Not as much activity on analog here

++Chayro.

THere is some truth to what Downunder said also, although if you get it right these days, the need to chase the latest and greatest becomes more debatable. Still, I hope I am around still to see where digital is say 10-20 years from now. Lots of innovation, lots of new products, lots of new features, potential for even better sound, if needed.

I love good analog sound as much as the next guy, but these days I am loving digital as well and it is getting most of my play time. Analog is treading water essentially for most. You have to really love it exclusively to make the investment asked by a lot of the high end manufacturers these days, as it becomes more of a niche. It is what it is. Good sound, sometimes the best, but that's it. Digital enables good sound and so much more these days and continues to advance. Analog is old hat. Can't fight progress. Lots of analog out there still for those who can't do otherwise. I still love the sound of a good quality vintage analog recording on vinyl, but the ones with teh most to offer sonically thes days are releases that few have interest in these days. Almost everything popular over the years has been released and often remastered digitally by now. Goodwill is the place I go to find special sound treats that are unique and affordable.

"LP will always sound best if you have a very good turntable."

Not true. I already have many CDs ripped to my music server that sound as good or better than lp copies. Its very much a case by case things these days I think. Either might win in any particular case for comparison. There is much more to it than just the format.

"Are we a community that has not grown much"

Probably. THis stuff is EXPENSIVE!

"all our questions have been interested ?"

I think the biggest and most relevant questions mostly have if one takes the time to look. One off things still come up.

"Is digital finally getting the soul of the music right?"

Good digital is quite competitive these days, more affordable, more versatile, and still growing and evolving a lot. What else is there?

Statistics, even if availble, can be massaged to show whatever one wants usually. All one has to do is read and look around to get a sense of what is really going on.

Vinyl/analog source material and gear continues as a niche technology, maybe even with some growth in recent years I suspect.

Once digital hits the DAC, the rest is and will always still be all analog, unless converted back to digital again downstream for some reason, if that's any consolation. :-)

I have spent a lot of time and a reasonable amount of money getting my setup to where I wanted it to be in recent years.

I started off getting my vinyl tuned in. That helped establish an in-house reference. Then I focused on digital.

Once I had both pretty much hitting the target, then I did a few common enhancements from there, mostly with amplification and tweaking. Now they both sound similarly really really good. Digital gets 90% of of my listening time these days though because of the convenience and flexibility and that is best for expanding ones library with new music. Vinyl is still good for expanding the library with older music, especially when good quality vinyl is found for dirt cheap at Goodwill.

Lots of lps still out there to play. Plus a lot of it comes dirt cheap if you look in teh right places. A good omen for the continued presence of vinyl/analog source material. And yes, you need good stuff set up well in order to milk the most out of it. That's nothing new but still good news for high end audio. Good sounding digital continues to become more affordable. That's bad news for high end audio.