Does Age Matter?

I'm 61. My CD player/transport/DAC cost 5X the price of my TT/cartridge. I still prefer the sound of analog over digital in my system. I do love streaming Spotify for music discovery. But I prefer vinyl over CDs/digital for sound quality. Yes, I know I could improve my streaming SQ by subscribing to a hi-res streaming service........

There are several reasons I dislike streaming. The only time I do it is in the office and I stream a radio station. As far as old music I know exactly what I like. With new music I use my kids as a barometer. They rarely lead me wrong. Who ever new I would like Gorillaz. Whether or not I buy the vinyl vs the Hi Res file depends more on what is available and what I have already. Generally if the file is available I'll buy it. Nothing like instant gratification. If the file is not available then I'll buy the vinyl and if that is not available I might buy the CD which will downloaded to the hard drive. Once I have 10 or more CDs I'll trade them in at Bullmoose Records for store credit and spend the money on vinyl the old fashioned way (which I love) by thumbing through stacks of records. Digital and vinyl both sound great with little pluses and minuses. What I hate most about streaming online is the drop outs. I hate it as much as a needle getting stuck and it happens much more frequently. Most of it is low res anyway. The only time I listen to MP3 files is when I'm mowing the lawn.

this oldster prefers digital by a longshot, but can handle phonographic reproduction assisted by CEDAR declicking/decrackling. 

I think if your records are that bad that you need to decrackle them then you'd best stick to digital.:-)

65 and not into streaming, nor Facebook nor Twitter for that matter.  Still buying both CD's and LP's, and the size of my collection is NOYDB!

With all due respect, this survey will not provide any legitimate insight into your hypothesis.  As some other readers have already pointed out, there are a litany of uncontrolled variables, your sample population is not at all representative of the total population, and so on.

I realize that this is an informal attempt to satisfy your curiosity; however, it is an exercise in confirmation bias, that is going to provide you will with an inaccurate result and the perception/belief that there it holds some degree of credence.

In short, of course age matters... but it matters for a litany of reasons and nostalgia is only one of them.

62. Vinyl and digital. Digital because of convenience and sampling what i might want to buy in vinyl. Also, my vinyl fills gaps in digital's selection. For example, the jazz music of D.C. saxophonist and John Coltrane transcriber Andrew White,  or the album Angels of the Deep by Sweetbottom (fusion): neither are available via streaming. Although I buy a lot of my vinyl through Discogs, I also frequent a local used record store which is owned and operated by 20-something hipsters who dig vinyl.

67 yo.  I have about 50/50 vinyl and digital.  Love both.  Have learned that the quality of the original production makes all the difference in the world of how the sound comes out.  I've got a great TT and CD player and overall system.  I have CD's that sound better than LP's, and LP's that sound better than CD's.  Love the music!

57 and digital.  Last year I took the leap to digital streaming and never looked back.  Turned out to be a good move on my part due to the current situation.  I have been exposed to so much more music I would never have heard otherwise. 

I'm 68   lost my LPs years ago in a flood

Guess I am a bit lazy but streaming Tidal through a realy good DAC  works well for me, particularly in my office.      I listen to SACD's  or stream on my main set-up  (cary 200Ts  into cary Slp98P with mods) when I just want to chill and focus on the music. 

I am 73 and really hate it when some hot young chick who would have said heya guy thirty years ago opens with, Sir. Digital here. About 750 CDs in the library but most are from the digital stone ages 20 - 25 years ago, and some longer. For playback I have a Sony XA 5400 ES CD/SACD player and a Cambridge CXN (V2) both now running digital into a Benchmark DAC 3b. There are many streaming radio stations that have quality that simply kills an old CD if you take the time to find them.Streaming Tidal kills old CDs easily too. Have had zero drop outs since I went Ethernet Cat 7 to the CXN.
Image side to side full stage and realistic depth superimposed upon my listening room..

73. Had an extensive LP collection, VPI record cleaner, upscale turntable etc. about 3 systems ago. Now all digital.
Got tired of keeping records clean, tone arms/cartridges adjusted.
Life size scale and impact are keys to my listening and I can get that with digital sources.

59 - 100% analogue on the stereo, CDs in garage while washing car, CD or Sirius/XM depending on which car I am driving.

