Some seem to think that the CD is headed down the same road that the 8-track did a number of years ago. My personal belief is that it will take a very long time to kill the CD off. After all it is very rare that people do not have some sort of CD player. I bought my daughter a mini boom box last year and the thing was cheap like $19.95 and it had a CD and Tape Deck in it. She doesn’t even have any tapes all she has is CD’s.
Until some other magical device is introduced that gets us away from CD usage then they are here to stay. But I must admit I have a 60 gig firewire drive that is about as big as a pack of cigarettes that is the absolute bomb. But until they have a device that can hold 60 gigs that I can stick in a standard docking station on a computer CD’s and those little memory sticks are the easiest way to move data around and play music in the car.
But again I am no expert :) The experts seem to think due to music being forced to on-line sales that music on CD is a trend that is outdated and will change just due to the economics and lack of CD Sales. [Tapei Times]
Just the way DVDs are replacing CD-Rs. the SACD and DVD-A format are most likely going to replace CDs. The sound is of much higher quality (24 bit, 5.1 surround sound capable) and may solve the problems of file sharing through, although there will definitely be ripping compression technology. More and more CD players will now support both formats, its just a matter of time to see which one will become more popular.