High-end audio brands are ditching CD players because nobody makes disc drives anymore

[DragonSlayer101]

Facepalm: The collapse of optical disc drive manufacturing might prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the few remaining players in the hi-fi audio industry. According to reports, premium brands like PS Audio and Naim have either halted the production of new CD players entirely or ditched optical media drives in their streaming amplifiers due to a severe supply crunch.

In January 2026, PS Audio sent an email to customers, informing them that the company was ending production of its PMG Signature Audio CD Transport due to the unavailability of optical disc drives used in these devices. The company did not identify the CD drive mechanism or its supplier.

PMG Signature Audio CD Transport

Replying to a customer on the official PS Audio forums about whether PS Audio plans to introduce new models with CD transports, founder and CEO Paul McGowan stated that building the disc-playing mechanism from scratch is "waaaaaay beyond our skills," and that the company would ideally continue working with "transistors, tubes, capacitors and code."

McGowan, however, offered some hope for the CD faithful, saying the firm could launch a new CD transport device in 2027, but that "it won't be a PMG. It'll likely be a Stellar." While PMG is PS Audio's uncompromising high-end flagship series, Stellar and Stellar Gold are positioned as mid-tier devices with more affordable price tags.

While PS Audio has officially ceased production of the PMG Signature Audio CD Transport, Naim ditched the CD player in the latest version of its Uniti Star streaming amplifier. The company launched the new Uniti Star Lite last month, but unlike the original Uniti Star, it lacks a built-in CD player.

Naim Uniti Star Lite

According to Naim, the CD player was removed because the disc mechanism found in the Uniti Star was no longer manufactured. Naim did not identify the drive mechanism, but a 2023 forum post by company representative Neil S. claimed that the UnitiServe ripper contained a Teac DV516GB DVD-ROM drive typically seen in older desktop computers.

While customers were unhappy about Naim's decision to ditch the optical disc drive, the company claimed that removing it improved the audio quality by reducing internal electrical noise, which created a cleaner signal path and greater audio transparency. Thanks to the absence of the CD drive, the new device is 2.2 pounds lighter and £300 cheaper than the original Uniti Star.

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High-end audio brands are ditching CD players because nobody makes disc drives anymore

 

[opckieran]

Vinyl is one thing, but optical disks are literally just a storage medium for digital binary data, with a shelf-life too. There is no fidelity advantage they could possibly offer compared to data stored in flash memory or data streamed over the internet. It's time to relegate them to the history books.

 

[Megalomaniac]

The only defense I have for CD players is that the music is balanced. Same bitrate, same loudness/volume... When you use digital files on a flash drive, the music is all over the place.

 

[Taroo]

As long as we can purchase CD/DVD drives for PC, and burnable CD in the supermarket, I'm fine.
Like it or not, optical drives are still a solution to consider when you need to store some data in the long term.

Also, some of us still enjoy buying music CDs in stores. There are other manufacturers that sell players supporting music CDs.

 

[NumberNine]

Hifi audio was around long before the concept of a compact disc and will persist long after. It's a component tier, not a technology.

All you need is a high quality source, a high quality DAC if that source is digital, your choice of amp, and hifi speakers or headphones/IEM. That's it.

One company throwing up their hands and terminating their flagship premium tier box because they can't source CD drives does not constitute the end of high fidelity audio. Otherwise, what are they using in studios?

 

[Watzupken]

Vinyl is one thing, but optical disks are literally just a storage medium for digital binary data, with a shelf-life too. There is no fidelity advantage they could possibly offer compared to data stored in flash memory or data streamed over the internet. It's time to relegate them to the history books.

You are not wrong, but the problem is that most digital music out there are based on lossy formats and poor in quality when compared to what you find on audio CDs. And the real advantage is the fact that you actually own the disc, while you are more like renting on a digital store in most cases now.

 

[Watzupken]

As long as we can purchase CD/DVD drives for PC, and burnable CD in the supermarket, I'm fine.
Like it or not, optical drives are still a solution to consider when you need to store some data in the long term.

Also, some of us still enjoy buying music CDs in stores. There are other manufacturers that sell players supporting music CDs.