Statistically this is a waste of time since you are setting the Mendoza line arbitrarily at 60 (although I like thinking I'm in the younger group of something) and not breaking the age groups further as CDs had a relatively short life span. If you're talking streaming, that will be around, but is relatively new. Vinyl was first and is forever...

77 and I just traded my 350+ CDs for vinyl. I have nearly 600 DATs but the players won't work. I've been listening to vinyl for 75 years, I never gave up my vinyl rig even at the height of the CD/DAT craze. I never had R2R but I coveted them.

tuberculin, a man of my own heart. That is exactly what I did. I burned all the CDs to a hard drive and traded them in for vinyl, about 3 thousand of them. What fun.
Hobbitinablender, I can understand how you got that username. My response is, who cares. There is plenty in this thread to chew on. These are all people who love to listen to music. So, it really matters to them in comparison to the general population. I chose 60 for a reason. I probably should have split the group at 50, but here we are. Everyone over 60 grew up with vinyl. By the time the younger group turned 20 digital started to take over. Their experience with vinyl would have been much more limited. 
Older people seem to prefer digital because it is more convenient. Many of us run both but very few older people do Vinyl only. The vinyl only population is the younger guys! The group with unquestionably the better hearing as we all decline with age. My hypothesis was 180 degrees backwards. Live and learn. 

I'm 71.  Bought my first CD player in 1984.  Haven't used a turntable in 30+ years.  All of my vinyl is stored in boxes.  Could care less about LP's.  Way too much work to keep them clean, setup the turntable, etc., etc.   At this point I use a Bluesound system and haven't even turned on the CD player for 2+ years.  I guess I fit right into your theories about age...eh?

I am 73. I have a large record (LP's) stock. 
Yesterday my grandson and his friend stopped in, both seventeen, his friend clearly impressed, looked at the covers front and back, said he loved records and quizzed me about getting good entry level turntable etc. There are a lot of young ones that prefer vinyl.
Before the Covid thing I would see many 12-16 year olds at record fairs amongst us oldtimers. I would step back and let them search first.

@vinowino
no wonder, for some mysterious reason the new generations of kids seem to be more interested in vinyl than the older generations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVzBWLGf9gc&ab_channel=AnalogPlanet

60yrs both but no clear cut preference yet.  Building my first bucket list audiophile analog + digital system so am accumulating components.  Preamp arrives tomorrow.  Just need cables and speakers to complete.  May use inexpensive speakers till get funds for speakers hopefully in next few months.

@hobbitinablender....*G*  Brings back the memory of the SNL 'Bass-O-Matic' that nearly jumped off the table when Dan Akryod turned it on....

...and L. Neuman going "That's Great Bass!" after (hopefully faking) a sip....

I have 12 feet of shelved Vinyl Albums from the 60's thru the 80's.  I have not listened to them for over 30 years.  As a senior citizen,  I prefer Digital for quiet, convenience, and ease of use.  I could not stand the Vinyl ticks and pops now, nor the act of getting up every 20 minutes to turn the disk over or replace it.  Using the digital transferred to hard drives with an excellent detailed sound system works the best for me.  
I listen to forget the world and be transferred to a place of peace.  Digital does this for me in a way that no Vinyl can.

Different strokes for different folks.

57 .    100% digital.   can not stand the scratchy sound of vinyl 

No.

65 yo female.  I like both and in the last 2 years or so dedicate probably 80% of my time to streaming, 10% CD, 5% vinyl.

67, started streaming and ripped cd's about five years ago, changed my listening habits for much the better! Prior to that was mostly listening to cd's with a lesser quality analog setup. I was content with cd listening but the analog revival  spurred me to improve analog setup. This improvement brought about a great feeling of nostalgia when playing albums, really into the all the rituals of playing vinyl. Over time rather than enjoying the ritual, it began to bother, having to get up every 20 minutes or so, clean album, etc. Just when getting into emotions of music, distraction of the physical act of changing record sides, two different sides of brain.
To today, have nice analog and digital setup, pretty equal. With streaming I don't have the physical distraction of cd and album plays, the emotional side of the brain is continually exercised. And so much more music available, and genre changes, jazz to psychedelic rock to classical, and so many more! For me streaming and cd rips is all about music, albums only for the occasional nostalgia impulse.

