CD players - Are they a dieing breed?

[BigH]

As far as vinyl goes, I sorely miss the covers and playback, but do not miss the inconvenience, maintenance etc. But one day I would want to get a good deck, if only to play some records we have that have never been released on CD.

I would be interested to know what those records are?

 

[Native_bon]

Agreed, no sense in spending a 1000 quid on a CD player, when your top flight Marantz's, Oppos et al will do the job and then some, plus play movies gloriously.

As far as vinyl goes, I sorely miss the covers and playback, but do not miss the inconvenience, maintenance etc. But one day I would want to get a good deck, if only to play some records we have that have never been released on CD.

With all the post I think these last few lines makes the most sense...Very good all in one players now...

Its all about boys & toys really... Dnt see any reason getting streamer or CDP when one can do it all And even play music, upgrade pictures, & act as pre amp for movies... sense or money...? With tech these days you can get very good music replay from blueray players. Its a matter of fact you get very little difference in sound quality between digital sources if any at all. Your choice..

 

[Reggie Mental]

Remember when the demise of vinyl was inevitable? I rest my case. CD is a vastly superior recording medium to vinyl.

 

[The_Lhc]

Remember when the demise of vinyl was inevitable? I rest my case. CD is a vastly superior recording medium to vinyl.

But with none of the romance or visceral pleasure of vinyl.

 

[MajorFubar]

whole swathes of LPs never got released on CD, and never will be.

Well over half my LP collection has never been available on CD, especially the old M-O-R / big-band stuff from the 50s and 60s that belonged to my dad, by the likes of Ted Heath, Edmundo Ross, James Last, Andre Brasseur, Les Whitmore, Percy Faith, Quincy Jones, Peter Appleyard and loads more.

Even my very favourite version of the 1812 Overture (Decca Phase 4, Sharples, London Festival Orchestra) remains steadfastly unreleased on anything but LP (quite common in stereo, rare in quad) and 3½IPS open-reel tape (rare and poor quality).

 

[BigH]

whole swathes of LPs never got released on CD, and never will be. Well over half my LP collection has never been available on CD, especially the old M-O-R / big-band stuff from the 50s and 60s that belonged to my dad, by the likes of Ted Heath, Edmundo Ross, James Last, Andre Brasseur, Les Whitmore, Percy Faith, Quincy Jones, Peter Appleyard and loads more. Even my very favourite version of the 1812 Overture (Decca Phase 4, Sharples, London Festival Orchestra) remains steadfastly unreleased on anything but LP (quite common in stereo, rare in quad) and 3½IPS open-reel tape (rare and poor quality).

There are quite a lot of Ted Heath and Quincy Jones cds available. James Last hopefully not.

 

[MajorFubar]

There are quite a lot of Ted Heath and Quincy Jones cds available.

...but not the same albums, a lot are 'missing', and the artists I listed are not even nearly exhaustive, they were just off the top of my head.

....James Last hopefully not.

Your opinion of of an artist's merit is irrelevant , fact is there's truckloads of LPs made over the years that have never been released on CD and never will be, which was the only point I was making.

 

[BigH]

There are quite a lot of Ted Heath and Quincy Jones cds available.

...but not the same albums, a lot are 'missing', and the artists I listed are not even nearly exhaustive, they were just off the top of my head.

....James Last hopefully not.

Your opinion of of an artist's merit is irrelevant , fact is there's truckloads of LPs made over the years that have never been released on CD and never will be, which was the only point I was making.

I was not saying there were not many available I was just interested in knowing which ones in case some would be of interest to me. Sorry none of those are of interest to me. I'm sure there are some great jazz albums that still have not been released as cds.

 

[MajorFubar]

I'm sure there are some great jazz albums that still have not been released as cds.

Oh there will be loads! In fact some really early stuff will never have made it past 78s I bet. Mind you they wouldn't have been recorded on tape to start with so not much you can do about that unless a studio can source some really good 78s to use as masters.

 

[busb]

... it reminds me immortal pseudo-photography debate: film vs digital [ dynamic range, lost highlights and shadows, resolution etc] ... fact - film and digital capture are " totally different and incomparable technologies"

I am not sure about your facts.

