CD players versus MP3 players
The CD Disc was introduced with enormous fanfare in 1982 and soon supplanted the
audio cassette tape because of its high quality digital sound. You could bring
your portable cd player anywhere to listen to high quality audio music. The next
revolution started with the recognition of mp3s. MP3 stands for Moving Pictures
Expert Group 1 Audio Layer 3. The mp3 technology allows for the compression of
normal CD audio files in WAV format and reduces the size of the file by a aspect
ration of 10 to 1. That means you can store thousands of songs on a small
portable audio player while previous CD players could only hold a one disc at a
time.
Having an audio file compressed allows music to be easily distributed and
streamed. Instead of having to go to the CD shop to buy your CD, you can now
download songs from the internet. An MP3 player also offers skip free music
while a CD player does not always play seamlessly because disc can become
scratched. Also, flash based memory mp3 players have no moving parts which
enable longer lasting battery life, not to mention less occurrence of break down
or failure due to moving parts. Mp3 players also allow the ability to create
large play lists of songs while cd players generally have limited capability.
Finally, there is no need to buy an entire music album. You can buy just one
song instead of the whole album. It makes more sense since you may only like one
particular song.
Does it mean that CD technology is Dead? Not necessarily, although mp3s allow
for a larger number of songs to be stored on a portable flash card or hard disk
player the sound quality is compromised. Of course we can not tell the
difference because mp3 audio. The compression technology removes information
pertaining to frequencies which we are unable to hear. Remember the audio
cassette technology which preceded the cd technology? Well, it is still around.
It still has uses and purposes.
CD players have advantages in that CD players are cheaper than mp3 players.
There is no need to buy storage media which is expensive. Songs in mp3 format
have different sound volume levels while a CD you get consistent sound volume.
Why bother with the hassle of encoding, transferring and managing files which is
troublesome, time consuming and more demanding when you can just simply pop in a
new CD and get instant gratification. Also, if you travel to a less developed
country, a CD player proves to be more useful as access to broadband is hard to
find for downloading of your internet music. In addition, CDs can last a life
time and are virtually indestructible compared to mp3 hard drives or flash
memory players which have a limited life span and could spoil.
Lastly, you don not have to face headaches of incompatibility issues as some
players can play only specific file formats. |