I am 78 years old. I think I have 10 or 15 LP's that I saved, only because they are not available on CD.  LP's are great, but they only have a 60DB dynamic range. Maybe the new ones have more, but I don't have any of those. I have a stereo with my back speakers in an ambient loop. It has more depth than I could ever ask for. An ambient loop is old technology those most people have never heard of. I've been using an ambient loop since the early 70's and most people that hear it are blown away by the depth that they hear. Look up an ambient loop in Google, using this phrase:  "what is an ambient loop in music reproduction?". You might like what you read. 

65yo. Mixed digital (electronic files) and digital CD. I listen to streaming music via my local public library and from online radio" websites. No vinyl.
Mostly I listen to electronic files, but I never buy it/them. I buy CDs and rip them, because I want hard copies of my music and I want to own, not rent, my music. I back up the electronic copies. I also download mp3 files, that I can keep forever, from my local public library, via a service called Freegal, which additionally has streaming. Freegal is owned by Sony and includes all the sublabels owned by Sony. My local library also has another streaming service called Hoopla, with over 300,000 albums.
I relinquished all my vinyl and my turntable almost 15 years ago. Having lived in multiple locations, including cross country and up and down the coast moves, hauling around vinyl gets a little old. Also the extra space required for a turntable becomes a burden. Not to mention the pops and scratches etched in my memory from younger wild party years, just doesn’t appeal to me any more either.

I'm 71 and have 3 systems, den, living room, bedroom.  All have both digital and analog components.  In the 3 systems, there are 7 working turntables.  I love vinyl.  But what I really love is music.  So most of my listening is digital (streaming mostly), whether on one of those systems or on my computer with headphones (Topping, Bottlehead electronics, many different 'phones).  When I have the time to devote to it, I use one of my turntables.   But I also admit to cheating in my digital listening - many of the playlists that I stream are rips that I have made of my records.  I should also mention that, until this pandemic hit, I went to about 20, mostly jazz and classical, concerts a year.  I count that as analog despite the fact that most of the musicians use their fingers.  

Someone else will have to parse the percentages.

Younger people may have better hearing, but not necessarily better listening.  Knowing how to listen to music--and the genre you're listening to--really impacts what your hear.

I am 75 and like analog a little more than  digital.

55 years old - I think digital sounds better, but I do like using vinyl because it's easy and fun, and vinyl sounds plenty good enough on a good turntable.

I and started getting my own stereo equipment at about age 11 - so about 1976 (paper route money). So my first big love was CASSETTES. And I still love that they allowed us to make our own mixes, most of which I did off the radio, because I had no other source!

In 1981 or so I got a decent turntable and I was immediately impressed with how much better it sounded than my rather inadequate cassette deck. I literally bought that turntable so I could borrow records just to make mixes with. I was planning to get a second cassette deck to make tape to tape dubs. There were no dual well tape decks at the time (that I knew of).

In 1988 or so I got a CD player. It didn't sound as good as my good (subsequent) turntable, but the next CD player certainly did. MP3s were bad, but even they are better now and FLAC is great.

I think good digital like CD or FLAC sounds best. I still prefer using vinyl records or CDs because disks are easy to deal with and fun, and I can own them, unlike so many of the songs in my streaming service playlists.

But I think digital above 128Kbps MP3 sounds best.

I have noticed a bunch of comments mentioning vinyl as "a scratchy sound." For most records that are well cared for and played with a good stylus well set up this is just not true. Vinyl can be very quiet. Yes, there is the occasional bad pressing and bad scratch, maybe even a skip but these are few and far between. Why do I keep listening to vinyl in spite of having a great collection of digital files. Well, I have a lot of records certainly in the thousands. I use to spend hours flipping through vinyl at the store and still love to. Flipping through CDs is just not the same. I use to buy records just because I loved the cover. I am always amazed at how good dragging a rock through a trench can sound. Digital sounds great also. When I'm busy there is no competition even though I have an end of record lift. I can totally understand some of use migrating to digital.
That's more records for the rest of us:-)

No, it’s not age that matters. It’s having a set of ears that matters, for anyone who can hear correctly can hear that analog is far superior to digital. And although I’m 65 age has nothing to do with being able to hear. Who buys streaming audio downloads! What goes for quality audio today is nuts. Back in the day it was tubes and a turntable. Today it’s the same. You disagree, that’s alright, do your thing!

