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Portable CD players are back and now work with wireless headphones (www.theverge.com)
submitted 5 months ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.zip
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It’s time to dust off those old CD binders.

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[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 64 points 5 months ago

Nah man. If you care about your CDs you should already have them ripped to flac format, so the disc rot can't kill them. Convert to mp3 vbr0 for tossing them on a player or your phone. Listen with whatever ear buds you like.

It's not like vinyl or casette tape, where the analog nature of the storage medium is going to effect the sound. CDs are pure digital, just a carrying case for the files on them.

[-] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 10 points 5 months ago

Why mp3 vbr0 and not opus?

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 5 months ago

The only reason to use mp3 is if you want to play it on old devices. It's much better to use opus on anything that supports it.

[-] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, that makes sense.

Thankfully, most things I have support opus, even a very old iPod, thanks to Rockbox.

[-] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 3 points 5 months ago

Yeah, i like them converted to opus better. Guess the psychoacoustic compression does something.

[-] KaRunChiy@kbin.run 7 points 5 months ago

Or buy your music from a source that offers both. I have flacs from bandcamp, but also CDs from those same albums

[-] jenny_ball@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

kobuz baby

[-] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 months ago

That's the first thing I did with all my Frank Zappa cds... converted them to digital and put the cds away so they wouldn't end up scratched.

[-] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

I agree about ripping the CDs to files, but disc rot is not a big deal to worry about if you're storing the CDs properly away from sunlight and heat. Recently I've been going through my collection and ripping old CDs of stuff I didn't have in the digital library... and all my CDs from the 90s that I've tried are still good. Many of these are 30+ years old and still sound perfect

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Flac or wav, right? Is flac smaller?

Or go 320kbps mp3...

[-] Laser@feddit.org 3 points 5 months ago

wav is uncompressed PCM usually, flac is compressed and as such smaller (difference in size depending on the kind of music), but they're both lossless with the resulting signal being bit for bit identical to the data on the CD.

320 kbps MP3 makes little sense nowadays except for when you need maximum quality for a device supporting nothing else. For long term storage, use flac.

[-] Juvyn00b@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

There's still some use cases for sure. My 4 gig Garmin running watch (2.5 usable) might play flac but I want more than a few albums on it.

[-] Laser@feddit.org 1 points 5 months ago

Then again why would it need to be at 320 kbit for this kind of use case

[-] Juvyn00b@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

There's no technical reason for 320 CBR but the space loss from a VBR ~224 encode to the CBR 320 is minimal compared to 320 vs flac around 1000. I do keep two copies of my collection for space reasons though - one in flac and one at 320. My phone is still a limiting factor to from a space perspective, I can't store my entire collection on it in flac but I do choose to use it where I'm actively listening to an album through the weeks. The rest can be mp3 because it's usually a single song that gets in my head.

[-] Laser@feddit.org 2 points 5 months ago

I don't really have MP3-only use cases anymore, but back when I did, it was mostly where transparency was achieved rather easily, like listening to music on the go with... non-perfect headphones, and on those cases, I went with lame's -V5 IIRC which is closer to 130 kbit/s or so. For higher quality, but not lossless (storage was still expensive back then) I used Musepack. But high bitrate MP3 was almost never needed.

[-] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Is flac even necessary if they are coming off CDs? A CD is most often 192kbps mp3 format.

Ripping to flac is like ripping a 720p video to 4k and just filling in the extra resolution with black bars.

Edit: this is incorrect. See Captain Aggravated's comment below.

[-] BubbleMonkey@slrpnk.net 44 points 5 months ago

This is one of those “they were so concerned with if they could do it, they didn’t stop to think if they should” sort of things.

Portable cd players were never actually that portable, because cds are just big. Minidisc players sure, but those never really caught on. MP3 players, however, caught on because they are small and easily portable, and the library doesn’t take up a binder.

[-] AlbertSpangler 28 points 5 months ago

Also portable CD players skipped constantly. Minidisc was way better for that, but then MP3 (and Limewire) hit...

[-] jonne@infosec.pub 13 points 5 months ago

With current technology you could make them a lot better. Basically put 700mb of flash memory on the player and rip the whole thing as soon as you put the CD in, then play from flash. But then you get back to why you would want to do something like that again.

[-] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

That was basically how anti-skip worked, albeit with much less memory.

They would buffer the audio for like 10 seconds that way.

[-] BubbleMonkey@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Heck yeah!

I had a Sony atrak 3+ player back in the day (around 2003-4, probably, because I used it at work) which was just an mp3 file compression alternative served up on a special cd player instead of an mp3 player… they tried.. anyway I had a re-writable disc that I’d add stuff to whenever I downloaded it, and I think the one cd had like 1800 songs on it or so (and lots of space left)

That didn’t skip, even working a physical job, unless I banged it against something. Part of why I got it. But when I put regular discs in, they would skip a lot if I didn’t have it laying flat.

[-] alansuspect@aussie.zone 2 points 5 months ago

I loved my MiniDisc player, I wish Sony had opened up the tech.

[-] teft@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

.

[-] Coreidan@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

No they aren’t

[-] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 6 points 5 months ago

They are.

Now we just need to wait for the CD to come back.

[-] CouncilOfFriends@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

This may sound crazy, but hear me out. What if instead of a spinning plastic disc we use a spinning metal one, for durability and to reduce movement of the medium while accessing data. It would also allow for much greater storage density if we stack a bunch of them.

[-] quicksand@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

But fuck the laser, we're gonna go back to the record-style reader head

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 months ago

why

[-] Llamajockey@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

It's not a bad idea if you have a good library, but $180 is crazy

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 5 months ago

It's got a balanced headphone output, so they are obviously targeting the audiophile market.

I don't know why anyone would want to use a portable CD player though. They scratch up your discs and skip if you move around too much.

[-] scrion@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What would a balanced output do for the 3 feet of cable that will most likely be connected to it? I mean sure, put it in if you can't help it, but even though it's a portable player, no one is gonna take that to the next motor fab where it would benefit from a balanced output, and at home an audiophile most likely already has a better player around.

And yes you're right - the whole idea is nonsense to begin with. CDs have always been fully digital, so better listening options exist.

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 5 months ago

A balanced output will have less crosstalk between the channels. I've never used balanced headphones, so I don't know if it's noticeable. My guess is the only really noticeable thing is that the higher output voltage swing from the differential amplifiers will make high impedance headphones louder.

[-] scrion@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I have a bunch of audio equipment in a studio and do run some balanced lines to stuff that requires longer cable lengths that are in proximity of unrelated, noisy devices (e. g. digital stuff).

Can't say I can tell any difference for headphones.

[-] Schmeckinger@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Why not just rip your CDs and play them on a DAP?

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Why would anyone want this

[-] sexy_peach@beehaw.org 5 points 5 months ago

That's stupid

[-] vodkasolution@feddit.it 4 points 5 months ago

Yeah sure. Also, Milli Vanilli are back...

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Pulled from the grave, just like portable CD players?

(Boo! OK, I'll see myself out. MV is a tragic story)

[-] metaStatic@kbin.earth 3 points 5 months ago

portable players where always trash, this looks like some audiophile wankery that is only ever used stationary ... and I still have a real cd player for that.

[-] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Cool, can’t wait to go running with one.

[-] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I suspect it’ll be quite popular in Japan. There is still a huge CD scene there.

[-] Dorkyd68@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I still have my binder, however I'm a much different person now and don't listen to same music as I did when I was younger. I'm ashamed to admit it's half full of red dirt country. Luckily the other half is 90s metal and rock

[-] JiveTurkey@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Who asked for this?

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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