I play CDs, believe it or not - I've got 400 of them. I need a replacement CD deck to go with my Creek amplifier and headphones. All I can find are things for DJs, portables and a range of things I don't want or need.
Four answers:
Nightworks
2012-05-22 05:01:31 UTC
"Are separate CD decks for home use obsolete?"
No.
CDs are STILL outselling mp3's, despite what some less informed people will tell you. I've never downloaded an mp3 in my life, but then I have over 1,500 CDs and a Shanling CDT-100 to play them on, so who needs crap like an mp3?
Currently, you can buy CD players from:
Arcam
Audiolab
Audionet
Audio Analogue
Audio Research
Bryston
Cambridge Audio
Cairn
Cayin
Consonance
Classe
Creek
Cyrus
dCS
Denon
Electrocompaniet
Leema
Lyngdorf
Marantz
Mark Levinson
Moon
NAD
Naim
Plinius
Primare
Rega
Roksan
Rotel
Shanling
Stello
Unison Research
Wadia
XTZ
Yamaha
...to name a few.
Prices go from just over £100 to £20,000+
preroll
2012-05-22 11:36:38 UTC
CDs (nevermind the decks) are becoming less popular because of the new types of storage and players.
CDs are still played by the HiFi enthusiasts. There are standalone players but expect to pay a lot.
'Good' players still exists because ironically the original (Philips) CD desgn did not have error correction and so there was a distinction between which transports were 'quality' and which were not.
The other component you have to consider is the DAC (the thing that makes the analog sound wave).
A good combination will cost you an arm and a leg.
I advise you to convert all your CDs to wav files and buy a media player that has a good DAC instead.
2012-05-22 15:36:45 UTC
CDs aren't obsolete by any standard.
But it is becoming less and less likely to find a CD component or stand alone because most people want all of the other features. I bought a CD stereo 15 years ago and the big thing was karaoke so it has all of those dumb features I never used. Still makes good music.