Thank you Coltrane. That comment might be seen as a bit insulting. Now, I do not stream So I can not comment there. I am also sure my hearing is not the worst and I can attest to the fact that there are many Hi Res digital files that are every bit as good as vinyl if not better. You can hide in your corner with your tubes and your turntable but that would be a shame as you will be missing a lot.

It’s having a set of ears that matters, for anyone who can hear correctly can hear that analog is far superior to digital.

The relative superiority of vinyl over digital or of digital over vinyl, has nothing to do with "taste" or "hearing incapacity"...

The relative superiority of one or the other is function of the audio system GENERIC design potentials and their SPECIFIC concrete implementations... This 2 factors explain all....

No need for "taste" which is only an ennobled and idealized way to speak about our habits....

No need to accuse others to be half-deaf...No ears are structurally the same and no ears are historically constructed by the same listening habits...

Specific implementation of ANY generic designed piece of electronic occur in the 3 main working concrete dimensions of any audio system( an embedding of the audio system in my vocabulary) :
The mechanical dimension(vibrations and resonances), the noise floor of the electrical grid of the house/room/system, and last the acoustical concrete settings of the room....

Then, the relative superiority alleged to one or the other will manifest itself and occur in these indefinite variable situations....

Then it is IMPOSSIBLE to compare the 2 in so many different environments...





But how, you can ask, if we ourself compare for ourself the vinyl and the analog component in the same embeddings with the same pieces of electronic components except for the turntable and dac ?




Four other factors will stay and play and will relativize the alleged superiority of one or the other  :

1-The difference in the structural organization of the ears, and by that i means 2 healthy ears process differently the sound and interpret it differently, because of their different listening histories and habits....

2- The difference between one choice of turntable among many possible, versus the difference between one dac among many possible choices...This fact will play a MAJOR role....

3- The important complementarity or his absence between the chosen components , by that i means the specific interaction of a chosen turntable with a specific amplifier among many possible, and same thing with the dac interacting with a specific amplifier.... For example someone with another amplifier in the same room could conclude with a contrary opinion about digital and vinyl....Then even ourself could change our experience changing our amplifier....

4-I will not add the nature of the support format, master vinyl or not and the quality of the digital files...I suppose those who would made a strict comparison will take care about that... But...... 😁

Then no one can conclude ABSOLUTELY for all of us that digital win over vinyl or the opposite....One can conclude for himself only and without never knowing if this victory is an absolute fact...






Last but mot least , there is no original live event which is the "source" of a faithful recording....All recording processes are choices between choices, each time with a trade-off...

Then "reproduction" of this "original" live event would be more objectively qualified by the term RECREATION...

One acoustical event very difficult to "record" is timbre....Even in the case of only a solo live instrumental event....

Acoustical recreation of the musical timbre of an instrument ask for the ACOUSTICAL setting dimension of your room to be recreated completely....The delivery of the acoustical information of the live original event is already partial and never perfect and complete... it is your room acoustical informative or obstructive settings that will compensate... Because timbre perception need more than the transmission of an always incomplete information signals accuracy , this perception occur in the real concrete time synchronization of your room...

Your audio system recreate timbre with the help of your specific room, they do not reproduce it like it was because the information is anyway incomplete....

Acoustically timbre is not only pure musical tone... Timbre is tone+ the acoustical property of the material instrument +timing between the room and this envelope of the tone ....Your room cannot be the original room...Recreation can be, perfect reproduction cannot be....

The timbre perception and evaluation of the soloist instrument which has been specifically and with a partial trade-off recorded, reflecting the choices of the recording engineer, will be recreated in YOUR room acoustical setting...

This recreation is not only dependent from the choices and trade-off in each audio system but also with the choices in your embedding acoustical dimension, in your room and for your ears....

All that to say that the acoustic of a room will impact way more the S.Q. than our choosen obsession with turntable or digital.....😁

Sorry....





«Gosh! It is simple like an equation but it is written in chinese»-Groucho Marx

61 yo - digital  - specifically streaming - and more specifically Tidal.

