How can we settle for digital?

Before I had a vinyl set-up I had the EMM Labs DCC2se and CDSDse. It sounded quite good, but when I decided to sell it and go with vinyl I used the money to buy both vinyl playback and CD. I gave up on SACD because the titles were so limited and every time I heard vinyl somewhere, the differences, particularly in timbre, were too much to live without. I did find that a good SACD sounded better than most CDs, but certainly not all of them. Digital sounds good to me, unless I listen to vinyl first. My new CD player was more than $3000, and it only lacks a bit of extra detail in the highs that I found a bit fatiquing from the Meitner gear. There is no question that vinyl takes a lot of work to get it right, but, for me, I now cannot sit still for digital. Are there bad records? Absolutely. Is 180 gram vinyl the answer? Not to my ears -- some are great and some suck (I love Joni Mitchell, but Blue on 180 gram vinyl is definitely a polished turd). Sorry, got way off topic...

I will always now settle for cd because a cd can last past 1000000+ plays (apparently), whereas the forever warping, dusty, snappy, crackly, poppy vinyl can last maybe 450?
I do miss album covers though. I will admit that when I did play albums on my Linn LP12 it did sound more 'natural' than a cd. That was a few years back though.
My local thrift store was selling quite a few classical box sets on vinyl for 3 bucks each. I was surely tempted.

Digital is rapidly improving. We are no where near reaching the limits of sound quality on CD or high-res digital. I think the medium is just starting to hit its stride.

Yes, there are tons of bad sounding CDs out there and the music industry, including musicians, should be ashamed of themselves for putting this crap out. There are plenty of bad sounding LPs out there too, including some of the new $30 - $50 ones.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Nielsen Soundscan only about 1 million new LPs were sold in 2007. So there just aren't a lot of people buying a lot of them.

So take your time, do plenty of research and for $3,000 you can get a really nice sounding cd player that should allow you to really enjoy your music, even if it isn't the best sound possible.

>>whereas the forever warping, dusty, snappy, crackly, poppy vinyl can last maybe 450?<<

That's funny.

I have some albums with over 3,000 playings that are just as quiet as your discs.

Your assertion is ridiculous.

For once, I agree with Mr. Feil. ;-)

Dave