Apart from photos, I hardly store anything long term. Having said that, you need to remember that if everyone stops producing optical drives, then you won't have anything to read these discs. Current optical drives will eventually kick the bucket.

 

[Axeia]

Like it or not, optical drives are still a solution to consider when you need to store some data in the long term.

Not really due to disc rot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Beter off backing up basically any other form of storage. HDD, SSD, sd-card, usb stick, tape none of them deteriorate as fast as CDs/DVDs do. I've had some that became unreadable after only 4 years.

 

[Tyler Dur Den]

..There is no fidelity advantage they could possibly offer compared to data stored in flash memory or data streamed over the internet..

A CD stores audio uncompressed with no loss of fidelity. Flash memory could do the same thng.

Streaming music is surely compressed before it is transmitted, and it may be stored in a compressed, lossy format too.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Not really due to disc rot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Beter off backing up basically any other form of storage. HDD, SSD, sd-card, usb stick, tape none of them deteriorate as fast as CDs/DVDs do. I've had some that became unreadable after only 4 years.

I've got music CDs, movie DVDs and PC game CDs that are pushing 25+ years in age and they still work without issue. Maybe these discs are close to the end of their life, maybe not. I've got them all digitally backed up and backed up again and again, just to be safe.

Folks try to justify the loss of disc storage by pointing to disc rot, like it's the worst thing out there and you're stupid because you use discs even though people are constantly pointing to disc rot. And that's the main reason these people think that the loss of discs as a storage medium won't be missed.....
I could just as easily point to data corruption/loss on SSDs or HDDs because of a power failure, or dropped drive or a mechanical part in a HDD failed or NAND failure or controller failure and so on. All mainstream methods for storing data have a finite duration before they will fail.

The complete loss of a storage medium reduces ways for us to store, transport and use our data and that in and of itself is shitty. Not only that, but the push from media giants to drop disc as a reliable option for data means they can control who gets to use their media, how it gets used, when it gets used, where it gets used and why it can be used.

 

[RudyBob]

All you need is a high quality source, a high quality DAC

Yep

 

[OortCloud]

Given that vinyl and even tape are making a comeback I'm sure we will be seeing optical drives and CD's for many years to come.

 

[ActualViking]

Two small hifi companies halting their production of CD players and citing its because they can't get drives, that sounds to me like companies not wanting to confess their sales numbers are so small they do not want to adapt the products to using different drives. Not that CD-drives in general are no longer available.

Something like this has always been happening, like fx. Lotus, a English sports car brand ended production of one of their Esprit model because the gear box they used becoming unavailable, it was from a older far more humble French family car that went out of production years before. In reality they stopped making the car, not because gear boxes were no longer being made*, but because adapting their car to a different available gearbox was not financially viable.

*They stopped making the Esprit decades ago, while there is of course still gearboxes being made.

 

[ActualViking]

You are not wrong, but the problem is that most digital music out there are based on lossy formats and poor in quality when compared to what you find on audio CDs. And the real advantage is the fact that you actually own the disc, while you are more like renting on a digital store in most cases now.

I never stopped buying CD's or vinyl for that matter.

When I buy a CD my first move is to copy it onto my music server. Then I listen to the music streaming it from my server, take in the cover, the notes and so on. Some times I scan the cover using my flat bed scanner, other times the CD in its case and including its cover goes directly the pile in my closet.

I of course backup the data on my music server and hopefully I will never need to copy data from the CD's a second time. But I like having the collection in physical form, sometimes to look at while mostly just because if feels good - only exception is when moving to a new home, a CD including case and cover is about 3.5 ounces so 700+ of those is not nothing.

I love vinyl more, but it is a format that has drawbacks. It takes up room and weigh 2-3 times that of CD's.
Playing the records causes wear, it causes wear to the stylus and of course to the turntable it self (although a good one will outlast most things). The plus side is the big cover and somehow strangely the act of playing the record, it holds some strange satisfaction not unlike using a stick shift car in a car.

 

[ActualViking]

Not really due to disc rot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Beter off backing up basically any other form of storage. HDD, SSD, sd-card, usb stick, tape none of them deteriorate as fast as CDs/DVDs do. I've had some that became unreadable after only 4 years.

