classical music source

I'm with Larry and Daverz; even though I have a large record collection, excellent turntable and am still buying and listening to classical records. CD's make it easier to listen (once you managed to get realistic sound out of your cd reproduction system (isolation and ac conditioning experimentation is mandatory for this). I often enjoy serious listening while on this forum for example and appreciate not having to "flip the record". But-records do sound wonderful will likely keep their value. I started buying them in about 1963-and I still wish I had every one I ever bought. But I take some satisfaction knowing the friends who 'borrowed' them obviously enjoyed 'em. I made countless cassettes that also disappeared. Back when it was common to record your favorites on a tape you could 'take anywhere'.

For me my classical music source is LPs. I'm pretty lucky that the thrift stores by me have lots of classical music LPs that are really cheap and in very good condition. I also like to listen to Classical music on CDs but mostly LPs.

I like classical on CDs due to the wide selection and for the most part, classical record labels have high standards for quality recordings and CD mastering.

Todays remastering technology has given old classical recordings new life, some having outstanding sonics.
Also when a CD is out of print, it's easy to find a used copy.

As Ptss points out, some thought and tweaks are needed in order to achieve high SQ from a CDP dedicated to classical music reproduction.

I am with most on this thread and depend on CDs for most of my classical listening. I have not have good luck with classical on vinyl. My ayon CD player does a great job. I prefer jazz on vinyl.

With some classical labels, such as 1970's DG, original vinyl issues were pretty poor in terms of sound quality, but the label took advantage of the opportunity to remaster for digital and put out some pretty decent reissues. Other labels, such as EMI, are all over the map in terms of sound quality; some reissues of their great sounding vinyl releases sound like crap, while certain other reissues sound pretty good.

Certain reissue labels, such as Brilliant, make it easy to build a comprehensive collection of a particular composer's works (e.g., the massive complete works of J.S. Bach); one of my favorite Brilliant collections is the complete string quartets of Villa-Lobos (something I probably would not have even looked at, except that Brilliant put together a very cheap and easy to acquire collection). CD's have been such a boon to collectors of both older material as reissues, and to collectors of newer releases (It is far cheaper to make CDs and digital downloads than to press records; given how poorly classical sells these days, almost nothing could be economically released if vinyl were the only medium available).