Cd's to make a come back in the future?

I think Darko's point was that with DAC technology advancing-- that a CD transport and an external DAC-- makes the sound quality, in many cases, sound better than the HiRes download.  So why pony up for a HiRes download of a CD that you already own, when in fact the CD might sound as good as the supposed HiRes download.  And ripping a CD and then using a great DAC can make the sound quality better than the CD.  So again, I think his point is, keep the CD collection.

And not to beat a dead horse but for the frugal audiophile (an oxymoron if there ever was one) if you do the leg work you can get an extremely well engineered CD, e.g. Two Against Nature by Steely Dan (my reference CD) for $5. Hi res files are $15 and up and require a back-up strategy.

I think there is another element here. To the aspiring audiophile DACs, cables, transports, streamers,jitter  etc etc, especially the high dollar stuff, can be off-putting both in their complexity and cost but also in the wide range of opinions in regard to how to go about streaming, server set up and all that.

If I were to advise someone interested in dabbling in high end audio I would recommend starting with a good CD player and CDs. Simple. Relatively cheap. This will allow them to hear high end and get their feer wet and without someone telling them that SQ is awful through anything but a $10,000 DAC with $500 USB cables. From there they can get into servers, streaming, jitter management devices etc. as their interest level and SQ tastes dictate.

In other words, CDs are the cheapest, easiest way to get into hi-fi.

My local cd/vinyl shop sells both new and used Items. Cd's are from $10 up and vinyl probably $25+.

Todays Thrift store visit yielded 19 cd's for $19.
here are a few that are in the 19;
Marianne Faithful- Perfect Stranger-The Anthology 2 discs.Looks new
Diana Krall-Quiet nights
Steely Dan-Two against nature
Stone Temple Pilots-Core
Foo Fighters-The Colour and Shape
System of a Down-Toxicity
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Cleo Laine- The very best of 2 discs.
Incubus- S.c.i.e.n.c.e

The rest are classical
Bargain!

With the advent of the rising popularity of better and better DACS, we are seeing that even the standard Redbook CD has more information than we once thought. I, like everyone else, gave away my records when the CD came out in the early 80s. Now I'm spinning vinyl again but I'm hanging on to my CDs.  We live in a time where convenience rules.  Thus, the CD has a lot of convenience options and hey, DACs are still improving. I won't make the same mistake twice. I'm keeping both formats: CDs and vinyl LPs.