CDs

CDs

This will be short as it’s Saturday. The Luddite actually likes CDs, although he was very annoyed when they first stormed the market and caught he and Mrs. Luddite with a load of old LPs.

Mrs. Luddite was a member of a music club of some kind at the time and was offered a very good deal on the complete symphonies of Beethoven. It turned out that what they were doing was clearing out as many LPs from their stock as possible, so we bought them; finding something to play them on is becoming an increasing challenge.

At first, The Luddite was stubborn and would not give them up. He even found an electronics store in Fort Collins, CO, that stocked replacement needles for his still-functioning Toshiba turntable and bought several. Now that CDs are not a fad, however, The Luddite has bowed to the inevitable and Mrs. Luddite is now replacing some of the LPs we had.

You can imagine the rage that took over The Luddite when he heard that there was some new kind of CD technology out there that is supposed to supplant the old CDs and make neither playable on the same player. You try and keep up and what happens? Something you haven’t heard of pops it’s head up and threatens to send you right back to the Stone Age again.

The reason that The Luddite likes CDs is because they don’t have to be cleaned all the time and don’t have that annoying rumble and hiss that LPs had. Yes, it was in the background and no, The Luddite is not some kind of audiophile; it’s just that CDs simply sound better without all that background clutter. Plus, The Luddite does not have to scour the countryside looking for a phonograph needle. He may be suspicious of technology but he’s not crazy.

There is supposed to be some other sound advantage to CDs, but The Luddite does not know what it is. There was supposed to be an advantage to Quadraphonic sound when it was being hyped, too, but The Luddite reasoned that since he didn’t have four ears, he didn’t need four speakers, either.