I have to say that I don't really miss portable CD players. We've had three in our house and all three bit the dust fairly swiftly for assorted reasons.

But the CD format itself is great. Stick a good CD in a good player, turn on a good amplifier and sit in front of good speakers and you have the recipe for good listening. I suppose if you pay thousands you can get equivalent results from vinyl, but there is always the cat fur/inebriated friend/senior moment which will ruin a vinyl disc. Tape - oh my God. Reel to reel is OK but cassette was always an unreliable joke unless you owned a Nakamichi.

Downloads, what a great trick by Apple etc - they sell you a piece of music compressed to within an inch of its life, with no need to spend their money on sleeeve notes, cases, pictures etc. Then a manufacturer can sell you an iPod dock to make an inadequate product sound spuriously "better".

Yes I know you can buy less compressed tracks but they still aren't of CD quality.

Bah, humbug.