What is the actual percentage of people exclusively listening to vinyl vs digital?

Because, from a capability standpoint, vinyl is technologically inferior to digital.

Additionally,

• Vinyl has pops, clicks and hiss ( I grew up with vinyl and this is why I dumped it)
• Vinyl is way more expensive
• Vinyl players (turntables/cartridges) are way more expensive
• Vinyl takes up a lot of space, whereas my whole library fits on a flash drive
• Vinyl isn’t portable
• Vinyl wears
• And vinyl is obviously less convenient (my digital system is voice-controlled, and starts and plays with two commands)

Interesting post...

I use only digital myself...

But you forgot the main reason why vinyl subsist with success for many people owners of the 2 system, digital and vinyl...

The room acoustical bad controls of most users reinforce the choice of vinyl because vinyl S.Q. format resist more to a non optimal acoustical room settings...Digital to shine ASK for optimal acoustical controls more than vinyl, because of the technical aspect and measured potential performance of this format...

And unbeknownst to most, almost all rooms are not optimally acoustically controlled....It is impossible to realize for ourself this fact if someone had not experience it first hand...Acoustic is the true key to audiophile experience especially for most people who dont own a million dollars system ... Anyway some one million dollars system sound bad it is easy to look for some example in youtube....

In a room acoustically well controlled if the difference subsist it takes very refined audio system to detect the difference if one exist....And this is a minute difference....Mike lavigne experience and testimony for example....For ordinary mortal with average system the key is acoustic controls not the choice between these 2 formats.... I own thousands of files.... It is impossible for me  to own thousands of vinyls in a room dedicated only to the object....And most music that interest me is not on vinyl anyway.... Iranian-Indian-and other people music for example or non commercial or not well known jazz music....

If you listen pink floyd mainly no problem to keep also only few hundred of vinyl on repeat..... 😊

 the choice of music is way more extensive in digital format and more accessible...

Until I see the survey results, I assume ZERO!  There are digital stations in our cars, on television, and who has not owned a CD player, especially in a car?  Maybe you mean on our best home system?  Maybe juke box owners?   Maybe I amazed....

I have two systems with turntables plus a server with about 4000 CDs on it (I have a similar number of LPs). For casual listening, digital gets used more. For listening sessions, it is probably 75% analogue for me.

The room acoustical bad controls of most users reinforce the choice of vinyl because vinyl S.Q. format resist more to a non optimal acoustical room settings...Digital to shine ASK for optimal acoustical controls more than vinyl, because of the technical aspect and measured potential performance of this format...

Please allow me to rephrase for you Mahgister, because what you wrote is potentially import (even though this thread didn't ask what people like).


The are unique properties in what we could call the signal processing of vinyl, whether that is channel cross talk, increasing distortion at frequency extremes, added noise, etc.  Some of those, like crosstalk, could be conducive, in poor acoustic environments (most audiophiles rooms) to higher satisfaction. Similarly, the distortion and background noise can give a sense of space, or even realism that some may find lacking in digital.  What are perceived flaws, can be an advantage, both overall, and for particular listeners.

I listen exclusively to analog, Vinyl or R2R only. I turn 75 later this year and although I dabbled a bit in digital when it first arrived I never left my analog world. Some of this might be due to the fact I deal with 1400 computers, 2000 Chromebooks and 5 servers all day long and when I get home a nice single malt and some analog is the way I go!