There is a general assumption on websites like this that just because the poster doesn't understand a technical point, then no one does. This gets reinforced by other posters who have a similar view - and before you know it, it is accepted fact. Engineers active in the field generally don't bother to post on sites like this, they are too busy earning a living. As a result, a very warped view of reality is developed, unfortunately helped by commericial interests with an axe to grind.

Of course CDs and vinyl are comparable - they are supposed to do the same thing aren't they? I was at a well known national broadcaster just as CDs were being introduced for broadcast use. What do you think we did? Sat on our hands and said 'good heavens, this is incomparable to vinyl, there is no point testing or measuring it'?

The same is true of film. Grain size, distribution and levels of sensitivity are directly comparable to pixel depth and resolution in digital. At the same national broadcaster, I was fortunate enough to work on a wetgate telecine transfer machine. Film to TV transfer - an incomparable technology? So we didn't bother making any measurements or do any analysis?

I think lpv agrees with you!

As for the points you make - spot on

As for film, I'm quite happy to see the back of it - the hours spent cleaning other people's mess in various darkrooms before I started doing any enlarging is where it belongs - in the past! The dynamic range of modern CMOS sensors is probably greater than film, high ISO noise is vastly better. I can't think of any area where film is better (apart from not needing to clean a sensor's LPF which is a pain) not even pixel / grain size is better these days. The real limiting factor is lens resolution.

 

[manicm]

As far as vinyl goes, I sorely miss the covers and playback, but do not miss the inconvenience, maintenance etc. But one day I would want to get a good deck, if only to play some records we have that have never been released on CD.

I would be interested to know what those records are?

Beethoven's Emperor Concerto by Sergio Fiorentino (piano) / George Hurst (conductor) 1965 with the Pro-Hamburg Orchestra, for starters. Frankly I have yet to hear a better performance of this piece. It has drama, emotion and subtlety in spades, and in the 2nd movement which in other recordings are either too fast or too slow, this one gets it just right. A CD pressing of this would be worth more to me than gold.

 

[lpv]

[/quote]

I think lpv agrees with you!

As for the points you make - spot on

As for film, I'm quite happy to see the back of it - the hours spent cleaning other people's mess in various darkrooms before I started doing any enlarging is where it belongs - in the past! The dynamic range of modern CMOS sensors is probably greater than film, high ISO noise is vastly better. I can't think of any area where film is better (apart from not needing to clean a sensor's LPF which is a pain) not even pixel / grain size is better these days. The real limiting factor is lens resolution.

[/quote]

busb - I can see you're on flickr... just search for groups like 'medium format', '6x6', 'contract killers' ... check out Martin Parr new and old work, see differences? film looks different than digital. that's all.

 

[lpv]

I'm a photographer. People like shouty digital photos, clinical and clean, colourfull and sharp... same with music.

 

[lpv]

busb: "As for film, I'm quite happy to see the back of it - the hours spent cleaning other people's mess in various darkrooms "

well.. I recommend you watch Trent Park documentary from his long Australian trip where he developed negatives on back of his car and let it dry hung on the tree. hardly sterile enviroment. still, you can find his pictures in galleries, books, magnum photo website. only amatures cares too much about silly things like dynamic range, resolution, cmos, ccd, pixel count, grain, noise, iso etc...

same with audio...

 

[andyjm]

busb: "As for film, I'm quite happy to see the back of it - the hours spent cleaning other people's mess in various darkrooms "

well.. I recommend you watch Trent Park documentary from his long Australian trip where he developed negatives on back of his car and let it dry hung on the tree. hardly sterile enviroment. still, you can find his pictures in galleries, books, magnum photo website. only amatures cares too much about silly things like dynamic range, resolution, cmos, ccd, pixel count, grain, noise, iso etc...

same with audio...

Yep,

Its only amateurs, and the guys who really understand the stuff and design it who "cares too much about silly things like dynamic range, resolution, cmos, ccd, pixel count, grain, noise, iso etc... "

The armchair experts have no need of such nonsense to have an opinion.

 

[nara]

Not sure about dieing, but I do think they're dying.

 

[relocated]

Not sure about dieing, but I do think they're dying.

Sad to say, you won't make friends on here pointing out that sort of error.

Many on here are not necessarily having English as their first language and thanks to text speak and the hopeless teaching of English in the UK for years, you could spend a day correcting posts here as on other forums.

