages but I haven't come across CD players being unreliable. Unless you are buying low-end CD players with questionable build-quality and transport. None of my CD players have ever given me a problem (I have owned a few). Cheapo DVD players have died on me, true. But you get what you pay for.
YAY! Thank god they're noticing it's dead as a dodo.
I'd prefer LP over CD TBH because CD's data is digital while LP's are physical, when it comes to data, a cd is a poor form of delivery for data. It's that delivery itself which should die as soon as possible IMO and become raw uncompressed studio cut data in an online or solid state medium.
The online streaming scene really pisses me off because of India's backward infrastructure that considers being online a luxury and puts prices like 1000 for limited 1mbps plans while the world moves onto 16-60mbps for around the same value approx.
