Actually, if you look what's happening, the mass market is going to downloads (almost always at even lower quality than CD 16bit /44.1kHz), and at the other extreme, the audiophile market is moving to hi-rez SACD. CD as an audiophile concept is finished. Marantz have basically moved their entire line-up of standalone players to SACD. Pioneer - moved lineup to SACD. Yamaha - almost all SACD. Sony - same: they only sell 1 standalone CD player today - everything else is now SACD. And the real big boys of the audiophile market - Krell and Mark Levinson - don't even sell ANY CD players anymore. Finished. Kaput. They've both moved from CD to hi-rez SACD.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Josh @ May 3rd 2009 12:16PM
Actually, if you look what's happening, the mass market is going to downloads (almost always at even lower quality than CD 16bit /44.1kHz), and at the other extreme, the audiophile market is moving to hi-rez SACD. CD as an audiophile concept is finished. Marantz have basically moved their entire line-up of standalone players to SACD. Pioneer - moved lineup to SACD. Yamaha - almost all SACD. Sony - same: they only sell 1 standalone CD player today - everything else is now SACD. And the real big boys of the audiophile market - Krell and Mark Levinson - don't even sell ANY CD players anymore. Finished. Kaput. They've both moved from CD to hi-rez SACD.