Is it unwise to buy a state of the art CD player at this time?
- Thread starter Mobiusman
- Start date
When we decided to remodel our home a few years ago, we put in these expensive built-ins in the living room. Now I totally wonder why. Almost all of book purchases are electronic. The bookshelves still look "beautiful" but they don't serve any purpose other than furnishing and holding all the books we have that are gathering dust!
Do you all really live so far in the past as to not have felt/adopted these new trends????
So yes, the book is a dead format. A tree is a beautiful thing and needs to be where it is instead of being converted to pulp to create books. For technical and reference stuff, ability to search is essential and electronics gives this to us. And with OLED displays, ability to keep books currents, giving everyone the ability to publish a book without killing one tree, and you have the making of a dead format in books. And being able to download a book immediately, is well, priceless.
I guess we disagree. I live in the present. I tried to read ebooks and the last time I was at an audio store they gave me a glass tablet to select music. I could not stand either experience. I don't like putting frozen food in the microwave either. Convenient, yes, they all are. More enjoyable, perhaps for some, but not for me. I would own a wooden sailboat with lots of varnished teak if I could afford the maintenance. Trees can be replanted.
One of the best spaces I have ever been in was an opera singer's record room. It was small. All four walls were racks upon racks of LPs. The only break was the door we used to enter the room. In the center was a round table with a small light. We had wine and dinner at that table, surrounded by thousands of LPs. We searched the shelves, flooded with memories, and selected the next record to play on his 1970s stereo system. Priceless.
As far as the OP's question goes, if he has a large collection of CDs, and he likes the palpable nature of holding and collecting objects, then I think he should buy this player if he likes the sound and if he can afford it. You can then call both me, and him, Luddites.
Few?
• http://phys.org/news/2016-09-jay-z-streaming-tidal-huge-losses.html
• http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/09/13/tidal-full-financial-filing-ugly/
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Bonus (old news): http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/06/an-inconvenient-truth-mqa-sounds-better/
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One of my favorite Rock music bands is Jethro Tull. ...Living in the Past.
Hi
. I have rarely seen so many inventive ways to show how difficult it is to drop a disc on a PC and rip somewhere while doing something else... It is clear that some have decided to put some resistance and look in the past
On top of that some are invoking the palpability of the medium as a source of pleasure. I guess a shellac disk was more palpable than anything analog ever devised aside from the Edison disk ... Both were quickly replaced by the LP itself by the CD and the CD by immaterial bits. Money is becoming that too ... not-palpable...Most on this board prefer lot of it in an un-palpable form than few of it otherwise
Same with music.
And Peter How long do you think it would take to physically find an LP (or a CD) in that opera singer's room as compared to touch a few letters and or digits on a tablet or smartphone to retrieve where it is actually placed .. 200 LP is perhaps easy to catalog and retrieve 10,000 and you better have some software. The job of cataloging such a collection is not trivial and probably for some would be a very dumb way to spend one's free time, I guess...
If music listening to music is the goal, nothing replace streaming. The most interesting thing is that it sounds as good if not better than a CD player. What is there not to like?
. I have rarely seen so many inventive ways to show how difficult it is to drop a disc on a PC and rip somewhere while doing something else... It is clear that some have decided to put some resistance and look in the past
On top of that some are invoking the palpability of the medium as a source of pleasure. I guess a shellac disk was more palpable than anything analog ever devised aside from the Edison disk ... Both were quickly replaced by the LP itself by the CD and the CD by immaterial bits. Money is becoming that too ... not-palpable...Most on this board prefer lot of it in an un-palpable form than few of it otherwise
Same with music.
And Peter How long do you think it would take to physically find an LP (or a CD) in that opera singer's room as compared to touch a few letters and or digits on a tablet or smartphone to retrieve where it is actually placed .. 200 LP is perhaps easy to catalog and retrieve 10,000 and you better have some software. The job of cataloging such a collection is not trivial and probably for some would be a very dumb way to spend one's free time, I guess...
If music listening to music is the goal, nothing replace streaming. The most interesting thing is that it sounds as good if not better than a CD player. What is there not to like?