43 yrs, I'm like 85% records, 15% digital (mostly streaming from hard drive or Amazon).  Analog is far more fun, tweaky and musically engaging to me.  It better be with all the money I've spent on my rig!

Both are great in their own way. The key is trying to find the good recordings on both that really make your system sing. I am 48 and have never had a preference it is the great recordings that matter no matter what technology they were on.

1++ @speakermaster and @gakertyd It is where the music is but I will tolerate a bad recording if the music is good. There are painfully few great recordings of Charlie Parker. We just have to live with the mediocre ones. Analog is a lot more fun until you get into digital signal processing.
You can do almost anything and it is like digital photography. No wasted film, you just erase your mistakes :-)

One thing I don’t understand, why people talking about digital like it’s something they do not have for free? 
You have to buy records and turntables, but digital is free even on your phone, streaming is free, there are so many sites anyone can find music for free (streaming in high quality, downloads if needed). Anyone can buy a DAC or even a portable DAC/headphone amp for very funny price. 
Digital cost nothing and all of us have it as a free bonus. If you prefer a fee bonus over real thing than who you are? 

You can’t sell digital the way you can sell analog (records). Anyone can copy your hard drive quickly.

Records cost money, shipping cost extra. Great records only getting more expensive. You can’t copy someone else’s record collection in one hour like you can do with anything digital. 

Collecting records is not about music on the background, it’s something else, and, as I can see, some people still don’t understand it. 

You can’t compare selection of tracks on Hard Drive to Real Record Collection!

@chakster , hey. It is not like that at all, at least not with me. I have been collecting records all my life and do not intend on stopping. But, I use digital processing to improve the performance of my system. Even my phono stage is digitized. Used correctly digital processing is a huge benefit. It is hard to get some people to understand that. Yes, I also collect digital files The music is great but I must say staring at my hard drive does not give me the pleasure of staring at my record collection.

Nothing can replace records. We can listen to digital, yes, so what?
The whole world is digital now, music is free in digital format, for most people it’s just something on background like radio. But not everyone is so lazy, record collecting was and always will be a hobby, a habit that you can’t get rid off, and it’s not just for music on background.

Even back in the day there was radio and records. Music on background provided by radio deejays from vinyl records was there (always), it was not necessary to buy records if you want just listen to something.

Streaming today is just like radio yesterday.

Discuss record collecting with people for whom radio is enough is a waste of time. It’s just completely different style. Vinyl is not about convenience, you need a room for it, time for it, money etc. But it’s about passion. When you have to pay for every record I think you will not buy some sh*t. But people can downloads tons of sh*t for free and they do (also stream it for free).

Chakster, it is just not so black and white. There are some really great digital recordings that sound wonderful in digital. I buy files like I buy records except the files do not take up any room (in space). I like records better but sometimes the digital is better or that is the only version available. It is all about the music or should be. If just having a pile of records to look at is your only connection to the music then you are missing out on a lot of great music.

chakster, It's great that you enjoy record collecting, but that's not the only way to enjoy music with excellent sound.  I really find it hard to understand people who feel there is only one way to do things, their way.  

We live in a time with micro brews of every conceivable variety, and now micro distilleries.  We have restaurants selling the food of just about every nation on earth in medium sized cities, and yet people still push the idea that there's only one right way to listen to music.  

You are absolutely right that there's only one way for you.  When you say that there's only one way for everyone else, you're just wrong.

I'm 69, I have a lot of vinyl but hardly ever play it (don't like clicks and pops, don't like having to get up and turn it over), I have a lot of CD's but hardly ever play them. I like to stream the 4000+ of my favorite songs on my iTunes playlist (in lossless ALAC) in 'shuffle' and see what comes up! I do occasionally listen to an album in its entirety.... 

I'll do that Larsman on occasion. If I'm in the shop and don't want to be bothered I'll put my whole hard drive (run by iTunes) in shuffle play. It will go anywhere from Brahms to Metallica.

@mijostyn,

Do you have an official count yet or do you plan to keep this thread running for a while? 

Most older people grew up with vinyl.  Most younger people had no access to it.  Jeez!  i just showed a 26 year old a 45 RPM record.  His response, "Is that an eight track?"