here we go..........imho and iit is h, vinyl is the current best consumer source if only due to the sheer number of titles avail. the satisfying, relaxed, wanting to hear more music, but tired of cleaning feeling one gets compared to 44.1 should convince the music lover ot seek out a good but affordable player, lets face it, most cant afford the sota/vpi/basis etc level of vinyl nirvana (vinyrvana?) that some of you can. my advice is to find as good of a used tt as you can afford, preferably with a tonearm that accepts a universal headshell. that will allow you to change the sound at will to enjoy cartridges in the round. yes the fixed type is more rigid but the flexibility is wonderful. tjere are good affordable arms with this feature such as the sumiko mmt to warrant callng them hi end. enough of that. cd is way more convenient, i have plenty of them, some music is only avail on cd just as it is on LP. the new steely dan frinstnc. i have double inventory on many items when i could get them cheeeep. LPs are usually cheeeep used, plenty of that here in the LA area. ther are some oportunists that consistetly sell for elevated prices. if they need to do that to stay in business then ok. $100 will get you a way better sound than a $100 tt at list prices. but as soon as you get to the 300 range, the reversal starts big time. a trip to the store for music reults in way more used LPs than CDs, and more work but mare satisfaction w/LP. SACD. man, i hope the consumers with expendable income can support this long enough to get the format to affordable stage in a reasonable time frame. i havent heardi a demo yet, but we do rightly trust certain ears.....hp,harley,ahc,valin,holt,brisson(not hirsch,mostly not pohllman) and thats where i feel justified in trusting that sacd will prove to be what weve been waiting for. the sheer sampling rate alone aproaches the analog standard of being always on. now we have nearly non existent noise, appropriate sampling, dynamic range seemingly limited by that of music, and absence of low frequency garbage(one of the bugaboos of LP). bring it on. i think the 24/96 is a great step, but i for one hope that it falls by the wayside. the sacd from sony will play redbook cd AND sacd, thank you sony. what a brillliant and brave first step to stay away from multi channel. hey, i like surround in the proper dose, ive been using a dynaco quadaptor since the 70s to great effect( now have the 5ch, fornt ctr gets turned off for music liosteneing), most visitors not realizing they were listening to 4 channels until the soundfield collapsed to the front upon returning to stereo(and thats with the rear ch adjusted to near audibilty, the way it should be, when there is really rear ch info, youll hear it there) when the multichannel development in sacd comes, im sure sony will make the software backwardly compatable. even at that the pro logics and quadaptpors out there can handle stereo and recover the ambience to an effective degree. i guess some people must have discreet, let them pay for it. give me vinyl, give me sacd, dont take away my cd but dont force me to get dvd for audio. the software ppppurveyors will quickly adjust to the demise of dvd based audio.
