Can you imagine a world without vinyl?

Johnnantais sez:

While digitization is a great idea for storing information, music is more than just information, and in the conversion of music to digital quanta, the playback gives us just more information: the music has been filtered out, it's gone, in its place dead and sterile information.

While nicely put, it's not quite correct in the absolute sense: what you are complaining about is the sonic result of cdp which, in turn, relates to the IMPLEMENTATION -- not the possibilities of digital...

Already, there is a big difference between 44,1 and 48. And, as noted above, this is antiquated technology by digital standards...Why not play @ 96 or 192?
There's nothing wrong with digital -- we just don't have a digital audio product that compares favourably with analogue. IMO, we never will -- home audio is an unimportant market. Take dvd-a & sacd for example: good or not-so-good, whatever, they WERE attempts to introduce a new audio standard... not very successful businesswise.

We're all preaching to the converted here!!???......go to some other sites for the majority view that CDs and digital not only sound as well...but BETTER than vinyl??!...and how many reviewers in TAS and Stereophile (including the once venerable HP), are actually LISTENING to and reviewing equipment with CDs??!!
If THEY can't hear the lack of depth, soundstage, transparency and reality of CD compared to vinyl??....what hope is there for the population at large??
And yet for anyone who hears the comparison at my place.....it is astounding to watch their reactions.
Why can't the rest of the world hear the difference??!!

I love vinyl too, but at this stage of my life, I just don't have the time that it takes to do all of the preparation it takes to just play and clean an LP on a prolonged consistent basis like I do cd's. I only keep a vinyl playback system around because of all of the LP's that I collected in the 70's and 80's that were not reissued on cd. For that reason I rarely buy new vinyl and for the same reason I am not willing to go to the lengths that it takes to get the absoloute sound out of vinyl. I've cobbled together a decent vinyl playback system and it is very satisfactory to me. I did buy myself a record cleaning machine a couple of months back...man, that was sure an eye-opener. That was the biggest upgrade that I've ever had in a vinyl playback system. Every now and then when I do play an LP and I get a pleasant surprise, I do think how good it may sound if I spent more money. Not now. Today, I prefer cd's for their convenience. They provide me with excellent sound and convenience that I'm content with.

I'm 53 yrs old and I'm retiring in 7 yrs. When I'm retired and have more time. You can bet that I will get me a cost no object kick-ass table, arm and cartridge and partake of some of those pristine sounds that Albert speaks of. I can't wait.

Now if someone could just create a reference quailty 5 disc cd changer...I'd be first in line.

Who could live without the constant care and cleaning of their plastic discs, then spending stupid amounts of time setting up and checking their rig, tonearm, cartridge, tracking etc., then ensuring that you put the stylus down in the proper position to ensure you don't have another pop from where it lands, then getting up to skip the next crappy song, or turn it over, or remove it for another 12 inch double sided gem that again needs to be cleaned and pampered, then "enjoy" the two good tunes on it.

And of course obcessing about what covers and inserts to put the discs in, and ensuing that the static build up is minimized, etc.

I can - I have a life. This is a hobby. If you're that concerned with the quality of your reproduction go to the symphony, or concert hall or local bar and hear what it's really about. This fawning over vinyl is pathetic.

Again, posters like Hfeiner remain intent on conflating the notion of all digital audio with the limited medium of the CD. The question at the top was "Can you imagine a world without vinyl?", not "Can you imagine a world with nothing but CDs?" Anyway, it makes perfect sense that reviewers would inlcude listening to CDs in their evaluations, since that's the source most readers will be using.

Gregm: Think beyond the realm of the silver disk, be it CD, DVD or SACD. My hunch is that in several years when prerecorded disks are on the way out, and almost all music (and video) is delivered digitally over the 'Net and connection bandwidth/speed has ceased being a practical limitation, audiophilia may get a welcome kick in the pants from the availability for customers to choose just how high they'd like their rez.