I did something tonight I haven't done in years....

[Fran]

I burnt a CD for playback!

Testing out a NAD CDP here, and luckily enough, its working perfectly.

How many of you still play a CD?

[Diapason]

I fired up the beast for the first time in a long time a few weeks back myself. To be honest, I should do it more often because i have a lot of CDs that I haven't ripped and that aren't on any of the streaming platforms. It still sounds great. I mean, it should, it was stupidly expensive back in the day, but it certainly still delivers. What seemed archaic, though, was the whole spin-up, read TOC behaviour. Did it always take that long??

[Ciaran]

I do it quite often. Two years ago I would have played CDs almost every evening. Last year I was without my big system for a long time and I was using a personal digital player. I ripped lots of CDs to put on it, but it introduced me to streaming, and I was using Tidal, Qobuz and Idagio. The convenience of being able to listen instantly to something I've just heard about on the radio is amazing, not to mention not having even more CDs to store! I barely listened to any of the ripped CDs.
Now for streaming I have my old Logitech Squeezebox Touch feeding the big DAC and the sound is very good and the convenience is the same! But still, I have tons of CDs and I like to play them. It's nice to have the booklets to get more information than I see when I'm streaming.
The discs do take a long time to load, especially SACDs. But the posher transports and players always seemed to take their time compared with mid-market players.

[Ivor]

I recently had to move some storage boxes of CDs around and saw many old favourites that I really didn't appreciate fully "back in the day" or had simply forgotten about. Shortly after that my everyday cartridge got damaged (yes it was my own clumsy fault!) and so I took the opportunity to listen to a few CDs. Now the CD player hadn't been used very much past few years but the acquisition of a new pre-amp brought more dynamics to the system over all - regardless of source. It also made CDs and computer audio a lot more enjoyable. My CD player had been ignored for so long it did sulk for a while and throw tantrums.. it would take a few attempts to read a disc, it would lie to me about the number of tracks, or it would sometimes even refuse to skip tracks. I could almost hear it say..." if you like vinyl so much you can listen to every track! EVERY TRACK!" I've noticed the more I use Hannibal (that's what I call my CD player) the more it obeys my wishes.

Now I'll be blunt here, while very enjoyable CD or DAC doesn't come anywhere near vinyl playback... [caveat: in my system!]
You could start ticking boxes on your Audiophile Checklist regarding detail/soundstage/imagery/transients/bass/treble and CD or Computer might come close but they nearly always fail to fully engage me.

I know it's a glib soundbite but somebody recently said....

Listening to CD or audio file is like reading a txt message
Listening to vinyl is like reading hand written letter.

I would have many more CDs than LPs and many do hold memories of a time and place and more importantly people so I'm holding onto them and I enjoy listening to them again...

[Diapason]

You know, I was wondering if I should start a thread about that very thing, Ivor, because it's the kind of topic that brings out the pitchforks on other forums. Can we cope? Is it too dangerous?

My experience doesn't mirror yours, you see, and while I'd quite like to write about it, here there be dragons!!

[Ivor]

My experience doesn't mirror yours, you see, and while I'd quite like to write about it, here there be dragons!!

I can only say that's been my experience and as always that's "in my system".

From my radio days and reviewing albums CDs were a an absolute boon, I did very little reviewing and cuing with vinyl but it wasn't fun. But for serious listening at home it has to be vinyl. I use downloads to check out albums I might like to buy. Without fail the vinyl Certainly over the years I often heard from unnamed sources "if your CD player sounds better than your turntable then something is wrong with your system". I didn't take it too seriously at the time but my vinyl system has improved since - essentially a better cartridge - and I see that now. I'm not ever going to get into a debate on which is better because it would be pointless. The money I could spend on a better DAC, dedicated PC etc I will spend on improving my analogue source.

I'm interested to hear others opinions of course but far too often one side gets defensive and divisive. We are, on the surface, a civilised bunch! If we are going to comment be respectful to others and remember there are no absolutes. The idea that "X will be always be better than Y!" is as untrue in HiFi as it is in a coffee shop.

[Diapason]

Ah sure, I'll start the other thread tomorrow and we'll see.