Tape deteriorate, that can also happen pretty fast and really nothing is safe. Close to safe is having multiple copies on different media and then keep copying the data to new media, making very sure to test the copies in the process to not risk useless copies.

The unreadable CD's you experienced, were they from factory mass production or copies made using office equipment?

 

[Stoly]

As long as we can purchase CD/DVD drives for PC, and burnable CD in the supermarket, I'm fine.
Like it or not, optical drives are still a solution to consider when you need to store some data in the long term.

Also, some of us still enjoy buying music CDs in stores. There are other manufacturers that sell players supporting music CDs.

Define long term. Many of my old CDs are unreadable because of humidity and heat.

 

[captaincranky]

All you need is a high quality source, a high quality DAC if that source is digital, your choice of amp, and hifi speakers or headphones/IEM. That's it.

Yep

It is with a heavy heart, and great regret, that I somewhat reluctantly feel obligated to inform you two that, CD is, "a high quality source".

 

[captaincranky]

I love vinyl more, but it is a format that has drawbacks. It takes up room and weigh 2-3 times that of CD's.
Playing the records causes wear, it causes wear to the stylus and of course to the turntable it self (although a good one will outlast most things). The plus side is the big cover and somehow strangely the act of playing the record, it holds some strange satisfaction not unlike using a stick shift car in a car.

Ah yes, vinyl. Keep in mind this is coming from someone that is very likely older than you. The only thing I miss about the "vinyl only years", is the abundance of sexual partners I managed to collect. It most certainly wasn't the seemingly infinite search for a cassette recorder and particular type of tape required to leave the high end mostly intact after spinning an LP once to set the recording levels, and the 2nd time to copy it onto tape.

Keep in mind, the Shure V15 types III & IV are both discontinued, and regrettably, I was never well heeled enough to become a moving coil snob. I do have an M95 that's been sitting in a drawer for going on 20 years. Do you know the compliance on the stylus arm hardens after a while, throwing the published specs out the window?

As for the 12" LP covers. there is enough AI powered upscaling software available to make the smaller size of the CD cover a non-issue. Keep in mind that whatever the size of the cover art, it's coming off a 4 color CMYK printer, rendering the need for a 9 color Epson photo realistic printer to reproduce it, somewhat irrelevant. Although a large format printer would be required, due to the fact that must home printer only go up to legal size, 8 1/2" to 14'"

I'm completely unaware of what Mp3 is all about. "Gen Z" seems to love it. Oh well, there's no accounting for taste. All my CD rips are "lossless", in WAV format, and printed back to CD blanks. Only "god" knows, how few songs that would allow on an iPod's meager storage.

Confessing to being somewhat of an anachronism, I'm the marginally proud owner of of a 50CD Sony changer, and a hardly, if ever used, 300 CD Pioneer changer. The Sony' seems to be acting up, although it could be the fact that the house is loaded with cat litter dust, and/or the fact that there are all burned copies of CDs in it, and they're starting to have their little dots burned off by the laser. I've never put the Pioneer in service, due to the fact it doesn't accept CD Text. I hope the rubber bands it likely has inside are still holding up. If I ever stop writing these essays and get around to it, I'll give it a go.

For speakers, I'm reduced to using a lowly pair of Best Buy's store brand 2 x8" Klipsch towers. (aluminum instead of copper cones). But at $155.00 a pop at closeout, IMHO, they were the buy of the century. Coming from a pair of JBL D130s & 075 ring radiators, they are sort of a letdown. I'm lusting after a pair of $1,000 speaker cables. I sure they would improve my sound immensely. (NOT).

As it were, the JBLs probably wouldn't make it in today's musical environment. After all, they start rolling off at about 40Hz, far below the the 3 notes in the beat box used to deliver today's profane and lacking any worthwhile content, (supposed), "music".

BTW, I absolutely loathe headphones of any kind, much less stuffing earbuds in places they'll likely cause infections due to my advancing years. My firmly held belief is that music has to travel through air, before it has any realism. Consequently, I had to build sound deadening walls in my row house, to keep peace in the neighborhood. (IMO, between 1:00 and 6:00 AM is the absolute best time to get a bit loaded and listen to anything from Loreena McKennitt to symphonic metal.)

