The past meets the future

Ya gotta love the ritual attendant to playing vinyl. When you're done and drop the needle you then have to get up and change the record 3 times to listen to a  Mahler symphony. Talk about a distraction!

Seriously I'd prefer a SOTA vinyl system sound any day. (I had one close to about 10years ago - I gave it to my grandson-in-law and a large collection of vinyl to go with it). But by then I had gotten some good digital stuff, some good CD's, and it all changed. Now I could play the music I wanted to hear. With vinyl I was mainly listened to how great it imaged and made my music sound. Perhaps not a big deal for most folks but for me it was a distraction from hearing the musical content. And I could listen to my Mahler, etc, in one sit down! :-) I guess I'm not a real audiophile  after all.

I really enjoy both mediums, the problem with that is expenditure goes up in great measure, I don't doubt a commensurate amount to equalize sound quality. Unlike Ghdprentice, my analog has a way to go to catch up to digital.

Greatest liability to going in dual direction for those of us with limits on pocketbook is both systems suffer in directing expenditures on one or the other.

I'm also curious about the future of vinyl. If vinyl at or near end of innovation, and streaming in relatively early days, just a matter of time before absolute sound quality of digital surpasses vinyl. I'm sure it will maintain it's place as niche product, but over the long run become obsolete.  Boomer audiophiles have lifetime of experiencing or hearing others advocate superiority of vinyl, this has been great motivator for preference of vinyl over digital. What happens when that ends?  I don't see a lot of younger audiophiles entering vinyl arena without superior sound quality as motivation. Some will be attracted to the more hands on experience, nostalgia motivations such as art work, but when superior sound quality allied to more convenience and relatively lower cost of digital is considered, I'm afraid vinyl days numbered.

Just a nod to the era and tradition that will soon pass into history. 

Yeah vinyl has only been around for 74 years...

Vinyl just plain sounds better when done right. My 2 cents, and only my darn opinion....😁

I do not stream music. I have yet to find a platform that suites my (eccentric) taste. But I do convert a lot of my collection to DSD and playback on random. I prefer the sound of the vinyl, but admittedly I haven’t invested as much in my DAC. To me the benefit of digital is that after I rate all my songs (about 14 weeks of playback in the 4/5 star range) and hit random, I can go from Ella to Rites of Spring to The Microphones to The Freeborne to Little Willie John without changing a single setting. That’s an 80 year tour and, in my option, they all sound great back to back.