Tablets won

[Istvan diVega]

If that's what was meant, I could have saved myself a lot of writing... I'll readily admit to not knowing anyone who owns a Walkman these days. It's so long since I last saw one that it never even occurred to me.

[WillAdams]

Then one should've said ``Discman''.

Even so, a cursory search would've shown them still being produced / sold:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-DEJ011-Di...2443759&sr=1-8

I still use one occasionally when traveling since the local library puts stickers on its discs which I once caused a disc to get stuck in my truck's previous CD player.

[ProfCrash]

We can insert a CD and have it copied to the cars memory and then play it from there, so we have used the CD player in our brand new car. We also use the iPod connector and the like. The nice thing about having the CD player and its ability to copy the music is that I have stuff for short drives.

Yes, we are old school and do not have smart phones.

[ApK]

I use the (brand new) CD player in my car from time to time and I use the DVD/BD players in my house to play CDs from time to time. It does seem that people tend to still burn mix CDs and loan them to others. I guess CDRs have taken the place of cassettes now. Just this very moment I was ripping a CD my son was given at school containing a class recording of a play they are working on.

Speaking of the Discman, comedian Gary Gulman has a funny bit about them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wZCNlOfieA

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

They certainly do. Not only that, most of them buy lots of CDs and more than a few of them LPs.

To take it even further, over the last few years I have assisted a good number of youngsters (as in anyone below the age of 25 or so) I get to know through work with shopping for turntables and stereo systems.

Lumping in CDs with vinyl is kind of nuts. Vinyl isn't going anywhere because it's a fundamentally different technology with a different sound and specialized applications in a variety of genres and subcultures. An optical disc is just a container for digital files. They're displayable, but don't have the aesthetics to appeal to collectors like vinyl. The discs and their players are still around because bajillions of them were produced during their nearly two decade ascendancy, and they remain accessible to the cash economy and to the computer illiterate.

[spindlegirl]

As much as I love my e-reader, I must admit that my usage has diminished greatly since getting my phone.

Originally Posted by taosaur

Lumping in CDs with vinyl is kind of nuts. Vinyl isn't going anywhere because it's a fundamentally different technology with a different sound and specialized applications in a variety of genres and subcultures. An optical disc is just a container for digital files.

Really? Vinyl pretty much died out and came back to life because people were nostalgic, either for the qualities of the audio (which is typically terrible) or because some music was never made available in more modern formats. Most of all, I suspect that some people started picking up vinyl when prices hit rock bottom, because no one wanted it at one point, which evolved into the fashionable trend that we see today.

I'm pretty sure that you're going to run into the same thing with CD's. You're going to have some people nostalgic about it and others raving about the quality of uncompressed audio (even though few, if any, people can hear the difference). But, most of all, I suspect that some people will start picking up CDs when prices hit rock bottom and then it will evolve into another fashionable trend.

If books are ever killed off by ebooks, which I doubt, we'll see the same thing there.

I'm fairly confident in these predictions too, since we see it happen over and over again. They're called collectables.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I'm pretty sure that you're going to run into the same thing with CD's. You're going to have some people nostalgic about it and others raving about the quality of uncompressed audio (even though few, if any, people can hear the difference). But, most of all, I suspect that some people will start picking up CDs when prices hit rock bottom and then it will evolve into another fashionable trend.

On the Amazon UK marketplace, CD's hit rock bottom ALREADY. I've often picked up CD's for €0.01 and €2.01 shipping to the Netherlands.

Why do I buy CD's? I actually don't care about the CD. I buy CD's because it's MUCH cheaper to rip my own files from them than to buy these files, especially if we're talking about lossless stuf.

And yes, I'm saving/ripping all my music in a lossless format; FLAC in my case. Not because I'm a golden-eared guy that is able to hear a difference between a 320 kbps VBR0 MP3 and a lossless FLAC, but because I want the option to reconvert to another lossless format if I ever have to. I have too much music to rip it all a third time. (Yes, this is the second time. The first time, I was too young and stupid to rip to FLAC, and hard drives were too small.)

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Really? Vinyl pretty much died out and came back to life because people were nostalgic, either for the qualities of the audio (which is typically terrible) or because some music was never made available in more modern formats. Most of all, I suspect that some people started picking up vinyl when prices hit rock bottom, because no one wanted it at one point, which evolved into the fashionable trend that we see today.

The main reason vinyl never went away is hip hop, electronic and other dance club DJs live mixing on multiple turntables. Many live electronic performances still include turntables among all the more modern tech. Analog purist collectors and vintage collectors are a factor, too, but records keep getting pressed because they're part of several still-vital subcultures, not out of "nostalgia."

The same can't be said of CDs, which are mostly lackluster as collectors' items and limited as a means of transporting or accessing a digital music collection. Their one advantage in certain situations is that you can put them in someone's hand, and that person probably has some kind of optical drive that will play them, which is a pro for up-and-coming bands and promoters. Whether that person is more likely to follow through and stick that disc in a slot, or would be more likely to follow through on a download code for a site like bandcamp, will depend on the person.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I have too much music to rip it all a third time. (Yes, this is the second time. The first time, I was too young and stupid to rip to FLAC, and hard drives were too small.)

I hear you. Most of my old CD collection (around 300 discs) was ripped to 128kbps MP3, which sometimes you can hear the loss. However, it has all been uploaded to Google Music, which I believe matches your tracks to songs in their database when possible rather than duplicating content on their servers, so when you stream or redownload, you're getting whatever Google has on their servers, usually 320k MP3. And regardless, I spend very little time listening to my own collection these days, relying instead on internet radio and albums from Google's All Access library.