[Closed] Who still regularly uses a CD player?

Only if the one in my car counts...?

I still order CDs, because I like the artwork and I like to have a physical "thing", but I just rip them and put them on my phone, as its most convenient, and I'm not enough of an Audiophile to really appreciate high quality sound reproduction...

In the car only too. My old Onkyo CD player definitely was a better sound than Sonos plus Spotify but more of a faff.

Yep, got two at home.

Marantz something or other, I don't really care about hi-fi.

Yep. One of the first things I did during the first lockdown was to take my Technics player apart to fix it. All my favourite albums I have on cd and it's not that much trouble to put one on. My other half would rather teh CDs were elsewhere.

Yup
Old HiFi system.
Just CD and Amp.
Have to check but might same marantz

Yup. Quad 99 CDP.

Ipod for mobile and in the car.

As above - only in the car and I had even forgotten I had that until recently (I was fed up with the tat on the radio but kept playing it until I remembered about the CD player).

Yep... An old Sony in the house, a pretty decent Pioneer in the car. And whatever cd-rom is in teh PC for ripping, and for making MP3-CDs for the car

Partly it's that I like physical things and ownership, I've never really taken to streaming music. But also, how the **** does it make sense that buying MP3s is so often more expensive than buying cds?

Bought a yamaha network CD player less than two years ago and a lovely CD rack during lockdown, my CDs and vinyl aren't going anywhere.

my CDs and vinyl aren’t going anywhere

My wife asked yesterday if one of our kids could use a load of my CDs to paint up to decorate her room. Errrr. No.

And there would be serious trouble if she went anywhere near the vinyl!

Went to visit my parents in June, first time for a year and a half, and returned with a box of about 400 of them which have been in the loft since I moved out six years ago. Loads of stuff I haven't heard for ages

Nah, never even unpacked my 300 or so CDs when I got back from uni in 2001... just let them fester for a bit before shipping them off to Music Magpie! It was all about WinAmp by that point (and shortly after XBMC). I had a reasonable Rotel separate system, but the convenience won out!

Still use mine, plenty of stuff in there that not east to find online so O like to have a backup.

Got a nice Denon player going into a Naim NAIT XS and then into some Linn Kans, happy days.

Still want a matching Naim CD player... one day, one day.

Still got one in the house, although it's just a personal cd player attached to a pioneer amp. Still use them inside but just rip them onto an mp3 player for the motor (it also has a cd player but don't use it). Same as Northwind in that I like looking at the artwork/lyrics etc

Yes, an album has just finished playing on the basic Cambridge Audio CD player (connected to Marantz amp) in my bedroom/working from home location.

Yep, still tend to buy stuff I really like. Cambridge Audio azur 651c, bought as I had a StreamMagic6 and I wanted something that matched when the old Marantz one died.

I still use my Marantz cd50se from 1991, never misses a beat just can't remember where the remote is
Also have a Sansui sounds like a dodgy Dixon's own brand but we're good back in the day although the door return always tries to catch you out so got to be quick inserting

It’s a Sony, part of my hi-fi. You can tell it’s proper audiophile shit cos you has to put a special weight on the cd to play it. Tis Awesome and has been since I bought it in the..er, 80s, or 90s, can’t remember exactly.

Still use my Arcam Alpha 7SE CD player when I want to properly hear my music but use lossless rips of my CDs via a Sonos box into my Arcam Alpha 8 amp a lot of the time.

Oh yes, not every day, but a couple of times a week. Sit and listen to an album or crank it up a bit while doing housework. Akai XC700CD->Arcam Alpha3 amp ->german floorstanders. Upstairs in the Covid gym it's BluRay player -> Yamaha amp -> Acoustic Energy speakers. Both have aux cables dangling ready for Spotify on a tablet though.

But also, how the **** does it make sense that buying MP3s is so often more expensive than buying cds?

This! I wanted some Madder Rose albums that I used to have BITD on cassette and it was loads cheaper (96p each!) to buy used CDs and rip them than the MP3 instant downloads (£8 each). I get that the artists won't have got any royalties from me buying second hand CDs but I did buy them new BITD on tape so they've already had their cut from me.

