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.

Shadorne notes:

If Vinyl was so much better than other mediums then can someone expain why it has never been used as the reference storage medium for the audio industry. I mean why did the recording industry use analog master tapes and now digital masters if Vinyl was the ultimate

Tsk, tsk, Shadorne. You know why (among other reasons):
a) Tape is 1st generation; vinyl comes after.
b) Tapes offer much more storage space for music
c) Vinyl is hardly "ultimate" -- it's just relatively better. For example, live FM broadcast (good quality) sounds exceptional. For that matter, tapes sound excellent (but can you find pre-recorded R-R tapes?)

Nostalgic?
Hardly so in very many cases: many audiophiles AND music lovers used to be annoyed at the vagaries of vinyl playback in the old times -- myself included. And many, I'm sure, looked forward to the "new" medium... whether they admit it or not.

Looks apart (many TTs look beautiful fm an "engineering aesthetics" point of view), and hobbyism apart,
-- you need TWO pick up cartridge life cycles to match the life cycle of ONE laser pick-up if you;re lucky;
-- you have to set up the TT (but that's not rocket science)
-- you need a good tone-arm: this means inexpensive in the beginning or VERY expensive thereafter (OK, you can buy vintage)
-- Worse of all -- as Raul noted recently: you need a phono equaliser. These components are probably the most miserable sounding devices to hit the dealer shelves...

It may be masochism or something else, or both. But, really, believe me, this ain't no nostalgia:)

Zaike:

content providers will look to higher resolution as a low-cost way to add value in order for them to charge a premium

Could you spread the word a bit -- as in whisper into marketers' ears about where their next promotion and performance bonus may come from :)

That's probably the only way they'll jump on this bandwagon. Cheers

Johnnantais sez:

While digitization is a great idea for storing information, music is more than just information, and in the conversion of music to digital quanta, the playback gives us just more information: the music has been filtered out, it's gone, in its place dead and sterile information.

While nicely put, it's not quite correct in the absolute sense: what you are complaining about is the sonic result of cdp which, in turn, relates to the IMPLEMENTATION -- not the possibilities of digital...

Already, there is a big difference between 44,1 and 48. And, as noted above, this is antiquated technology by digital standards...Why not play @ 96 or 192?
There's nothing wrong with digital -- we just don't have a digital audio product that compares favourably with analogue. IMO, we never will -- home audio is an unimportant market. Take dvd-a & sacd for example: good or not-so-good, whatever, they WERE attempts to introduce a new audio standard... not very successful businesswise.

Zaike:

audiophilia may get a welcome kick in the pants from the availability for customers to choose just how high they'd like their rez.

That's my hope as well --
but the ONLY, tiny, indication of this actually being available one day seems to be the existence of improved live FM broadcast... i.e. the fact that a few people are actually making the effort today to provide "good sound" over the waves...

Actually Albert,

...Needle in groove has had 130 years to evolve, CD has had just over 20 years

Analogue, being what it is (well, "analogous")lends itself to engineering improvement. The dominant digital format is utlimately limited by its s/ware. Ain't much you can do about that even given the time

BTW, Raul, 24/192 is still perceptible. But it's neither annoying nor in yr face -- or any in any way grossly obtrusive. However, digital can do even better than that, apparently: I was present at a 1st gen master tape (analogue) copying into digital at a studio. The result, dig. copy vs "master" was exquisite. Rpo soundcards used of course, don't know the bit rates.

Thanks, Raul. My post was unclear.

Zaike: you could hit a Lenco & refurbish it a la Nantais. It's great fun -- really!