It's amazing how history repeats itself!
I guess this is finally making me realize that I'm not a young kid anymore (how sad)!
I started listening to music when I was perhaps 9 or 10. My parents had an old RCA turntable and some 78 that I played quite often. Then the latest and greatest came along, the 33rpm, and thing were improving, sound wise.
From about 1967 to the introduction of the CD, I chased the best sound I could afford for 'records'...now I guess it's vinyl.
All during college, we compared LP's and setups. Then when I started working, I started in earnest to purchase the best I could afford at the time. I kept upgrading (nothing new here) and there was always something new and better coming out. In the end, turntables were so expensive, tone arms completely out of sight, and cartridges were astronomical!! Will it ever stop??
It did.
Along came the CD. I was an early adopter and I think I purchased the first CD player I could find. I couldn't find any CD's but a few were here and there. When I heard the CD's I thought nirvana was achieved.
No more scratches, no more hiss, no more wow and flutter specifications (although the first CD players listed W&F specs) and a dynamic range that could not be achieved on a LP! It was amazing. Terms such as DAC, bit rates were not spoken, it was un-necessary.
Well, it's now 2005. The airplane I fly has TV tubes instead of the old analog round dials, the radios are digital, and the plane goes about 500 miles an hour faster that what I rode on as a kid going from NYC to Miami. And to think vinyl is the rage of the 21 century makes me wonder what I missed all those years ago?
Well I wish you all the best in you search for the ultimate sound reproduction. Just about the time you spend a few million on state of the art TUBE amplifiers (and let's not forget tone arm pre-amps), laser or what ever driven turntables that need to be mounted in the center of the earth on a 5 ton block of cement ( can have the earth's rotation screw up the playback of the vinyl) and some pick-up that uses mico-gryos for stability, someone will come along and introduce you to the newest thing. We can all guess what that's going to be
PS. If anyone is interested, I will give you for free (you pay the shipping) of my state of the art Denon turntable from the 80"s! It's collecting dust in my garage. I never had the heart to toss it. I knew if I waited long enough it would have some value. Ha Ha!!