Vinyl - One Word - WOW!!

Vinyl is VERY expensive, a TON of work and it takes up WAY too much room. It really IS a colossal PITA, as noted. BUT... it's totally worth it. Music is by nature an analogue and when you digitize it, you lose the realism that it captures and conveys. I have never had anyone listen on my system to a piece on vinyl, followed by digital (and I had a better and more expensive digital setup than the vinyl) and in EVERY instance the vinyl was the clear winner in terms of naturalness, openness and realism. Digital was always described as being "in a box" as compared with its vinyl counterpart.

Some experience no difference between the sound of vinyl and digital, while others say that vinyl is more open, lively and realistic. Interesting to hear of such opposite experiences. I wish I heard no difference, because a vinyl setup could easily cost 5x what a comparable quality digital setup costs. You could spend $5K to $10K and get a VERY nice digital setup, where you could easily spend that on a phono cartridge, or a tonearm, or a phono preamp... and you still don't have a turntable!