I'm thinking that youngsters are getting burned .

I think the young definitely understand that they can have music in the home cheaply - they understand internet radio stations. My 16-year-old son has the most diverse tastes in music of anybody I've ever met - whenever I walk by his room, music is playing, often something I've never heard before, usually catching my ear. He pumps it all through his boom-box, which wouldn't be my choice, but he seems to really enjoy it. He got that as a present, I pay for the internet connection - near as I can tell, he has a rich music-loving life and spends zero on it.

Whether he will ever upgrade the sound quality, who knows. My guess is that it will be a while before he thinks about spending any money on even modest equipment, so long as the free stream of music continues. It's fun, though, since we share music opinions often.

Kthomas, I have a cd called, "Listen Picks", where they claim they have listened to all the music on the Web, and these are the songs that they like best. I'm guessing they are all compressed. Guess what, they sound horrible, compared to cd's. I know that there has been statements about you can't hear the difference. Remember direct-drive turntables, where you had to put in the missing stuff? That's how I would describe compressed recordings. The best of the bunch concentrate on midrange, but even there, you have to provide the missing info with your head.

I don't understand about kids getting a bad break. A teenager plunks down a couple hundred dollars and carries around several thousand songs downloaded / swapped for free.

In the mid 70's, a couple hundred bucks would get you maybe a combo am/fm phono piece of junk that sounded a little better than a decent table radio.

What was written about in the audio mags of that time was just as unaffordable to the average teen as what it is today.