We have a decent Denon mini hifi thing that we use for CDs and a nice Sony (I think) effort in the car. MP3s are ace and all but I quite like the faff of digging a CD out and putting it in the player.

Apologies if this is a thread hijack but why are folk who like physical media opting for CD over vinyl?

Not having a go, just curious.

I can't really justify spending £20 on vinyl so only do that for artists I really like. Otherwise I'll buy cd's for about a fiver in Fopp. My son just got the new Santa Dave album on cd because you got a t shirt with it and there wasn't a vinyl option. So I got him a Technics cd separate on eBay for about £20 to go with the Marantz amp ChrisL kindly gave me a few years ago and the speakers we got in Richer Sounds. My Stone Roses and Clash CDs seem to have migrated to his room now.

Yep, use my pm6006 at least every few days.

@stevious - I’m not old enough for a vinyl collection and don’t have the space at the moment for a player or the vinyl. I do very much like the sound of them though. I find my rotel amp can be very abrasive with poor or early cd recordings.

Still listen to CDs fairly regularly with a Marantz cd6007. I tend to stream music most of the time, and buy the CD when I find something I really like, mainly because it sounds better than Spotify and I like to have a physical thing. If I had a turntable I’d probably buy vinyl, but I haven’t, so I don’t. It’s probably a bit sad but I quite like randomly going through my cd collection and just playing whatever jumps out. I don’t really get the same satisfaction going through a list of files on a computer.

Apologies if this is a thread hijack but why are folk ho like physical media opting for CD over vinyl?

CDs sound better! Hey, sue me, but they do! Actually, it’s for all the reasons they almost wiped out vinyl originally!
Depends on the release really, I still buy the occasional vinyl, but Cds are a hell of a lot cheaper. I’ve (almost) got over the vinyl record as just a lovely object.

AVI S2000MC

CDs sound better!

Agreed but of course that is subjective. Many people like the warmth of vinyl. Hell some people even like valves. But, objectively, CD is far more accurate than vinyl ever was, is or forever shall be. Amen.

We have a decent separates system in the dining room which we like to listen to when playing games and stuff, that is a Sony CD player, nice mid range 90’s Technics amp and a Project Debut turntable. It’s small but sounds great.
We have a CD player in a system in my wife’s work room and I’m looking for something to play CDs on for my work room but want something discreet that will fit on the desk and look good

I don’t have any streaming services, every time I try one I’m disappointed with it and cancel it after the free trial. Never have music on I was looking for so a bit pointless for me.

Still have many hundreds of CDs and I still buy them, pity my company car has no CD player as that’s one place I liked to crank the volume!

CDs are super cheap second hand and I can buy a few each month for the price of a steaming service.

Pioneer pd204 into a rotel in the office and a Denon mini doofer in the dining room. Main reason is that I'm old and all that mpdigidownloady gubbins makes my tired old brain hurt.

Yep, my old NAD gets used fairly regularly. The one in the car less so. Still buy CDs, too.

But, objectively, CD is far more accurate than vinyl ever was, is or forever shall be. Amen.

Is that actually the case?

Very hard to tell listening to the same albumn on CD / Vinyl as the CD will have been remixed / procesessed so you're not actually comparing like with like.

I thought the main push to CD was they were cheaper to make etc rather than superior sound quality.

I'm not a hifi buff and don't really care either way, but I'd just be surprised if a decent record player was much worse than a CD.

I do. I have a very late 80's Sony and its brilliant. My local record store flogs secondhand CDs for £1-2 each so its a very cheap way to acquire music.

I also stream via Qobuz and Tidal and own two turntables - one set up for mono recordings and one for stereo.

They all sound fantastic but then I would hope they would given the cost of my setup 😀

Apologies if this is a thread hijack but why are folk who like physical media opting for CD over vinyl?