NS
Do you believe that in 20 years people will still be buying CDs? Tidal may be losing money but is the trend reversible? That of streaming usic? The new Broadcast?
And by "gaps" Rodney surely meant that there are albums that are not on Tidal, I have several albums that are not there .. Roon neatly plays them from my own collection and combine them for my listening pleasure with things I don't own that are on Tidal, effortlessly, seamlessly, smoothly and at the touch of glass slabs sometimes called "tablet" and other times "smartphone" .
In twenty years most of us will have gelatin ears. :b
Ok, we have to go with Russ here; it's about him, his next decision, his music lifestyle. It is impossible for us to implant ourselves in his body and mind.
We all follow our own musical journey and it can vary a lot; from using several music mediums, to using what we have already collected in the last fifty years...more or less, to jumping with streaming (it's good for new world music discoveries...excellent), to ultra hi-end systems like Russ have (and many more people here who are reading WBF, and their members), to humble servitors like I who also use all music mediums from yesterday and today (I have to confess though; I too am a romantic and old fashion music lover), to the new kids on the block.
Sincerely it's all good. There is no other person that knows best than Russ himself. It is his life, his hands, fingers, heart, ears, soul, desires, ...journey into his own zone of comfort, today, and only today...one single day @ a time when the most importance of life is to be in the music moment of the present fully immersed and deeply emotionally involved. And it just don't matter if is from tapes, albums, compact discs, super audio CDs, music streaming, hi-res audio files downloading, ...all that jazz.
Live in the moment, in the each there...with all your heart, desires, most comfortable/relaxing/peaceful/satisfaction guarantee...and nothing else.
There are 7.35 billion different lifestyles right now on our planet, and only one of them is our own. And that's the best one.
Ok, we have to go with Russ here; it's about him, his next decision, his music lifestyle. It is impossible for us to implant ourselves in his body and mind.
We all follow our own musical journey and it can vary a lot; from using several music mediums, to using what we have already collected in the last fifty years...more or less, to jumping with streaming (it's good for new world music discoveries...excellent), to ultra hi-end systems like Russ have (and many more people here who are reading WBF, and their members), to humble servitors like I who also use all music mediums from yesterday and today (I have to confess though; I too am a romantic and old fashion music lover), to the new kids on the block.
Sincerely it's all good. There is no other person that knows best than Russ himself. It is his life, his hands, fingers, heart, ears, soul, desires, ...journey into his own zone of comfort, today, and only today...one single day @ a time when the most importance of life is to be in the music moment of the present fully immersed and deeply emotionally involved. And it just don't matter if is from tapes, albums, compact discs, super audio CDs, music streaming, hi-res audio files downloading, ...all that jazz.
Live in the moment, in the each there...with all your heart, desires, most comfortable/relaxing/peaceful/satisfaction guarantee...and nothing else.
There are 7.35 billion different lifestyles right now on our planet, and only one of them is our own. And that's the best one.
Exactly; we all contributed in our own ways. I'm sure there are many more people out there with other variations, or like Russ in similar situations.
? Music is a passion, audio has become an industry, a money factory. It's important to be reminded/reaffirmed of the main goal.
? Music is a passion, audio has become an industry, a money factory. It's important to be reminded/reaffirmed of the main goal.
Hi
. I have rarely seen so many inventive ways to show how difficult it is to drop a disc on a PC and rip somewhere while doing something else... It is clear that some have decided to put some resistance and look in the past
On top of that some are invoking the palpability of the medium as a source of pleasure. I guess a shellac disk was more palpable than anything analog ever devised aside from the Edison disk ... Both were quickly replaced by the LP itself by the CD and the CD by immaterial bits. Money is becoming that too ... not-palpable...Most on this board prefer lot of it in an un-palpable form than few of it otherwise
Same with music.
And Peter How long do you think it would take to physically find an LP (or a CD) in that opera singer's room as compared to touch a few letters and or digits on a tablet or smartphone to retrieve where it is actually placed .. 200 LP is perhaps easy to catalog and retrieve 10,000 and you better have some software. The job of cataloging such a collection is not trivial and probably for some would be a very dumb way to spend one's free time, I guess...
