Why I Bought My First New CD Player in 25 Years

A picture of the Syitren R300 cd player, shown inside of an illustrated frame.

Only a year ago, I would’ve positioned CDs alongside phone books, slide projectors, and wine coolers as items I’d never expected to reenter popular discourse. But as some trust in music-streaming services has waned, the CD format is seeing a revival. I wouldn’t go so far as to declare that CDs are “back,” but they’ve certainly become a bigger part of my life recently.

I started buying CDs again so that the artists I like can make a few bucks off their music. I buy CDs because I’ve found that I prefer discovering new music in a record store rather than trusting a streaming service’s recommendations. And I buy CDs because they take me back to the days when scouring the used section of St. Mark’s Sounds, in Manhattan, was my only affordable means of accessing new music.

After I substantially increased the size of my collection with a recent spending spree at New York’s CD-centric Downtown Music Gallery, I needed an easier way to play my discs at home. I no longer own a dedicated disc player. So I’ve been using a 15-year-old laptop to rip CDs to MP3 files. And then I transfer those files to my Google Drive and download them onto my phone — a process so cumbersome that I’d never even heard the CD version of my own album.

My quest soon caused my Facebook feed to fill with ads for CD players, including the one that would become my all-time favorite: the inexpensive Syitren R300.



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