 

[chebby]

....check out Martin Parr new and old work, see differences? film looks different than digital. that's all.

Indeed. He achieved a unique look ("Last Resort", "Common Sense", "Think of England" etc.)* when using Agfa Ultra 50 roll film in an old Plaubel Makina W67 rangefinder with wide angle 55mm Nikon lens.

(And ordinary Fuji Superia 35mm film with a ring flash for close-ups.)

He deliberately achieved beautifully saturated (even 'lurid') colours with consumer grade film and fill flash. (Agfacolor Ultra 50 had quite mind bending levels of colour saturation for the pre-Photoshop era!)

* I am a bit of a fan of that period of Martin Parr's work.

 

[lpv]

yup... nikon f90 and 60mm macro with ring flash as far as I remember from some of interviews with Parr... amazing images!

 

[MajorFubar]

Martin Parr! Yeah I remember his work being featured in Practical Photographer years ago. Loved some of it, other photos I'd look at and think "what did he see there that made him press the button".

 

[chebby]

yup... nikon f90 and 60mm macro with ring flash...

I liked my old F80 with just one 50mm lens. It went everywhere with me (even to the pub).

Then I got the D70 and finally a D80 before I went all 'compact', got rid of the DSLRs and bought a Canon G9 instead.

Always only used one prime lens on SLRs and DSLRs. (Liked things simple and hated carrying lots of gear.)

Thinking of going back to a DSLR. (No compacts or micro 4/3rds that do quite what I want or feel quite right.)

I am looking at getting the Nikon D5100 with just Nikon's 35mm f/1.8 AF-S DX lens. (Bit of a 'posh point-and-shoot' if you will.)

 

[WX]

Why not use your blurayplayer as a CD player ? If it has a digital output connect a good DAC.

Now thats exactly what I did 2 years ago! The 651BD will play my CD's well enough that way.

(most DVD/BD's docu's & movies are played with the analog output though)

I ripped all of my 'best of... / greatest hits' and compilations CD's and play them with the MacMini.

Also buy some new albums in 16b/44.1khz FLAC's (legally ) on the Boomkat webshop or NinjaTune label.

So yes, no more need for a CD-player for me then. :shhh:

 

[lpv]

yup... nikon f90 and 60mm macro with ring flash...

I liked my old F80 with just one 50mm lens. It went everywhere with me (even to the pub).

Then I got the D70 and finally a D80 before I went all 'compact', got rid of the DSLRs and bought a Canon G9 instead.

Always only used one prime lens on SLRs and DSLRs. (Liked things simple and hated carrying lots of gear.)

Thinking of going back to a DSLR. (No compacts or micro 4/3rds that do quite what I want or feel quite right.)

I am looking at getting the Nikon D5100 with just Nikon's 35mm f/1.8 AF-S DX lens. (Bit of a 'posh point-and-shoot' if you will.)

This is what is all about... less gear gives you better results! I've been reducing my photo gear over the years and now my 'take everywhere' camera is Olympus XA and for other occasions Nikon FM3a with very compact Voigtlander 40/2. Enjoy music! Enjoy photography!

 

[matt49]

This is what is all about... less gear gives you better results! I've been reducing my photo gear over the years and now my 'take everywhere' camera is Olympus XA and for other occasions Nikon FM3a with very compact Voigtlander 40/2. Enjoy music! Enjoy photography!

I sympathize. Having 'upgraded' to a Canon EOS 6D and spent a fortune on fixed-length 'L' series lenses (zoom compromises quality, don'tcha know), I now need a small trolley to move my camera gear around, as well as one of those silly jackets that sports photographers wear. I used to enjoy going on holiday, now I'm a laughing stock.

 

[MajorFubar]

This is what is all about... less gear gives you better results! I've been reducing my photo gear over the years and now my 'take everywhere' camera is Olympus XA and for other occasions Nikon FM3a with very compact Voigtlander 40/2. Enjoy music! Enjoy photography!

Similar story here. On occasions when I don't want the immediacy of digital, I use a Trip 35 with its marvelous 42mm F/2.8 tessar, or an OM-1n with a 50mm F/1.8, and 28mm F/2.8 shoved in my pocket.

Olympus XA and Trip 35 make fantastic street-shooters. You can bag the shot and move on while the digital cameras and phones are still thinking about taking it.