If music listening to music is the goal, nothing replace streaming. The most interesting thing is that it sounds as good if not better than a CD player. What is there not to like?
Part of the joy of that evening was perusing the racks looking for a title. I discovered all sorts of gems in the process of searching, pulling something out, reading the cover notes, looking at the pictures. How long did it take? I don't know and couldn't care. That was not the point.
And Frantz, did you not see where I wrote that selecting music from a glass tablet is more convenient? That is in many cases. When my friend and I brought in our own ten CDs to audition a DAC recently, it was much easier to find a particular track on a particular CD than it was to figure out which icon to tap on a glass sheet to get to the right menu to finally find an artist then an album and then a title. What a hassle.
I am not arguing about sound quality. And I am not trying to convince others about what they should do. It should be clear than not everyone agrees about this topic.
The OP asks an earnest question about whether or not he should buy a particular CDP. If the answer were as obvious as you and Amir suggest, we would not need a 16 page thread to discuss it.
PA
Streaming is not exclusive: After ripping, you can always put all your CDs in beautiful racks in a nice room, catalogued any way you want. You can pay a visit to the physical shelves once in awhile or as often as you wish. Streaming doesn't stop you from having the physical disc and/or its box somewhere ... You can always plop a CD in a transport if you so choose.. You do have to buy the CDs anyway so if the tactile is important to you , you keep the CDs and their boxes ...
Then you fire Roon and listen to music for hours discovering things you would not, had you have to go physically through your 3000 CD collections
Let's not be too serious on this people ..
P.S. Roon still is not yet good on Classical music. I haven't fiddle with it; I would like it however to be more customizable.. It is excellent but as anything in life ..Not perfect.
Streaming is not exclusive: After ripping, you can always put all your CDs in beautiful racks in a nice room, catalogued any way you want. You can pay a visit to the physical shelves once in awhile or as often as you wish. Streaming doesn't stop you from having the physical disc and/or its box somewhere ... You can always plop a CD in a transport if you so choose.. You do have to buy the CDs anyway so if the tactile is important to you , you keep the CDs and their boxes ...
Then you fire Roon and listen to music for hours discovering things you would not, had you have to go physically through your 3000 CD collections
Let's not be too serious on this people ..
P.S. Roon still is not yet good on Classical music. I haven't fiddle with it; I would like it however to be more customizable.. It is excellent but as anything in life ..Not perfect.
Thanks Peter. It is about time someone asked this question. BTW, I do not know if you remember, but we sat next to each other on a return flight from LV after a CES 4 years ago.
Books and music are different. We hear with our ears, the tactile feel is only for selection. We grew up listening to radio, TV, etc, many of the things we did not do with touch. Cassettes, yes. CDs is a relatively grown up phenomenon, for some of you, after childhood.
But all of us have been holding a book, or a newspaper, since childhood till date. Some things are only, but the act of reading has been done, and continues to be done, by holding what you have been reading. I prefer online reading because I can jump links - if there is something that I do not understand or need to research on, online is better. Similarly, discovery of music is way easier while streaming. That aside, apples and oranges
But all of us have been holding a book, or a newspaper, since childhood till date. Some things are only, but the act of reading has been done, and continues to be done, by holding what you have been reading. I prefer online reading because I can jump links - if there is something that I do not understand or need to research on, online is better. Similarly, discovery of music is way easier while streaming. That aside, apples and oranges
So opinions have been given. I respectfully disagree with your take on the issue.
As Bob said above, it's Russ's decision based on his "music lifestyle and it is impossible for us to implant ourselves into his body and mind".
Is there anything else new to add that hasn't been previously stated?
Best.
Isn't the main goal enjoying listening to music in whatever format one chooses?
And as an aside and with all due respect to all, I personally find the "tone" of some of the comments (from those that support ripping, streaming, computer audio, etc.) to be dismissive, judgmental, and inappropriate.
Carry on gentlemen.
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