audiophiles or retrophiles

>>For those of you who wondered whether my exposure ...........<<

I haven't wondered a bit about your experience. It's obviously a waste of time.

I think there is another distinction deeper in your query that might be drawn and that is, how many of us are retrophiles not by stylistic or preconceived notion, but rather through a somewhat unplanned, non-intellectual path of a process of elimination of what did not move us emotionally in the music reproduction itself?
Equipment is cool and it is easy to be sucked in to making choices based on things that are not at all related to the music. That said, it is never the less a reality in the material world that one becomes involved at an anal retentive level with the acoustical reproduction aspect. There is a lot of science involved, not to mention alchemy.
This all takes me back to something Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn said early on and that is, (I will paraphrase) if you close you eyes and listen to the music and it doesn't make you tap your toe or if you can't sing to it, if it doesn't sound distinctly more musical overall, don't spend your money on it! He was referring to equipment purchasing.
That thought has pretty well stuck with me as I traveled on from my first major "Hifi" equipment purchase of a (you guest it) Linn Sondek Lp12 back in 1983. Funny thing is, there are a lot of cool turntables out today, maybe some with greater musical resolve. I’m just not moved to chase that demon. It's fine to be skeptical about the superiority (theoretically) of any technology, maybe even healthy, especially for those of us that are in it for the human emotional connection to the music and the pleasure of enjoying that together. Happy listening.

Rockvirgo, That is an interesting observation of our current lifestyle and technology. I'll bet my last record (Lp) buying dollar that you have not been collecting music on Lp's for the last thirty-five years. He, he, he! For some of us it is not a question of, why not download on an ipod from the net? That notion is completely unrealistic in the pursuit of what we want out of it and I’m not referring to the physical vinyl object itself. I only wish I could be around after you grow old with your cherished music collection to hear how you would relate to that future reality. Here’s to the music and hoping your hard drive never suffers you through a fatal error. Cheers!

Rf, no hardrive music storage or bagpipes here thanks. Care to go double or nothing all your music is of the foot tapping variety?

Stanhifi's response is a prime example of what I was trying to address. This does not help anyone. If he would care to offer a reasoned explanation of why digital and solid state are so obviously inferior that any of us with exposure should appreciate that inferiority, that would be helpful.

Stanhifi, there are so many transduction processes in recording, beginning with when the acoustic energy hits the diaphram of a mic and is converted into electrical energy through to when electrical energy is converted to acoustic energy by a speaker, it surprises me that you would choose to dwell on whether the electrial energy is passed through solid state or vacuum, whether a waveform recorded digitally is maintained as a digital representation or pressed into vinyl and read from vinyl (two more transductions). One would surely think the transduction processes would be the weak links.

db