Can you imagine a world without vinyl?

i've been a serious vinyl collector since 1966 (12 years old)...not from the standpoint that i believe it to be somehow superior fidelity....i just think lp's and 45's are cool. turntables are fun too....growing up, the serious audiophiles owned massive tape recorders (reel to reel), on top of owning turntables which were more for joe public. our local record store (remember those) stocked tons of jazz and classical on reel to reel....when reel to reel began to fade as a purist media, my father and his audio buddies mourned its demise. i could have cared less. in my mind, my friends and i related to rock music and it's primary medium..the vinyl disc. today, my wife and daugher, and most friends and associates could care less about my records. they love music, in an shape or form. its about access to music, music appreciation, and the media does not matter. hundreds of thousands of cd titles are gonna disappear slowly over the next decade...as much as my first love is vinyl..i will miss the cd too. the music you like is who you are, not the media.

Pawlowski, why would it be hard to count if you had uniform shelving and counted one unit of a rack of vinyl and multiply....and how do you have time to even wonder that? :)
It took my father over 10 yrs to get through his collection of music wich was total about 9,000 or so........ he goes in Alphabetical order, now during that time he added countless new tittles in my head I figure it will take atleast 15 years this time and he is still on the "A" tittles.

I could frankly give a hang about the audio angle of vinyl or turntables -- it's a significantly flawed medium from the sonic standpoint (among others) and is not synonymous with the word "analog" as many audiophiles carelessly assume it to be, and I have nothing against digital in principle -- but I certainly love vintage records and good record collections, because it's all about passion for the music, the artists, and the times. Always nice to learn of another Agonner who collects and plays vintage 7" 45's, the medium whose demise (replaced, badly, by the music video) signalled the beginning of the end of rock's golden age. Now if I can just quintuple the size of my collection I'll be hot on Paladin's heels (though one turntable should continue to suffice, jukebox excepted).

This is just an exercise in masochism. Just stick red-hop pokers in my eyes and be done with it. Fortunately the Truth will out, and the LP is making a comeback! Off to the growing number of record shops in my area! CDs, DVDs, SACDs and various other waterproof discs make great coasters.

I can easily imagine a world without vinyl. It would be a world in which excellent sound would be achieved without the sonic compromises of digital or the convenience and many other compromises of vinyl. Both formats are clearly seriously flawed and hardly to be lauded as some ultimate achievement as the poster seems to suggest. While 99% of my listening is vinyl because of its sonic superiority (particularly for the 50's and 60's Jazz that I listen to), I would switch in a nanosecond to an alternative digital format that provided analog quality sound without the many disadvantages of vinyl like surface noise, inner groove and other tracking distortions etc. What's amazing to me is that vinyl, as primitive as it is, has not been bettered in over 50 years. It's time we move on.