loading
loading
Collapse of mainstream optical drive supply kills high-end CD players — PS Audio and Naim halt production as component costs double What would happen if the optical drive on your Hi-Fi player fails and replacements are no longer available? Many audiophiles still prefer physical media like CDs and vinyl over streaming, especially those who want to own their music, which is why we’re seeing a resurgence in sales for these media. However, one major concern hitting some Hi-Fi brands is the lack of optical drives built for mainstream computers, which has caused the supply chain for key components to dry up. According to Headphonesty, Naim’s Uniti Star and PS Audio’s PMG Super Audio CD Transport have ended production because their suppliers no longer make the optical hardware these units need. Unfortunately, both companies cannot easily find replacements for these out-of-production components. “The drives appropriate for a PMG are no longer available,” PS Audio CEO Paul McGowan said in the company forum. He also added that building its own optical disc reader is beyond PS Audio’s capabilities, saying that its expertise is in electronics and software. It’s also the same problem that Naim is facing, with one commenter in its own forum saying that it assembles components instead of manufacturing them from raw parts and materials. PS Audio’s problems began in June 2024, when D&M Holdings, which owns Denon and Marantz, said that it would stop taking orders for its SACD/CD mechanism by the end of the following month. This meant that the company needed to place its final order before the deadline, with costs doubling as other brands scrambled to build their stockpiles. This was probably because D&M was the only company producing and selling that particular component to third parties. McGowan stated that Marantz has ended production of its SACD/CD drives and that PS Audio has completely bought out the company’s last remaining inventory. While it’s unclear which supplier Naim used for its Uniti Star Streaming Amplifier, it’s been said that the company did consider an alternative supplier for its optical drives. Unfortunately, this is not an easy swap in the production line, as these optical media readers are often built as an assembly, meaning installing a different model requires new control codes and mechanical tweaks inside these units. As Naim was considering how to integrate this substitute drive into its existing Uniti Star product, the alternative ceased production as well. You can still buy Hi-Fi CD players and transports today, but these units from Naim and PS Audio are already out of stock if you want them brand new. Thankfully, the two companies keep some components in their inventory for repairs, so existing owners don’t have to worry about getting their expensive systems bricked just because the optical readers on their devices have failed. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. - bit_user Ironically, I heard that CD audio sales were up last year.Reply I've mostly stopped buying audio CDs, but I long-ago stopped actually listening to them by swapping discs. Pretty much the first thing I do with a new CD is just rip it to FLAC. CDs just happen to be a means of getting lossless audio and having a physical backup. I do still have a car with an in-dash CD player, BTW. These days, I actually buy more UHD blu-rays than audio CDs. - erazog That product was SACD which is an extreme niche, so that's not surprising those are disappearing from the market.Reply The music market has segmented into two categories. 1 - Bulk of customers are digital/streaming. 2 - Collectors favour vinyl over CD, because of physical design, music culture, the experience, the whole vibe for want of a better term that CD never retained. You can see the same thing in gaming. 1 - Bulk of customers are digital. 2 - Premium collectors favour game cartridges over CD/DVD games, at almost every event/store/expo the physical cart is what takes centre stage, similar to vinyl its culture based. - bit_user Reply You forgot about the RIAA EQ curve and its byproducts.erazog said:2 - Collectors favour vinyl over CD, because of physical design, music culture, the experience, the whole vibe for want of a better term that CD never retained. Harmonic Masking and Vinyl "Warmth"The interaction between the RIAA curve and the inherent distortion of vinyl playback changes the tonal perception of music: A fundamental tone at 40 Hz gets boosted significantly by the RIAA playback preamp. Its 2nd harmonic (80 Hz) and 3rd harmonic (120 Hz) are also amplified, though slightly less so because the curve begins to flatten out. This amplification of low-frequency harmonics adds a psychoacoustic sense of fullness, richness, and "warmth" that listeners often associate with analog audio. Source: https://www.whestaudio.co.uk/blogs/news/what-is-riaa-equalization(summary provided by Gemini) - usertests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CDReplySACD has several copy protection features at the physical level, which made the digital content of SACD discs difficult to copy until the jailbreak of the PlayStation 3. The content may be copyable without SACD quality by resorting to the analog hole, or ripping the conventional 700 MB layer on hybrid discs. Copy protection schemes include physical pit modulation and 80-bit encryption of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disc that is only readable by a licensed SACD device. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, and SACDs can only be manufactured at the disc replication facilities in Shizuoka and Salzburg. Unofficial playback of SACD disc images on a PC is possible through freeware audio player foobar2000 for Windows using the open source plug-in extension SACDDecoder. First of all, how many albums have ever been released as SACD? I think the answer is around 14,000. Compare to millions of different standard CDs. It's probable that people have already ripped every single one of the SACDs and made them available for piracy. The SACD is basically a DVD. I'm not clear on if you can trivially bypass the encryption on any computer with a DVD drive, but if that is possible, there's hundreds of millions of devices on the market. Hook it up to the hi-fi player with broken drive if you want. - bit_user Reply Wow! That's about 10x as many as I'd have guessed. I have a few DVD Audio discs, but I think I don't own any SACDs.usertests said:First of all, how many albums have ever been released as SACD? I think the answer is around 14,000. Well, the wikipedia article said people managed to get raw, unprotected DSD streams with flawed or hacked drives, but I still wouldn't assume every disc has been ripped.usertests said:It's probable that people have already ripped every single one of the SACDs and made them available for piracy. As for the DSD streams, the format is pretty weird. You could convert to 24-bit 96 kHz and still maintain good quality, but you'd want a really good converter. The format is designed to be fed directly into a delta-sigma DAC chip. I saw the links you posted, but if the goal is to listen to those bitstreams anywhere but on your PC, then you'll need to convert them. Not from a copy protection standpoint, at least. The wikipedia article you linked talks a little about it.usertests said:The SACD is basically a DVD. I'm not clear on if you can trivially bypass the encryption on any computer with a DVD drive, DVD Audio discs are also more challenging than DVD Video. They use a distinct encryption format, although I'm reading that was still successfully cracked. - thestryker SACD never really caught on to any degree outside of Japan. The Playstation 3 had SACD support, but I think that's the only device with broad adoption to support it. It's a good format, and I wish it had supplanted CD, but it appeared on the market at the worst possible time.Reply - bit_user Reply That's interesting. I mostly don't think of PS3 as an audio disc player. You don't want your CD player to have a fan, unless it's inside a cabinet. But, that just makes it even more inconvenient to swap discs.thestryker said:SACD never really caught on to any degree outside of Japan. The Playstation 3 had SACD support, The thing about CD is that it's good enough and lacks meaningful copy protection. That's enough to cement its legacy.thestryker said:It's a good format, and I wish it had supplanted CD, but it appeared on the market at the worst possible time. BTW, the CDs I do buy are almost always out-of-print recordings of which I want to make sure I have an uncompressed copy.
document fetched 2026-09-21 02:46 · canonical https://tomshardware.com/peripherals/audiophiles-in-trouble-as-manufacturers-cease-optical-drive-production-hi-fi-cd-players-require-extensive-rework-to-use-components-from-other-companies