Do Audiophiles Dream of Library CD Collections?

I'd say no -- and that library music CDs, unlike the illustration above, still have a fair amount of shelf life left. At Middleton, after a drop in circulation last year, our music CD use has plateaued so far in 2008.

Link to July 17 Audiophiliac post, "It's official: Audiophiles are over CD".

Excerpt:

The end is near, another war seems imminent, oil prices continue to rise, the dollar is in free fall, and now audiophiles have abandoned the CD. Don't get the wrong idea, they haven't all dumped their CD players for turntables (I wish), no, they've bought music servers of some kind or another. How can this be happening?

I read the sad news on the Stereophile web page, or more specifically the online magazine's July 6, Vote! feature. That week's question was, how do you listen to digital music, and the poll says 34 percent still use CD players as their primary digital source. Yikes, I would have guessed much higher, more like 70 percent. Thirty six percent use a computer-based server, and 10 percent more use dedicated servers such as Sonos or Squeezebox. Another 4 percent use iPods! I felt a little better that 11 percent use a SACD or DVD-Audio player.

I wouldn't bet my retirement fund on an online poll, however.