I think I have a budget portable CD player for audiophiles in a box in the attic if anyone wants to go e me $319 for it
While I’m a total sucker for audio CDs, portable devices make little sense. They’re always somewhat big due to media size and they’re susceptible to shock, which is very common when carrying something… Though if you just carry it to use somewhere else, it’s probably fine. But what I got from the article is that it’s actually to be used on the go.
Anyhow, I welcome everything that helps CDs coming back into the mainstream…
As a kid who grew up taking a CD player to school before mp3 players got affordable, this is a solved problem. Anti skip where the player has a buffer (mine was 45 seconds) that fills up when it’s stable and plays when it’s shocked.
I don’t know if this has it, but “CDs, portable devices make little sense” is totally wrong, I carried my CD player in my front jeans pocket for over a year and it was my jam.
I didn’t write it’s impossible to make portable CD players, I too owned one with similar buffer size, just that they make little sense nowadays, with the reasons being the following:
- mechanical parts that have to move with high precision
- limited amount of music per medium (typically up to 80 minutes)
- lack of metadata apart from CD-TEXT which isn’t universally supported
- flat structure only (tracks 1-99, not a real problem with the limited amount of space)
- not the greatest battery efficiency
All these limitations lead to portable CD players vanishing from shelves because portable MP3 beat them in all of the above over 20 years ago. Today, you can just use your phone , which most people have with them most of the time, and if you’re using a lossless format, you’re not losing a single feature.
I guess if you don’t own or know how to use a PC, it might make sense.
I’d probably use abcde on a Linux box and a USB CD drive, rip it to higher-density storage.
Its portable so I think that is the point, plus built in DAC
You’re better off with a decent portable media player that can hold thousands of ripped CDs in a lossless format. Portable CD players just end up scratching up your CDs.
They shouldn’t, its a no contact medium. Poot handling though will ruin them.
cd’s are the worst media format. fragile and exposed. imagine if floppy disks didnt have cases and you needed to gingerly hold the disc inside by its edges. that.
the mini-disc was superior but proprietary so it sank.
when ipods and other digital media players were invented I didnt buy a single cd ever again
I get that, Floptical Drives were interestinf, but mp3 players and iPod didn’t have great sound with the lossy format, and digital conversion.
I’m the type that hears the difference between lossy and something like WAV format. Lossy ones always sound muddy to me. So CD and DVD audio appeal to some people. And If I’m going to take a DAC with me, then a CD one is pretty neat.
You can still buy CDs?!
I buy them regulary, trying to support the artists and ripping the tracks as flac for my jellyfin music server.
You can still buy some music on tape.
5x more expensive sony walkman?
