Does Age Matter?

56 years old. 
60 percent cassette (maxell/Nakamichi)
30 percent LP
10 perrcent stream (spotify/Mixcloud/Dac)

It is a bit more work to clean the record and play it but oh so good!
Surprising how good a well recorded tape can sound thru a good machine. Love it!

@snilf +1

At 42, I, too, regard the mastering and quality of the source material to influence what I will listen to. For instance, some of my favorite Jazz albums include Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby, which IMO is best on the Japanese SHM SACD, and a John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman 45 RPM ORG pressing. I won’t listen to them any other way. 

That said, I’ve found the preferred medium also depends on the quality of each person’s setup. Before I was an audiophile, I played MP3s because I didn’t know better. When I got my first turntable, a B&O Beogram, it changed the way I perceived music, but not the way I listened to it. It was a joy because it didn’t have the jitter, but neither the turntable or MP3s provided the fidelity that is in my setup today. The turntable drove me to invest in a starter DAC and explore lossless files, which drove me to better turntables and cartridges, which drove me to better DACs, streamers, signal regenerators, and linear power supplies, which drove me to even better turntables and multi-thousand-dollar phono carts... you get the pattern here. It’s gotten to the point that my digital and vinyl rig are now of fairly equivalent caliber, where the digital can sound 100% analog and refined, and where it truly comes down to the source material. 

That said, to have a truly analog-sounding holographic experience, it is easier to get there with vinyl for less money. I’ve found many DACs and streamers, while often able to be resolving for lower prices, are not able to reproduce the presentation of the music unless significant investment is made. There’s a lot in the digital chain that contributes to this, from noise in the wifi and Ethernet signals, noise in the power line that cause jitter, cheap noisy chipsets in cheap streamers, DACs that don’t have a great clock, digital cables that alter the information, etc. Many folks don’t realize what all of these amount to - they may not hear the noise or jitter, but it just prohibits the end experience for as good as it ought to be. 

The funny thing is that most people who get into the hobby look at vinyl setups as a steep investment (and it sure can be), as it’s easy to get a cheap DAC and start streaming to get started. But if a friend came to me and said they had $2-3K to spend either on a used mid-fi analog setup (TT, cart, stage, cables) or a used mid-fi digital setup (streamer, DAC, digital cables), I would point them the analog route in a heartbeat.

Reading the average age of audiogon posters I am not surprised, this is what I expected before.

Actually, it explains a lot to me when a conversation with some other audiogon members is like a conversation with a dad (because of the 25 years difference in age).

I am more surprised why my generation don’t use audiogon, but maybe the answer is what I wrote above?

Anyway, can you imagine that at the age of 70 you are not able to chat with 95 y.o. person here (to feel what I’m feeling). At this age it’s too late to arguing about something, people will never change their opinion.

I also realized why some great contributors disappeared from audiogon, maybe they are already dead :(

It looks like the audiogon is a place for pensioners?
What am I doing here ?

P.S. Stay strong and be healthy, I miss my dad who passed away 5 years ago (he was 71).

Sorry about that Chakster. I just lost mine. 

The age grouping here shouldn't be a surprise. Very young people can't afford it and middle aged people are trying to raise children. During those decades I only spent a drop on audio when something broke or my house got hit by lightening. Now with the kids on their own I finally have some money to burn. Thankfully I'm not completely deaf yet. 
I realized last night, when talking to the fellow who is buying my old Sota that it is the ritual of playing a record that is special. Loading a file is not.
Coming home with three or four new records and playing them hoping to hear something special. It is tradition, nostalgia, special. Younger people playing vinyl is wonderful. Some think they are joining a special club. In our day everyone played vinyl. Only R2R offered competitive sound quality and the selection of software was limited. I recorded my records thinking I could limit their wear and I thought I was going to leave the records and turntable home instead of schlepping them to collage. Did not turn out that way. 8 track was a bad joke and cassettes did not get reasonable until the late 70's. The only reason I had one was to record cassettes for the car (and other people.) Personally, I think this argument over sound quality is silly as it is frightfully subjective. Do we argue about food preferences? I play records because I like to play records. My new table will not be built until April as Sota is overloaded with orders. I'm going through withdrawal just thinking about it. I take the Schroder out of it's box once in a while to just stare at it. My right arm is in a frigging cast and I'm getting fat because I can't exercise. This is going to be a very depressing Winter.
 

Anyway, can you imagine that at the age of 70 you are not able to chat with 95 y.o. person here (to feel what I’m feeling). At this age it’s too late to arguing about something, people will never change their opinion.

Not at all.... I am ready to change anything in my beliefs.... Not so much in my experience.... For sure the frontiers between these 2 is not clear but i was always open mind to any sound clear and good arguments, indices, new elements....

More than that if your beliefs are not permeated by your own doubting machine you are insecure in your vulnerable fortress, the ennemy can cut your water and you are waiting in a siege without end...Or you are proud, strong, and blind to all the world...

The city of my beliefs is open to all exhange with the world, and no doubts or no others faith has crossed the city of my soul without making me think...

I reign without fear over my realm with no blinding proudness....

Am I old? I prefer to speak to young people under 40 and i am 70 in few months....Then something in what you say must be true...

Old people who stick to their belief or ideas, do that by habits most of the times not because they look fresh for some truth....I stick also to my idea but i keep an open mind reading, conversing like at 20 but with more ressources indeed...

Personally, I think this argument over sound quality is silly as it is frightfully subjective. Do we argue about food preferences?

You are right the audiophile experience is not so much about REPRODUCING some original live event lost in the many choices of the recording engineer anyway, it is to RECREATE the natural TIMBRE musical experience in the best acoustical room possible, and with the best embedded system possible with analog or /and digital....Evaluation of acoustical and musical TIMBRE is subjective experience....

By the way TIMBRE is not only a pure musical phenomena it is also an acoustical phenomena, which is to say thet the perception of timbre by the recording engineer will determine his mutiple microphones choices and locations, same thing for the mixing process; and at the end it is your choices about the rightful embeddings of your audio system, and not only the choice of the format and system, that will make you able to evaluate and experience the perception of timbre....

You are right but it is not only subjective, the objective part is the way and methods to implement or install the right solutions that will be asked by the system, the room and the house, mechanically, electrically, and acoustically....