Comments on: CD player would make Dr. Evil proud

Wall-mounted touch screen could be displayed in a museum

[make_or_break]

On pending extinctions (and other tirades)

Can audio CDs be easily (and illegally) swapped, like MP3 files? Are they small enough so that it's simple to tote around your [i]entire[/i] music library on a single, handheld device that easily fits in the palm of your hand as it does on the shelf at home?

As much as I [i]like and prefer[/i] CDs over digital downloads, the advancements in technology that have brought the downfall of compact discs go well beyond a pretty interface. CD media clearly doesn't last forever, despite the early claims by its advocates in the early 1980s; audio files can potentially be stored forever, given a certain level of care and maintaining...the materials that comprise CD media will continue to degrade and the content burned on the usual aluminum core will fade to oblivion given nothing more than the passing of time, let alone subjecting the discs to the typical laser usage and transport wear (not to mention accidental bumps and abuse). CDs and their requisite players, though revolutionary in packaging and size in their time, are now bulky and cumbersome in this day and age of 1" and 1.8" hard drives and gigabites of NAND flash memory. Even in home-only use situations, their usual equipment form-factor is typically bulky and requires a large footprint. There are some [i]truly[/i] great-sounding CD players available, but as a lifestyle force the CD player--even in a pretty form as this one is from Yanko--still has the liability of the size factor of the media itself.

Yanko's own website claims the old Miesian adage of 'form follows function'. Well with CDs, the functional necessities of operating that media type leads to a 'state-of-the art- form that was deeply rooted [i]at least[/i] 10 years ago. Companies like Bang & Olufsen were already producing 'pretty' and 'kewl' CD players back then that were arguably just as cool as this Square CD device (wait...a 'square' player for a circular-shaped medium...yeah...I [i]get[/i] this form-follows-function BS...er, I mean [i]mantra[/i]).

The venerable CD is on life-support and fading fast given how its infrastructure (Tower Records is the poster-child--so far) in collapsing into itself; devices like the Square CD merely attempt to prolong an inevitable demise.

Twenty-five years has been a good, long life. Once the world settles on a singular, universal DRM, CD and their players will go the way of the vinyl LPs phonograph turntable, becoming little more than a niche market. It's time to recognize the inevitability that the world is moving on.

[ddesy]

CDs not dying

CDs really aren't dying, you know. Maybe amongst those who don't care about the fact that the popular compressed audio formats are lossy, but those who actually care about sound quality will not be so fast to switch.

Show me a lossless format with high quality affordable players on par with today's CD and SACD players, and then maybe I'll consider the death of the CD an eventual possibility.

[Kushojin]

Cool design

Looks good and I would buy one, if the price was right but haven't been able to
find a price. How much is it?

[shooshie93]

how much is it and where can i get 1?