Portable CD player sales going strong
The Telegraph is reporting that portable CD player sales are on the increase in the UK, in part (they guess) because 8 million people still do not have the internet in the U.K.The music players have proved so popular with shoppers that John Lewis, the department store, has started stocking the gadget again, four years after it originally phased them out. Currys, the country's largest electrical goods chain, says that sales have increased by 50 per cent compared to last year and industry figures from market research firm GfK show that 45,000 portable CD players were sold in October alone.
Portable CD players make a comeback [Telegraph.co.uk]
Image: Tuexperto_com5
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I want that cd player... I wonder if it does mp3... I had a great little cd player that could read mp3 disks, and had about 70 hours play time on a single aaa battery. I refused to buy an mp3 player for years, until I was seduced by the larger storage space. If someone made one that could read mp3 dvds, I'd hop right back.
I was exactly the same Seechao, had an mp3 cd player. I could carry a cd wallet with (which was about the same size as the player) with 10 cds with 10 albums on each = 100 albums. Was very nice when in those days most mp3 players were 128m flash types. A DVD version sounds like a great idea I've never seen one for sale though. 4.5g = 900 albums? :D
Yeah, I had one in my car that would play MP3 Cds, I still do but five years ago that was a cool trick. But, wait, 70 hours of spinning a CD (and decoding, amplifying audio) on a SINGLE AAA BATTERY? I call shenanigans.
As with the first two posters, I had a mp3 cd player. I also had an RCA Lyra mp3 player, and I hardly used it since its capacity was limited to the CF card (16MB I think?), and it was tiresome to change up the songs every other day. I remember being pleased as punch to fit almost all of David Bowie's back catalogue onto two CDs. Now of course, I've traded up to a higher capacity iPod (30GB, then again to 160GB). I don't think I'd go back, but I can imagine that if I didn't have net access, I might never have left.
The 8 million without internet does not explain at all why there has been an increase over last year... unless all those people canceled their internet service last year.
Someone please post up a model number of that old pictured CD player. It is the one and only Sony branded product that I'd actually buy anymore. I passed up on one of these at the mall because I did not have the scratch for it at the time. Kicked myself ever since...
@RoyalTrux (#3): When reading MP3s off of a CD spinning time is a small fraction of playing time, assuming you have a few MB of ram to buffer ahead. 1 AAA for 70 hours still sounds ridiculous though.
#5: The best reason I could come up with is the last round of CD players these people bought are starting to wear out, and they're looking to replace them.
I know I earned 4 years out of all the portable audio devices I've owned.. both tape playing devices, and cd playing ones.
@midknyte (#6) It's a Sony D-88.
Thank you!
When I was a lad I carried a Columbia Model N graphophone strapped to my back, and that's the way I liked it! You soft-bellied small fries with your compact discographs and your EMP players wouldn't last a day with the Model N and twenty-five pounds of wax and acetate!
The reason wy people are listening to CDs again is because MP3 and other formats are crap. It's got nothing or relatively little to do with the Internet or its availability. MP3 is crap for classical and fairly bad for pop and rock. It's one of the biggest cons pulled by the music industry in years. Sell worse quality for the same or more and call it better and new! Thank God people are waking up. Ipods are for the tone deaf. If you see someone with a CD player, you know they've got class.
That Discman is great, CD player and offensive weapon if used properly. Tell that to the youth of today and they wouldn't believe you.
YES! I hate MP3s because they sound like the file has been buzzed in a food processor. Alas, when flying to D.C. last month the TSA folks did not know what my CD player was. *sigh*
Must admit, I still listen to vinyl now and again...
#12
aac? ogg? Something higher than 128k? Or hay, even some non-stock head phones?
Also are implying the music industry invented an easily transmittable file that they themselves have spent the last decade fighting an endless war against?