John Darko’s latest video on why CD’s still matter a lot

Audio Components
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John Darko about CD’s April 2021

I cannot agree more on all 10 reasons.

My sources:

  1. Apple Music:
    perhaps the best lossy sound, I love it for exploring music, like I used to listen to the radio in the past, but I can grind through genres, artists etc like I could do in the big record shops in the past.
  2. Streaming ripped CDs:
    all my CDs are ripped, I love to have the option of making great playlists of my own music collection and selecting music on the fly.
  3. CD:
    it does sound better than streaming, we tried it, even audiophile Ethernet switches cannot make it match the quality of my +30 years old Technics CD player, it has been repaired recently, no question I would buy a new CD player if it went bust beyond repair, in the living room is the second Yamaha BlueRay/CD player, my wife’s preferred music source.
  4. Vinyl:
    for moments of happiness, rest and excitement at the same time. Like listening to CD but in an exponential sense. I don’t mind the little play noises like I don’t mind (prefer) the Whisky straight from the cask.

Turntable as well as CD players will remain as sources in my system for ever. I noticed that my daughter likes joining me to buy music at our local (little but high quality) record shop. I think she becomes infected by this sense for music.

So why, Yamaha took its high end CD/SACD Player out of its collection, Linn completely abandoned CD Players and also other brands try to force us to abandon CDs? It is beyond me and I don’t like it.

PS Audio is not doing that, they recognize that all these sources matter to those who love this hobby. Keep up releasing transports, bridges and phono pre amps, they matter.

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I agree 100%. Especially if you want to support the artist.

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Streaming devastates CDs on the broader market. The non audiophile thinks, correctly for their usage, that for $10 per month they get every cd ever created, so why buy them separately in cd form? Law of the jungle.

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For the non audiophile that is, that Yamaha and Linn certainly is audiophile equipment.

But yes I am afraid in the brought spectrum you are right.

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I agreed with Darko’s points except for sound. I think the transports and DAC combinations I’ve tried over the years have been flawed because, to my ears, all the rips I have sound better (using Audirvana).

I subscribe to Qobuz but absolutely love hunting for CD’s online and in stores.

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We can’t help but love the hunting and gathering. It’s our DNA :joy:

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Bandcamp matters a lot more (to the artists).

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I don’t believe any of them are trying to get you to abandon CD players, etc. All of these companies (PSA included) will build what they can sell. Once a product stops making the company money they have to move on to something else. One can’t fault them for that.

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Before lumping PSA in with the others, do read this about Octave Records: Octave Records – PS Audio

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Not sue what Octave Records have to do with my response. PSA has stop making products that didn’t sell or sold very little. I’m talking about products in general.

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PSA is genuinely interested in its customer base (us) and also its “supply” base—musicians. Profits come second (https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/keeping-score/).

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While a lot of what John Darko say is true, you have to remember he is not a true audiophile and choose not aways to go for the best sound possible. With his turntable review, he choose convenience of operation over sound quality. He says he gets better sound from the USB input of the DS than I2s. I guess he haven’t try the Matrix to I2s or he will sing a different tune. And who wants to listen to CD’s when SACD’s are to way to go for best sound quality.

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Class warfare, eh?

Wonder what a “true audiophile” and “best sound possible” really mean?

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This does not mean PSA (or any company for that matter) will make and sell products that no one buys.

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I am afraid that you are generalizing. Off course there are a lot of trend followers who sell their vinyl library, or CD collections because of new more convenient technology, there are more than enough who didn’t and will not do either.

Who said that nobody buys CD Players, John explained that he does use them, I second that and we seem to be not alone, if they are broke we will replace them. I am even contemplating upgrading mine after I am finished upgrading my amps and speakers.

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Everybody has his own definition of audiophile. I can not see how being interested in useful features would classify you not being an audiophile.

If sound quality is the only goal an audiophile is after, then the audiophile is not somebody who invests 10.000 to 500.000 dollars in energy thirsty, space consuming, featureless, bombastic equipment. Per that definition the true audiophile goes outside to hear the birds sing and visits live music performances. Because that is the real thing. Or a true audiophile buy’s an instrument and uses its talents to make music.

If reproducing other people’s music is what defines an audiophile, anybody enjoying that music is an audiophile through any equipment they may own.

Those who seek the high end, those who are restless because they think they can improve, those who are never happy or grateful of what they have, those who must always own better equipment and listening rooms than somebody else, those who seem not to care how they clutter valuable living space of those living under the same roof, are, I don’t know … . To me it seems that such drive has a lot more to do with psychology than listening capability.

Music is intended to be enjoyed and bring people together. I have been enjoying that ever since Me and my friends got our first audio gear, second hand, or from the cheapest shelf, because there wasn’t much money to spend. We met a lot, spent our money on new records and copied what we could not afford on less audio quality audio tapes, some produce fun music mixes which is an art on its own. We enjoyed listening together, through those stereos that might be classified as non audiophile. Nobody cared about audio sweet spots, we sat down anywhere we could find space or danced and had fun.

To my definition we were true music lovers in those days, we did what music is intended for: having fun and being together. We cared more about the music than the equipment, way more.

Looking at pictures of studio like listening rooms with a single chair or maybe two in the sweet spot of equipment that costs astronomical amount of money these days I am probably happy not to classify as an audiophile.

So back to John Darko, features matter as much as sound quality and, depending on the individual’s interest might even prevail. If that classifies somebody as non audiophile, so be it.

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I have tried a lot of transports in my day and I have yet to find a CD or SACD transport than sounds better than CD and SACD rips played through a network using Roon/HQPlayer. I have yet to hear a valid technical reason as to why a transport would sound better than a rip…

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It’s CDs-----NOT CD’s. And buys not buy’s in one of the last comments.
Just as it’s not source’s nor player’s but rather sources and players.
Plural, not singular with possession.

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There are plenty of things to get excited about here…but minor punctuation errors or even spelling errors ain’t part of that list.

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Finally!

The truth want’s to be free!