Can you imagine a world without vinyl?

As I use vinyl (i.e. I listen to vinyl as well as the many digital formats) I wouldn't really want a world without it:)
Anyway, I grew up buying vinyl...

Of course things are volatile and vinyl users are very much dependant on continued availability of, say, cartridges. Also availability of LP's -- but if the collection is large enough (say, 1/10th of Albert Porter's :)), there's no immediate problem there.

CD is better than it has ever been.

LP Is better than it has ever been.

Both formats taken to their limit, LP is better. I don't think there is any doubt about this. Ask those with EMM labs and Rockport or EMM labs and Walker.

Gregm makes an excellent point that I neglected, which is an owner's existing vinyl collection. A substantial vinyl collection (user defined...as the definition varies from individual to individual) will warrant a larger expenditure on an analog playback system.

Regarding acquiring new music, it's helpful to compare apples to apples. For example, anyone can easily and quickly buy new or used CDs that are of equal quality.

On the other hand, finding and buying quiet and clean used vinyl takes time (driving, looking through bins, searching second hand stores and garage sales, etc). Low cost, good vinyl can be found, but not as readily as low cost, quiet digital. So, the cost of acquiring acceptably quiet vinyl (cost = time and dollars) is considerably higher than the cost of finding and purchasing the same music on CD, SACD or DVD-A.

Well I agree with the vinyl-o-philes. When great vinyl recordings and pressings are played back over a great system they absolutely destroy CD's.

And this occurred so seldom (and I will honestly admit I lost a bit of interest in the music I had on my LP's) I took down my system. It wsn't worth the space it was occupying. I had ventured out and bought 'used stuff' and for the most part it was rarely both in good condition and was music I wanted.

I bought newly pressed reissues which I found, for the most part, as often plagued by pressing issues as the vintage stuff (which drove me to distraction in the late 60's and 70's) and often the sound was rarely improved in anyway by the re-mix and process.

What little I think I actually lose from loss of a vinyl playback system, I think I gain from no longer revisiting this issue of format superiority during playback of CD's. CD playback can sound dammed fine, and certainly it is not worthy of the denegration it recieves when the vinyl folks enter the arena. It was in the '80's, and to a lesser degree in the '90's, but thats no reason to rag on it now. If a person does it serves to say far more about themselves than the format!

The recorded music industry as we have know it is dying, the interest in major music formats is dying, the interest in serious stereo systems is dying, and yet we are engaging our energies in picking the bones of bodies in the desert. Go figure.

Albertporter...That depends on the definition of "better".