AudioFred Messages: 377 Registered: May 2009 Location: Houston
Illuminati (1st Degree)
CD players are still very much alive, but nobody knows it because they're sold only by high end audio manufacturers for prices starting at about $300 and running as high as $10K and more. The CD format is far from perfect, but it sounds much better than an MP3 file when played on a high resolution sound system.
Many people still listen to CD's, but mostly in their cars. Almost nobody I know has a good sounding audio system in their home, and the music they listen to on computer speakers, Wal Mart boomboxes and Ipod earbuds sounds so bad that it's easy to understand why nobody actually sits and listens to music anymore.
I recommend an inexpensive DVD player for my friends who want to set up low budget music systems in their home. DVD players will play CD's too. I recently bought a $40 Toshiba (which included a hdmi cable) that sounds better than my first real CD player, a Sony I paid $400 for in the 1980's. http://www.conns.com/tv-and-video/dvd-players/toshiba-sdk1000-dvd-player.html