Some vinyl sounds pretty bad compared to CD. Much of what I bought in the 70s-90s were not high quality pressings. Needs more care, can't bounce around in home gym while record is playing, it'll jump and skip, needs flipping at half-time. I stuck with vinyl until the first time I wanted to buy an album and it wasn't available on vinyl, CD only. After I moved house last time I didn't bother setting out the turntable, and only got it out again so my kids could learn not to scratch their housemates precious vinyl before going off to Uni. It's a curiosity now, like my Atari 400, or a watch with springs and cogs

I’m not a hifi buff and don’t really care either way, but I’d just be surprised if a decent record player was much worse than a CD.

No it isn't much worse, just not quite as good.

Some stuff sounds better on a decent turntable through a valve amp. Old blues stuff, Dr John’s first album (seems to add to the spooky vibe) and albums recorded with vintage equipment like Jimmy Cliff’s Rebirth. All subjective though and vinyl is expensive and you have to clean it properly. Got rid of mine when my first kid arrived. Sold all my CD’s too and now have a pair of AudioPro A26 and a sub.

My entire ‘mancave’ collection of crass, dead Kennedy’s, subhumans, zounds etc are all CD and will be replaced when the skipping gets to annoying, i like the journey that a certain album takes you on.

Punk sessions in the work van, camping etc are all Spotify.

The precious vinyls will remain in the loft for family heirloom reasons.

Very to tell listening to the same albumn on CD / Vinyl as the CD will have been remixed / procesessed so you’re not actually comparing like with like.

I thought the main push to CD was they were cheaper to make etc rather than superior sound quality.

I’m not a hifi buff and don’t really care either way, but I’d just be surprised if a decent record player was much worse than a CD.

It's vinyl that has to be specially mastered to try and reproduce the original mix because of the limitations of the format,groove depth and capacity especially for bass.
I still regularly use my cd players for new to me cds but don't really stream anything but my own stuff. I actually prefer USB sticks via the usb input(currently listening to 32gb of The Man from Del Monte drum and bass mixes-200 of 'em) ,oh and internet radio 🙂

All the time. Have hoovered up hundreds of them in charity shops too.

All the time. Yamaha CD-N301.
I buy lots of CDs, old and new.

Kind of. I've got a high end arcam dvd player plugged into an arcam a85 amp and some mission 753 speakers that I've had for 30 years.

Only in the car.
The one on the hifi I got in my uni days died a while ago but I kept the hifi initially for radio (now I just stream radio online) and cassettes as I still had a few of them around the place, mostly compilation ones from uni days. Quite why I've kept the hifi for this long is a mystery as I can't remember the last time I played a cassette!

Wonder if a 25 yr old hifi unit with a broken CD player is worth anything on ebay...?

If you think cd is out, a house up the street put two huge boxes, must have been over 100, video cassettes out earlier this week. My excitement at the thought of free stuff was short lived.

Yep, recently upgraded to an Arcam CD72, sounds great when I properly want to listen to some music. Still have my marantz CD63 SE in the loft.

I've got a 6 cd multichanger in the car; a properly expensive option, in 2004.

If only I owned 6 cd's.

pity my company car has no CD player as that’s one place I liked to crank the volume!

Have you tried the sat nav cd slot. This is the CD player in Mrs Sims car.

Many people like kid themselves about the warmth of vinyl.

Seriously, with vinyl, it’s all about the object, the history, the perceived collectability, the artwork, the thing. I can see it, I really can. But anything about the sound quality is just people playing mind games with themselves.

Yes. I have a Marantz CD6000 OSE coupled to a Marantz PM6010 OSE set up in the house. Alpine something or other in the car / camper.

I initially bought a similar CD player for my ex wife when they were new to go with her Linn system and it sounded great then and found a bargain on fleebay a few years ago.

It sounds as good as I remembered.

Used to DJ and was a vinyl nut as a result but got cheesed off with the inconvenience as I don't DJ any more and laptop / phone sound awful through big speakers in comparison.

Wonder if a 25 yr old hifi unit with a broken CD player is worth anything on ebay…?

Never be surprised at the prices dreamers ask for [s]knackered shit[/s] retro electronics on ebay 🤣

Yep, for "classical" stuff. The online world is fine for most stuff, but for opera and concerti and the like, they tend to just have "a" recording, it might not be "the" recording I want to listen to, it might be a terrible orchestration or the soloist isn't much good, or they're missing some of the ornamentation because they can't sing/play it, too fast, too slow... whatever...So CD's is still where it's at.

