I usually resent these old threads having the cobwebs brushed off and pulled out from the archives, but on this occasion...I'm on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

I think it's interesting that even since these last few comments were made, dedicated MP3/4 players are already going out of fashion in favour of simply using phones for the same purpose. With their ever increasing memory, it's hardly surprising, but still! That's convergence for you!

Why do you resent old threads being resurrected?:confused:

Ditto-not all of us were around at the time of these threads to have our say.What's wrong with new members having their 2cents?

LOL :D

Nah man I've gone back to buying vinyl in a big way. Guess I've regressed!

Good for you, old man. Good for you... FIGHT SCIENCE!!!

It is interesting how music recording/playback has shifted over the years.

Vinyl was good quality, but not very convenient or portable (albums were large, weren't very resilient to the elements, and deteriorated by just being played).

Cassettes swapped portability (convenience) for some quality. Although they lost out in convenience by being sequential access (having to fast forward/rewind between tracks).

Then CD's came out and they were hailed as being great for their improved sound quality (although many prefer the warmer and more "analogue" sounds of vinyl), improved durability, they didn't deteriorate no matter how often you played them, and were more portable than vinyl.

So there was a to-and-fro battle with tradeoffs between portability/durability/quality, without any subsequent format wanting to forgo too much of one for any other.

But mp3 has almost completely touted convenience above quality. The first wave of mp3 players used flash for very small capacity players and hard drives for larger capacity, but hard drive players have diminished in importance and again there has been a push for the convenience of flash-based players over larger capacity hard drive players.

Of course, eventually flash memory will be cheap enough to make it viable to use lossless compression for large media libraries, but that is not yet the case. And when this happens, quality will still be an afterthought, as improvement in quality is a byproduct of the technology and not its inherent thrust.

I find these changing priorities interesting.

I don't get the vinyl vs. CD argument. Vinyl was such a pain! You had to keep the records and the stylus in mint condition or else you would get static and skips. You really have to work hard to damage CDs to the point that they don't play correctly.

As for the iPod, I don't normally take it anywhere. I hook it up to the home theater with the Polk Audio speakers and the Tekkeon to display what it's playing on the TV including the album artwork, and I'm set for the day.:D

I think what people like about vinyl is the analogue sound. Sort of like comparing a valve amplifier with a solid state amp. It somehow sounds warmer and less clinical.

But the inconveniences that you mentioned are very real. A vinyl album deteriorates every time you play it.

Digital media lays down information by, in effect, taking cross-sectional samples. Many thousands of these occur per second for a CD, but you could argue that there is no such thing as a "lossless" digital recording. What is lost between these samples, however miniscule they are?

I like digital audio in its various forms. No, I love it! And I also love vinyl, I love an old record, and I like the idea that the sound is visibly written into the grooves on the surface. I love spinning those old vinyl discs! It is a blast. I grew up with that and I always feel a connection with it.

plus a lot of the album covers we're a work of art. Sometimes the albums themselves.....Grand Funks "We're an American Band" album was yellow..J Geils Band's "Bloodshot" was red. And who could forget the zipper on The Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" album cover...or the giant rolling paper in Cheech & Chongs "Big Bambu" album.

Not to mention gatefold albums that would open up to reveal a wealth of information, lyrics and artwork. They really were beautiful. I need a magnifying glass to read the lyrics booklets that come with CDs.

True... one of the reasons (besides the sound quality) that I preferred vinyl over cassettes was the album artwork.

Cassettes were awful in every respect. Sound quality, rate of deterioration, and ease of use.

Digital Format comes in so many flavors and qualities that it's nearly impossible not find something to make even the biggest audiophile happy. I sadly have never experienced a Vinyl. Yet I have listened to a few 8 Tracks.