Density destiny
CD-based audio players will take compressed audio beyond early-adopter audiences and into the consumer-electronics mainstream.
Brian Hager, Portable Audio Product Manager, Cirrus Logic -- CommVerge, 11/1/2002
Consumer demand for compressed-audio players has sparked a controversy over which type of portable player will dominate the marketplace. While there is sustainable market demand for a variety of formats, it's clear that the CD will win out over flash memory and hard disk drives (HDDs) as the high-volume storage medium of choice.
The CD is one of the most popular and proven consumer-electronics platforms of all time, thanks to its versatility and ease of use. CD-based compressed-audio devices can play "old" CDs as well as MP3/WMA files. In fact, CD/MP3 players can even play CD-Audio and MP3 files from the same disc.
Complementing this versatility is the CD's ease-of-use. Most music fans don't want to mess around with USB connections--they want to play their music using the same format that has served them well since the mid-1980s. And as CD burners become increasingly popular, the path is further cleared for the mainstream acceptance of CD-based players.
Instead of the one to two hours of music that typical flash-based players hold, CD-based MP3/WMA players can hold up to 22 hours of near-CD-quality music on a single disc. When using a 650-Mbyte CD-R and encoding audio files at 64 kbits/sec in the WMA format, one CD can hold almost an entire day's worth of music. Consumers can keep 20 albums on a single, lightweight CD that can be quickly and easily navigated via easy-to-use displays. In comparison, a flash player with 128 Mbytes of storage provides about five hours of music.
Among the flash, CD, and hard-disk formats, CD is by far the most cost effective, at around 20 cents for a blank, 650-Mbyte CD-R. Flash memory and HDDs cannot offer such high levels of storage capacity at the same low prices, and this translates into higher retail prices for players--as much as $500 in some cases.
In addition to the low cost of CD media, CD hardware is mature and therefore inexpensive. Portable CD players today retail for as little as $20, and the newest CD/MP3 players are as inexpensive as $49 in some cases. Compare this to the cost of flash-based players (typically more than $120) or HDD devices (typically retailing for between $200 and $500).
As costs for digital audio decoders continue to decline, and as the cost delta between portable CD players and CD-based MP3/WMA players shrinks, compressed audio will become just another standard feature of portable CD players, as well as of mainstream CD players.
In the end, consumers will determine the outcome of this controversy. HDD- and flash-based players provide benefits for some people. But the clear, compelling appeal of CD-based players will make the CD the dominant format for portable audio. And in the process, this class of audio player will take compressed audio beyond early-adopter audiences and into the consumer-electronics mainstream.
