Equipment Recommendations - The Home For New System and Upgrade Advice

AnthonyI said:
I reluctantly added a CD/SACD option to my system, but over time I'm really glad I did. I went used with a 2013 multi format player, but as mentioned, CD's do sound better through the right gear and being new to SACD's it was "ear opening".

I think this kind of boils down to where you stand on physical media, I had a long discussion with a friend of a friend who wanted to set up a vinyl system, new to vinyl, just thought it would be fun, etc... After a long drawn out talk she ended up opting for a streaming rig with a CD player. The tipping point, and I'm glad she listened, was that vinyl is a finicky media, I find that to be part of the fun, but once she got her head past the "flavor of the day" notion that is vinyl today, she did realize she wasn't really looking for THAT.

Even though I have a modest streaming set up, I do, and will always, love having a physical copy of my music. :)
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I connected a $99 Schiit Modi 3 DAC to my old Cambridge Azur CD player and was amazed at the difference. When I compared the $99 Schiit to my much more expensive Topping D70s, I can’t swear to any significant difference when playing CDs.
 
HayesWeighsIn said:
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Received this text from a good friend last night. He just bought a CD player, had some good chuckles about buying one in 2022. His son seems to be thoroughly enjoying - I think he made the right call :)
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For the first time in something like a decade, CD sales increased this past year. They're coming back, book it. I'm willing to bet SACDs become a big thing over the next few years as a large swath of listeners bail on vinyl due to cost, maintenance, space, and just general weariness at how much of a gamble and hassle the medium has become with plants as overworked and backed up as they now are.

And with so many streaming services fracturing the viewer and listener base I think a lot of younger people are starting to realize that maybe renting your media from giant corporations isn't the most sound model to rely on when it comes to the art you love. And they're going to start buying physical media again. And for the most part they don't have the space or the money for vinyl, so CDs it is.
 
Mather said:
For the first time in something like a decade, CD sales increased this past year. They're coming back, book it. I'm willing to bet SACDs become a big thing over the next few years as a large swath of listeners bail on vinyl due to cost, maintenance, space, and just general weariness at how much of a gamble and hassle the medium has become with plants as overworked and backed up as they now are.

And with so many streaming services fracturing the viewer and listener base I think a lot of younger people are starting to realize that maybe renting your media from giant corporations isn't the most sound model to rely on when it comes to the art you love. And they're going to start buying physical media again. And for the most part they don't have the space or the money for vinyl, so CDs it is.
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That would be quite the turnaround. SACDs ended up dying a bit a lame duck outside of audiophile reissue labels and Japan. None of the normal labels outside of Sonys stable were willing to push the extra quality due to the extra cost and most manufacturers dropped the format from their players pretty quickly too, it really is the definition of niche and with a much smaller used market than vinyl had during its fallow years to keep it ticking over.
 
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Mather said:
For the first time in something like a decade, CD sales increased this past year. They're coming back, book it. I'm willing to bet SACDs become a big thing over the next few years as a large swath of listeners bail on vinyl due to cost, maintenance, space, and just general weariness at how much of a gamble and hassle the medium has become with plants as overworked and backed up as they now are.

And with so many streaming services fracturing the viewer and listener base I think a lot of younger people are starting to realize that maybe renting your media from giant corporations isn't the most sound model to rely on when it comes to the art you love. And they're going to start buying physical media again. And for the most part they don't have the space or the money for vinyl, so CDs it is.
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..........until CDs become the "flavor of the day" and inevitably jump in price. It's the audiophile circle of life, lol
 
Joe Mac said:
That would be quite the turnaround. SACDs ended up dying a bit a lame duck outside of audiophile reissue labels and Japan. None of normal the labels outside of Sonys stable were willing to push the extra quality due to the extra cost and most manufacturers dropped the format from their players pretty quickly too, it really is the definition of niche and with a much smaller used market than vinyl had during its fallow years to keep it ticking over.
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BOOK.


IT.
 
Mather said:
For the first time in something like a decade, CD sales increased this past year. They're coming back, book it. I'm willing to bet SACDs become a big thing over the next few years as a large swath of listeners bail on vinyl due to cost, maintenance, space, and just general weariness at how much of a gamble and hassle the medium has become with plants as overworked and backed up as they now are.

And with so many streaming services fracturing the viewer and listener base I think a lot of younger people are starting to realize that maybe renting your media from giant corporations isn't the most sound model to rely on when it comes to the art you love. And they're going to start buying physical media again. And for the most part they don't have the space or the money for vinyl, so CDs it is.
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CD 💿 sales went up 1.1%, with 40.59 million CDs sold in 2021. In comparison, 40.16 million CDs were sold in 2020. Even if that seems insignificant, it could be a sign of things to come.
 
I love CDs more than most, and kinda hope they "come back" (though buying used ones for a few dollars each in the last couple years has been amazing, and I don't necessarily want those to go way up in price like used vinyl did!), but I'm not sure one year of a small increase in sales, when both Adele and Taylor Swift put out new albums, is sign of a trend.

More people probably are recognizing that renting their music from tech companies that don't actually care about music is a bad idea, and we've seen the increase in young people discovering the value of physical media, but CDs still don't have the "cool" factor of vinyl and probably never will. They're not as good for displaying. What were the numbers of people who bought vinyl who didn't even listen to it over the last couple years? I remember it being pretty staggering.

This recent Rolling Stone article covers a lot of things I love about them (box sets, especially).

Meanwhile, I'll be working on convincing my partner that buying a CD player in the year of our Lord 2022 is not a waste of money.

(Also one of the biggest pluses of CDs over vinyl is that the margins are way bigger for most artists! But Ryley Walker touting and pushing them isn't really a movement yet apart from a very specific sub-section of Twitter, from what I can tell.)
 
BjorgenFjorgen said:
I love CDs more than most, and kinda hope they "come back" (though buying used ones for a few dollars each in the last couple years has been amazing, and I don't necessarily want those to go way up in price like used vinyl did!), but I'm not sure one year of a small increase in sales, when both Adele and Taylor Swift put out new albums, is sign of a trend.

More people probably are recognizing that renting their music from tech companies that don't actually care about music is a bad idea, and we've seen the increase in young people discovering the value of physical media, but CDs still don't have the "cool" factor of vinyl and probably never will. They're not as good for displaying. What were the numbers of people who bought vinyl who didn't even listen to it over the last couple years? I remember it being pretty staggering.

This recent Rolling Stone article covers a lot of things I love about them (box sets, especially).

Meanwhile, I'll be working on convincing my partner that buying a CD player in the year of our Lord 2022 is not a waste of money.

(Also one of the biggest pluses of CDs over vinyl is that the margins are way bigger for most artists! But Ryley Walker touting and pushing them isn't really a movement yet apart from a very specific sub-section of Twitter, from what I can tell.)
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