Me...
I love my CD collection,now played on a Quad Elite CDX that I inherited a few years ago.
I also still buy newspapers and books from real shops,and can often be found staring in to space.
As a few others have said,it's the physical/ritual side that does it for me.#lifeintheslowlane 🙂

Just bought one of these for my dad , so he can play his CD's through a car stereo that doesnt have a cd player, but does have bluetooth capability

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oakcastle-compatibility-Anti-Shock-Protection-Headphones/dp/B089654QDH/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=cd+player+with+bluetooth&qid=1629364805&sr=8-3

This thread has got me thinking...

I have a Cambridge Audio amp and speakers (from 2006 ish). I occasionally play CD's through the connected PS4. It's a bit of a pain to use though. Would I get a better sound through a dedicated CD player plugged into the amp?
What should I look for?

I still play CDs in the garage and when driving the van pretty much every day 🙂

I love buying CD's and ripping them to go on a Fiio player. A couple of weeks ago I picked 6 up for £1 at a car boot sale.

In the home office I've got a basic set up of Technics CD player, Sony amp and some Mission bookshelf speakers which must all be about twenty years old. I'm playing (Whats the Story) at the moment. I just keep my favourite CD's out here though.

@stanley

A dedicated CDP will definitely be superior.

This is well thought of for less than £150.

Tibo

Look on FB marketplace for old hifi stuff, I got a mint Cambridge Audio amp for my home arcade project for £15 - the chap selling it had upgraded for whatever reason.

I have a highish end Arcam CD player going though a DAC to a Roksan amp ...
Also have a Technics 1210 - and I have been buying up a little bite on vinyl over the last few years - sort of for posterity reasons.

a) CD sounds better than vinyl
b) The vinyl experience links in to sitting down reading the cover line by line - and then the record pressers codes on the vinyl itself ( porky prime cut anyone?). But it does have more warmth than CD. But getting up to change the record over every five minutes is a pain in the arse.
c) digital , by its very nature is very disposable. In the past, when music was forced on you by Radio 1 and John Peel there was far more peer group involvement. and by and large we were all listen to very similar stuff. We don't now.
d) I occasionally buy CDs - but browse charity shops - unfortunately the taste in music seems to be shocking here on the south coast
e) Stepdaughters girlfriend works for a music distributor - so I get some freebies
f) TBH Spotify / Tidal also work well - but because you can drop in, and dip out I never really get that involved in the music anymore.
g) Vast generalisation - but music lyrics have become blander and are there to paint aural wallpaper. There are very few bands around saying anything - unless you really hunt.
h) Music is now recorded very loud - even what used to be consider quiet passages in tracks are now in yer face because of the demands of the customer and earphone delivery ...

Nice set-up mrmoofo.

I still regularly use a CD player. Have good quality player, amp and speakers and moved them into the garage about twenty years ago along with 100 or so CDs and use it most times I am in the garage doing anything.
The CD player doesn't always work in the cold/wet months though!

me, every day: Audiolab 8300CD & amp

Though I'm not listening to as much music these days I still buy CD's (less so vinyl), but enjoy them through my Audiolab 6000 series amp & cd.

I have a Marantz something that's recently been decomissioned, and I've also just removed my Cambridge Audio C500 pre-amp from my setup. I now have an Echo Link plugged directly into my two P500 power amps, via some signal attenuators because whilst the Echo Link has a volume knob it was still too loud. That, coupled with Amazon Music HD is pretty damn good. It's a lot more crisp and clear than the CD player but a bit less warm.

i like the journey that a certain album takes you on.

Amazon Music will play a whole album, just ask for it.

Amazon Music will play a whole album, just ask for it.

Yeah,but where's the fun in that 😉

stevious
Full Member

Apologies if this is a thread hijack but why are folk who like physical media opting for CD over vinyl?

Same reason I made the same decision in the 80s tbh

Apologies if this is a thread hijack but why are folk who like physical media opting for CD over vinyl?

