Used Rega Planet or Apollo vs. affordable PC audio

Physical media is dead!

Physical media is dying- I don't think there is any question. And I argue the point that the younger generation still wants something they can hold. I am fairly young and I don't even see hints of this! Next step is local storage in my opinion. The idea that you have to store content on one device and it isn't available everywhere is already antiquated. You will simply stream everything from a cloud to any device you own.

The above can be argued- but even so I just can't see going out and buying a single cd player for big money in this day and age. Especially considering how unbelievably good 24 bit material sounds on a pc/mac.

Learsfool- I agree with you but one point that I would mention is that what audiophiles believe is meaningless. We represent a tiny fraction of people who have 180 degree goals versus 99.9% of consumers. Audiophiles themselves cannot support a phyiscal media type on their own. If that was not the case DVDA and SACD would be thriving. The fact that vinyl sales are up is certainly encouraging- I listen myself but the overall number of LPs sold is still tiny.

The number of downloads versus CD purchased is exponentially rising from everything I read. One thing to realize- it is more than just how one wants to acquire the music. CD buyers have to buy the entire CD while people downloading buy the indidual tracks they want. That is a enormous fundamental shift in how music is purchased.

My litmus test is exactly the same. Ill be honest- I cant hear any meaningful difference between 256k AAC and lossless but I do rip to ALAC because who knows what playback technology might offer better resolution in the future. However, my reservations on buying 256k aac from iTunes are very few these days. I love the 24bit stuff and find it far superior to anything 16 bit but the catalog just isn't there yet.

In regards to a drive failing- I think it is easier to implement a disaster recovery solution that keep all the CDs around. A second hard drive or even RAID setup with some inexpensive software is easily had. Keep a 3rd HD that is updated occaisonally at a friends place if you really want to get crazy.

I think that PC audio is the best thing to happen to audiophiles in a long while- maybe even ever.

A fire would also wipe everything out too.

MP3 is a different story- although 256k mp3 is getting pretty transparent but aac is substantially better and almost completely transparent @ 256k imo.