Getting into analog is tough....

David, if we "got out of analog" there'd be only one place left to go: the concert hall. I've heard it's not so bad. It might even be more convenient!

As he has for so many others, TWL helped me make excellent TT, tonearm and cartridge decisions. Now he writes, albeit rhetorically, "You don't have to get into analog"! Why didn't he tell me that $6K and 6MM hours ago?

More seriously, Tom also wrote that analog, "...takes some commitment, and some study, and some work, and maintenance, and is less convenient." To me, this sounds alot like what it takes to play a musical instrument or sing really well. I try to remind myself of that every time I have to fiddle with VTA or clean a noisy record to help Jascha sound just right. I just pretend I'm tuning my Strad.

Doug, point taken. I was assuming the exclusion of live events when posing my rhetorical question of "where would we go?". However, I am shocked that it did not provoke a rather profane pun from the crowd, as it were. :-)

Yeah analog sounds better and live music sounds better than recorded. I would consider spending the time and effort going to hear live music over fretting over the "analog is better than digital" debate. Is it about the music or the sound? Digital has come a hell of a long way from the time it really had an etchy, irritating fragmented presentation of the music, prior to the early 90's at which time things started improving. The 80's were a complete bust for digital and I honestly hated the way it sounded and couldn't listen to it, it was vinyl all the time.

If you come into a batch of LP's cheap, if there is music on LP's you would love to own, if you have a lot of time to clean, fuss over and flip records and don't mind doing so, it may be the ticket for you. IT IS DEFINITELY BETTER, more continuous, more resolving yet some will be more sensitive to the differences than others and some will tell you the ticks, pops and attention to the details is not worth it. No one can give you a definitive answer, only you can find out first hand if it is or isn't worth it to you. I personally dont' have the time for analog that I once did and if I did I would probably spend more time with it. I would just rather listen and enjoy the music and not worry about the debate. You can do it with today's digital IMO, another perspective.

The BIG differences in the mediums truly separate at the upper level ($$$$) of the spectrum. I have heard some truly extraordinary vinyl playback systems that no digital I have heard can touch. It is less apparent at the lower end. You seem curious enough to investigate it further and if you find the idea appealing, I would highly recommend that you go for it. If you can't get off the fence, you need to hear some analog playback systems before making the jump.

I recently took the plunge back into analog and I agree it is very difficult to do. It took me about 6 months to purchase all the components of my analog front end which now consists of:

Michell Gyro SE MkII Turntable
Origin Live Silver arm
Shelter 501 Cartridge
Sonic Frontiers SFP1 Signature Phono stage

At the time I only had about 50 albums of 50's - 60's Jazz (which is what I really like to listen to) compared to hundreds of CD's. I now have about 200 LP's.
So far I have had the system for a month and I'm begining to form some impressions of CD vs LP based on specific A/B comparisons of albums rather than broad generalizations (since I can't say, based on experience to date, that LP's categorically "blow away" CD's in every case.) I will report on specifics in the near future.

Tubegroover, good post. You and TWL summarized the issues nicely.