CDs are approx 60% cheaper than vinyl
Vinyl albums are huge and eat storage space
The noise floor of a CD is amazingly low
Vinyl and styli get fluffed up CDs don't
Dynamic range of a CD is better because they are not physically limited like the grooves of vinyl recordings are

etc.

Well, you say I'm twenty-something
And I should be slacking
But I'm working harder than ever
And you could call it macking
So I'm supposed to sit upon my couch just watching my TV
I'm still listening to wax
I'm not using the CD!

I have to say I often listen to Fleetwood Mac Rumours and I think it sounds way better on vinyl, the CD just sounds too harsh, but most other stuff I’ll go for the CD.

Nice! great track off what could be their best album

Whilst I still use CD's I still prefer vinyl for a proper 'sit down' listen.

Currently sat here with Elder's Gold and Silver Sessions on and its lovely.

Fully appreciate that it takes a lot more to get a good result out of vinyl and it is a massive faff, but with a good set up I still think it's better.

But getting up to change the record over every five minutes is a pain in the arse.

78s?

Yup, use a cd player regularly, enjoy listening to a full recording in the intended order.
Prefer cds to vinyl because you can lend cds to people without incident.
Generally think the format is far less important than the content.

My band's recent record came out on a sheer black cd, which looks cools as. We're pressing vinyls later in the year, bankruptcy shortly after.

Generally think the format is far less important than the content.

Format's irrelevant, content is everything!
All the most meaningful music from my childhood,teenage years and much of my adult life has been experienced/consumed through tinny mono battery radios,TOTP,crackly records played on mono record players or when I was older stereo music centres and eventually my own cd system.If you didn't buy it you couldn't hear it ,mainstream radio only played the charts except Peel. Todays yoof are so lucky and are able to pick and choose any music from any era albeit MP3 and personal in ear headphones. Content is king.

Content is king.

Indeed it is and whilst we argue over the merits of different formats let's not forget that nothing beats live music.

I have a 40 year old Arcam Delta 70.2 cd player I've had from new. Always had a sticky cd tray so had to pull and push it to get the cd out and in. But, when packing it up ready for moving house last week I spotted two transport screws! Works perfectly now despite me.
Its connected to a Delta 90 amp which was faulty but after a recommendation on here I sent it off for full overhaul to an ex bbc engineer in suffolk and a great job he did too! Forgot how well it all sounded.

This thread has cost me money...

The Tibo recommended by @derek_starship isn't available at the moment. Not many others are either.
I looked at loads of used players, but eventually ordered a Cambridge Audio AXC25 (£230). Hopefully it will arrive tomorrow... can't wait.

Also started browsing second hand shops, and even ordered a brand new cd!

Exciting times.

Cheers

I still love playing CDs. I have an old Cambridge Topaz which has served me well.

I think I like the process of choosing the CDs and thinking about my selection if it suits my mood etc.

I still like streaming though as can find some real gems which then I explore further and if I like, buy their CDs.

Yep, I sort of rediscovered CDs recently when I acquired some ‘semi-reasonable’ hi-fi for the first time in my life. I’m so glad I didn’t bin them all years ago. It’s a Cambridge Audio CD5 (not the Topaz 😉), played through a CA A1 amp and B&W speakers. CDs are amazing.
My car has a CD player, but I prefer to just concentrate on driving tbh, so don’t use it or the radio.

@plop_pants Do you have the name & contact details of ex BBC engineer in Suffolk please?

this is me too. I am seriously considering buying a Discman again because I was thinking I can use it with one of these new fangled smart speakers thingies (with a phono in) and move it around the house easily

Dynamic range of a CD is better because they are not physically limited like the grooves of vinyl recordings are

CD Dynamic range is limited to 16 bits as the theoretical upper bound then you have the spurious free dynamic range of the DAC, which will be a fair chunk less than that esp once you start doing two and three tone tests on it and all the little spurii show up all over the place.

I had a half decent linear tracking record player and CD player and never thought there was that much in it between the two. However, I only listen to Spotify now, so its all a bit academic.