Originally Posted by
Dalek Supreme D L
I think the answer is incresingly audio companies are finding it harder to find quality drive mechanisms. Esoteric/Teac no longer supply their drives to second party companies (so I have read) so it may be the case that the stocks of other drives are increasingly not available and smaller companies lack the resources to develop their own or modify other drives, DVD/Blu Ray.
For a long while now computers, laptops etc are not coming with drives, with many more switching to streaming movies the supply of DVD/Blu Ray drives are drying up, at a guess, so less options to use to play back physical optical discs. This I think has led to some companies, the smaller ones stopping making CD players. In away we are back to the early days of CD, where it was easier to make a DAC, these days its a DAC, streamer, or file player, not a physical disc player. Of course sales of CDs are down and maybe that is a factor as well, or both, a perfect storm.
The thing I find most disconcerting is the abandoning of wanting to own physical items, to have control over those, be able to collect, pass on etc (same to a degree with books) so increasingly people are paying money for nothing, nothing to show, no collection, nothing. To my mind this is the emperors new clothes.
Re the sound quality, I am still a CD, SACD enthusiast, in my set up, files don't sound as good and I don't stream except the likes of You Tube.