As for Bose, I distinctly remember a meme from back in the day that went, "if you want no highs or lows, go with Bose".

Is this post too long? I've been accused of writing, "novels", or "essays". I would prefer, "treatise", but I don't have enough degrees to support that.

 

[captaincranky]

Given that vinyl and even tape are making a comeback I'm sure we will be seeing optical drives and CD's for many years to come.

The trouble is the current prices of internal CD burners.Once upon a time, internal CD burners were throwaways at $15 to $20.00 dollars a pop.So, you pretty much didn't care, it they lasted a week or 2 years. I used to order them in twos or threes

Now, the same junk is up into the mid 30's or higher, with no guarantee that they;re any better than those in the days of yore.

So, I set about seeking an external enclosure, reasoning that it wasn't any big deal, carting around a single drive from PC to PC.

Then came, to my horrified surprise, that fact that the only external enclosure listed on Amazon, was $59.95. How rude..!

So figure close to $100.00 for the whole rig, a price I paid for a sturdily built portable drive 20 years ago. Which still works perfectly, save for the fact it can't deal with dual layer DVDs.

Not to mention that my most ancient cases, (CM "Storm Scout" & Antec 900), both had multiple CD slots, so that you could copy directly from drive to drive.

 

[RudyBob]

It is with a heavy heart, and great regret, that I somewhat reluctantly feel obligated to inform you two that, CD is, "a high quality source".

Yes BUT it's the DAC inside the player that determines the quality. The rest is merely a supporting player.

 

[captaincranky]

Yes BUT it's the DAC inside the player that determines the quality. The rest is merely a supporting player.

Agreed. But every player I've ever owned has a coaxial digital output anyway. Hence, you can hook it up to whatever DAC you might have.

In other news, the necessity of spending stupid amounts of money for "a good DAC", is rapidly disappearing. If you have the time, read some of the reviews for the SMSL SU-1. It goes for about $80.00.

And just as I'm not likely to be able to tell the difference between $1.000.00 speaker cables and 14 gauge lamp cord. (in normal living length runs**), you may, or may not, be able to tell the difference between the SU-1, and a DAC 10 times the price.

A major part of being an "audiophile", is being able to brag about how much you've spent for your gear, and doesn't rely altogether on someone's superhuman ability to hear its nuances..

** If you're going to run 50', you'd likely have to step up to 10 gauge "lamp cord" anyway.`

In, "other, other news", there are couple of preamps running around in the $170.00 price range. You read the specs, and they're somewhat underwhelming by today's standards. -80Db on line inputs. So, the question becomes, when everything else is in the -100Db range, are they under-specing these, to force/coerce/coax, you to into a big step up sale?

 

[wiyosaya]

I love vinyl more, but it is a format that has drawbacks. It takes up room and weigh 2-3 times that of CD's.
Playing the records causes wear, it causes wear to the stylus and of course to the turntable it self (although a good one will outlast most things). The plus side is the big cover and somehow strangely the act of playing the record, it holds some strange satisfaction not unlike using a stick shift car in a car.

ELP Laser Turntable | No Needle. No Wear.

The world's only turntable that plays vinyl records using laser beams. Zero friction, 100% analog path. Preserving history, one record at a time.

www.elpj.com

 

[captaincranky]

@wiyosaya I followed your link and ran smack into a "request price" hurdle.

I've always adhered to the old adage, "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it". Yes? No? Maybe?

 

[sdms96825]

@wiyosaya I followed your link and ran smack into a "request price" hurdle.

I've always adhered to the old adage, "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it". Yes? No? Maybe?

Flagship Model
ELP LT-Master
Plays 7", 10", 12" Records
33, 45, and 78 RPM Support
Remote Control Operation
High-Density Laser Pickup
Starting at $19,000

 

[TheBigT42]

Not really due to disc rot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Beter off backing up basically any other form of storage. HDD, SSD, sd-card, usb stick, tape none of them deteriorate as fast as CDs/DVDs do. I've had some that became unreadable after only 4 years.

Not if you buy the special discs that are designed for long term archival.