Used Rega Planet or Apollo vs. affordable PC audio

The Rega Apollo, IMO, is one of the best values out there, that's why I bought one. Sounds as good as most players four or five times it's price - they go for a smoother, more analog-like sound, and they have great soundstaging and imaging, if these are important to you.

Robr45, alot of people say physical media is dead, and that is an interesting issue. Many people think physical media will never die, because of the pyschology of wanting to own something. People will still want to own copies of their favorite recordings, books, what have you. This is still true of many of the younger generation as well. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

FWIW, a friend of mine from school who used to be an executive for a couple of different record labels is definitely of the opinion that physical media will never die, and he says that this is the prevailing opinion by far in the industry. The psychology of it is the main reason for him too, but there are also the myriad complications of digital rights issues, which are not even close to being solved satisfactorily yet, and those will obviously have to be solved before any kind of huge change happens. That has been and will continue to be a very long process, no matter how quickly technology advances.

It will be interesting to see in the future whether file-based media really will take over in the music world. You guys could be right that eventually physical media for music will die as well. As I said, though, this will not happen much more than it already has until rights issues are worked out. This has been a long process, and will continue to be - there is no easy solution in sight. And even though some of the technology is there now, some of it isn't. There will have to be much better encryption than currently exists, for starters. And then there are many audiophiles who believe that digital will never rival a moderately good vinyl set-up, and this is not likely to change in the near future, either. Vinyl sales in fact are the only music sales that are climbing over the last few years, especially on the classical side. This includes downloads, which are also down across the board over the past year according to the latest figures I saw.