why? 

Redbook CDs have the format they do for 3 reasons: the 1) Nyquist theorem, 2) space, and 3) processing power. 

Clearly, since the early 80's, we have rendered 2 and 3 moot. How many computers in 1983 had 750-850 MB of HDD space? Nowadays, who doesn't have many times more than that? And studios have TONS compared to back in the day, and the processors of today can handle plenty more.

Now the Nyquist theorem is a subject of much debate. Obviously, high-frequency information is severely distorted with a sample rate barely high enough to handle the highest "audible" frequencies (for newborns). But what about the shape of the voltage swings? Transients, waveforms, etc.? Anyway, Tim de Paravicini knows rather better than I do, and he says we can experience information (like timing and location) up to 45kHz. I have heard about people having MRIs listening to various media to measure brain activity, and seeing that vinyl had a lot, cassettes had less, CDs far less, and MP3s had embarassingly less.

At any rate, every analog medium has limitations that can be boiled down to effectice word-sizes-in-bits and sample rates based on feed-rates and molecule sizes, etc. So high enough resolution of digital files can get to the same effective resolution of current analog formats - but without the natural coloration phenomena (tape compression, crossovers in lacquer-cutting lathes, etc.) 

Basically, I expect to not find much more swirly optical media, but if they do, I hope they are backwards compatible to play all my old Redbooks! But seriously, solid state is where everything is going. Streaming, maybe, but it has its limitations, too.

BlueFox wrote:

SAS Audio wrote:

I don't think so for several reasons.

Baby boomers are largely computer illiterate.

 

That is pretty funny.  Who do you think invented and built the Internet?  Who do you think invented the personal computer?  Who do think invented the WWW, and almost all the software used by Mark Zuckerberg?

The inventors are hardly the general public.

Try telling that to the 50+ year old people today.

Cheers.