Linn begins end of CD reign

Linn, which has been a forerunner in making hi-fi audio systems for the last 20 years, said it was forced to take the extreme decision after it noticed a steady fall in CD sales after the emergence of digital streaming music.

According to Gilad Tiefenbrun, managing director, Linn, sale of digital products swept past sale of CD players in 2009. "Our customers have fast recognised the limitations of CD players and in the age of home networking, people now want better control of their music and the ability to enjoy it in any room of their home," Tiefenbrun, whose company makes and sells hard-disc-based music players that can wirelessly connect to your home computer and hi-fi system and download and play music tracks stored in them, said.

The British Phonographic Industry trade body also claims that 2009 is set to be a record year for single sales.

Of the more than 117 million tracks had been bought by the end of October, before the holiday season has even begun, 99 percent were legal digital downloads.

And, though for albums, CD sales are still the preferred option, yet, their market share is slumping.

In 2008, there were 137 million album sales, comprising of 123 million CDs, 10.3 million digital downloads, while vinyl records, cassettes and other formats accounted for around 300,000.

However, just two years ago, CDs held sway, accounting for 151 million sales out of 154 million album sales. Digital downloads accounted for for 2.7 million sales.

Is this the death knell of CD players, which itself sounded the death knell of vinyl record players and cassette tape players in the mid-90s? What do you think? Leave your comments below.