HasCD sound exceeded expectations since 1983?

My digital listening experience has much improved since my first CD player in 1985. While I still prefer analog the gap has closed. I'd say that my digital rig sounds 90% as good as my analog rig sound at 10% the cost.

I think CD proven to be a big disappointment, at least amongst audiophiles. It promised perfect sound forever and ultimately delivered anything but. With it arrived death calls for vinyl but that archaic medium survived and underwent a bit of a revival due mostly to CD's shortcomings. And once higher res digital became available - first SACD/DVDa and now downloads - we realized just how compromised the format was.

The red book CD format appears to be dying and had a very short shelf life. It now appears that it may be outlived by vinyl - something absolutely unthinkable just 10 short years ago.

It's all relative...for those accustomed to mp3s cd is an upgrade...to those into vinyl...cd is a letdown...all things being equal...cd is capable of quality Sonics...there are those that get hung up on the format...when the actual master recording be it tape or digital is probably the most important part of the chain....as far as where digital is headed...its pretty apparent its going to be hi rez downloads...I'm kind of surprised its taken this long...but itunes seems to be dictating the market

i own cds which i believe on my digital front, end will rival many turn table, arm and cartridge setups.

one in particular, is "chromatic fantasy and fugue", trevor pinnock playing bach harpsichord selections.

Well, if the future will be high resolution downloads, that means that they will all be digital. Which means that all original analog recordings will have to be re-mastered into digital. Wow! I hope they re-master them correctly. What bugs me is when I get listening fatigue without knowing why and it is because the recording is faulty is some way. I did an experiment a while ago on this and found out that when I was listening to recordings, especially some (not all) digital recordings and liking the music, but couldn't sit still, I would play the analog recording and absolutely didn't want to move. much more information there. Again, it depends on how the original recording was recorded. Analog-digital or digital in the first place. Just me, I guess. Depending on what I want to listen to and the mood I'm in, I'm perfectly fine with my analog equipment and I'm fine with my digital cd, external DAC equipment. But, CD sound is much better than 1983. But, you have to remember that the first generation and maybe second generation digital recording equipment was really bad. The early CD recordings drove a person out of the room. The music was great, the recording and hence playback was terrible. Now it is much better. But the downside now is mp3 recordings are highly compressed and missing a lot of musical information. And worse, the younger generation is brought up on mp3 sound and actually think that this is normal and correct. They have never heard a really good recording and system.

enjoy