Advance Paris X-CD9

CD PLAYER

- KEN MICALLEF

Like many vinyl obsessives, I've amassed a considerable CD collection—a 10' x 15' wall of them, behind dark blue curtains in my listening room. It is almost as if I was concealing a dirty secret from purist analog snobs, including me.

Between 1990 and 2010, CDs ruled. Some titles released during that era were never released on vinyl. Peek behind those curtains and you'll find a mix of such music—music released only on CD: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke & Hillbilly Music. Country and Western Hit Parade 1959. Paul Motian's six-disc, self-titled ECM epic. Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, a Tom Jobim anthology called Fotografia, and Miles Davis's All Stars from JVC's exceptional XRCD series. I bet your shelves hold digital-only treasures, too.

CD players are still available, with new ones issued often, even if they're not flooding the market like they did in the '90s. Savvy manufacturers still cater to a loyal niche; no “CD resurgence” hype is needed to get them to sell.

The appeal of CDs is undeniable: practically instant playback, no finicky setup, no servers, no buffering or network hassles, no “terms and conditions” to scroll through as your song waits to load. Just drop a disc in the tray, press play, and enjoy reliable sound from a machine that's typically slim and squat. In a world where music is cloud-based for so many, the CD is an enduring, user-friendly physical object, a shiny disc that slides into the machine with the assurance of a library book into its spot on the shelf. The sound may not be “perfect forever”—no sound is—but you know your favorite album will sound exactly as it did the last time you played it, with—usually—no need to update the firmware. Call it old-fashioned, though it’s obviously not as old-fashioned as vinyl, cassette, or reel-to-reel.