CD is Dead. Again.

I wasn't going to mention this then I thought "why not?" It seems that Linn are going to stop making CD players. The implication being that CD IS DOOMED!!!

Of course what this nugget only kind of touches on is where Linn are coming from. Way back in the mid 80's when every single electronics / Hi-FI brand in the world were falling over themselves to produce a CD player, Linn didn't. They were amongst the few manufacturers who held out, deciding to cater for the dwindling band of enthusiasts who reckoned vinyl sounded better. However, freed from the snap, crackle and pop of vinyl, even a relatively cheap CD player could produce sound quality that made turntables less impressive. And there was Linn's problem. They'd made their reputation selling high end, hyper expensive turntables - the (legendary) LP12 for example. Suddenly there was this upstart format that had, effectively pulled the rug from beneath vinyl's carefully evangelised "superiority". But, so the mantra went, vinyl was still better. And that was it. Unsurprisingly no one listened (Well a few did. Even fewer still do. And yes I am aware of the irony of trying to extol the virtues of one format over another*) Eventually though the few stragglers relented. Later still, out came a Linn CD player. But it was too late. The early adopters, who wanted to spend the kind of money Linn were charging, had already voted with their feet, buying high end players from their many competitors. Linn had to play catch up. And, as far as I can tell, they never really got close.  

And that's how it's been with Linn and the CD format. Their turntables have always been more important. I've long held the view their CD players were something they produced for people who wanted a complete Linn system.  So I was quite shocked when I read Linn won't be making CD players any more. I thought they'd given up years ago. 

The video that accompanies this story is interesting as well. One of the guys from Linn tells the reporter (and I'm paraphrasing here) that CD is fragile, susceptible to noise, external vibrations and that the digital to analogue processing impairs sound quality, and they won't be making players any more as they don't appeal to the high end of the market.  

Right. 

The problem is that these criticisms can be equally (and I'd venture more accurately) applied to turntables and vinyl. I'm sure we've all experienced how robust vinyl is. Even a casual look at a "good" turntable shows just how much engineering has to be deployed to dampen noise, reduce vibrations and the rest of the assorted gubbins required to isolate them from the same things that are supposedly so detrimental to a CD players performance. I'd ask why, given that most new albums are recorded in the digital domain, doesn't vinyl suffer from the same digital to analogue conversion problems? How then does the act of converting a digital file to analogue version for its transfer onto vinyl negate this problem? If it does why don't they use the same D/A conversion technology in CD players? What makes this claim even more puzzling is that the media streaming device they make also has to convert a digital signal into an analogue one, just like a CD player. So how is this device going to do the conversion and,at the same time avoid the problems that a CD player supposedly has? Or do they have a different way to this that gets around the issue? In which case why don't they use this technology on a CD player (again)? There's a further, and more fundamental problem. Where are people going to source the music to play on these media streaming devices? Via the sub 320kps horrors of itunes and the rest?  That doesn't sound viable. People who are prepared to spend this type of money are going to want more than just 320kps. I've had a dig around the Linn site, and there is a music download section of sorts. The suggestion is that Linn will release stuff from their own record label. Now, if you've been to as many Hi-Fi shows as me, you'll know that having The Blue Niles "Hats" is hardly an inducement. So, and as fair as I can tell, the only practical way a user is going to get any benefit from the media streamer is by transferring their existing CDs on to it. Which means, somewhere along the line you'll need a CD player. 

Why does this remind me of "there's a hole in my bucket"?  

What we have here is a small, but successful, niche Hi-Fi company, unknown outside the rarefied air of Hi-FI enthusiasts, who've been historically relatively un-enthused by CD, telling us that they are going to stop producing CD players. That's all. Certainly it's not quite as dramatic as "the death knell of the compact disc player" 

As an aside. In March 2009, What Hi-Fi produced an "Ultimate (sic) Guide to HI-FI". It's an interesting read (well I found it interesting, but I'm a geek). The reviews are prefixed with a little introduction.

"Buying Hi-Fi is all about choice: you'll find hundreds of products to choose from in this magazine alone, and that's only the kit we consider to be the best available - we've omitted the also-rans and the plain awful" 

Of the 38 CD players (produced by a variety of the well known, the not so well known and the downright obscure manufacturers) they deemed worthy of inclusion (bearing in mind these players range in price from £150 to £10,500 so the high end is also covered) there is a notable (in this context) exception. Linn is missing. Of course they (rightly) make an appearance in the turntable section. You get the idea. 

A company is quite entitled to declare CD is dead, and to make a commercial decision based on that view. You have to admire their conviction. But for the BBC to then simply use Linn's decision as "evidence" of CD's death knell stretches the point. If you watch, and then read the article it's hard not to conclude that the BBC have mangled this story to match a predetermined headline. I suppose there must be an element of that. I can't see the BBC publishing a story "Company you've never heard of stops production of a product you weren't aware of". They've spoken to Linn, looked for an angle than made it fit. This time it's the rapid unstoppable decline of CD and it's imminent replacement with downloads. Now what's annoying about this the unchallenged presumption that CD has reached this point. And that it's days are numbered. I'm not sure that it's an assumption that stacks up too well.  

Why? I'm not a betting man, but I'd be prepared to lay long odds against CD not being in production in thirty years time. Why? Well lets take the format so closely associated with failure - Betamax. Anyone want to hazard a guess when this "failure" was finally put out to pasture? 1985? 1990? Believe it or not, it was actually 2002. Think about how many CD users there are. Think about how many CD titles are available. Now compare these to the much smaller number of Betamax movies and players ever made. And yet, despite it's tiny user base it still managed to remain in production for 27 years. It's even more astonishing when you realise that Beta effectively "lost" to VHS way back 1985. Sony made the format for longer after it's "failure" than before it failed. One, can therefore only imagine, given the almost universal acceptance of CD, it's installed user base and the sheer scale of the titles available how long it will be before the last disc and the last player roll off the production line. Factor how long vinyl has lasted since it was replaced by CD and the whole idea of this (CD) format vanishing overnight doesn't seem very plausible.. 

What makes this even more incredible is that BBC are suggesting the end of CD, in a story about a company whose success is largely down to their production of "record players". Is that "irony" I see heaving into view? 

"...the death knell of CD?" Not even close.

*But in this case I'm right.....ahem