How about a new format: large optical media. That way, we get the cover art, lyrics on back, without degradation or wearing out.

Audio laser discs.

CD’s. Already have a sizeable collection in storage and honestly never got the fascination with vinyl.

Nothing can beat a wall of a CD/Cassette/Vinyl collection.

Nothing can beat making a mix tape/CD.

I’ve got both and prefer vinyl. If I was starting from zero now I would focus on CDs. Not everything is available in every format but I think CDs have the most coverage.

Hard no. Hauling this shit around and finding a spots for it is not something I would’ve chosen if I didn’t already have the nostalgic attachment.

That being said! Can’t lie I do still love it.

Vinyl is cool and cozy but I couldn’t be bothered. It’s a bad tech / product overall.

Too much space, too clunky of a tech to not lose interest in a few months and I don’t believe there’s an audio difference a human ear can notice. So you’re just having a bunch of square posters that you sometimes look at - might as well just do posters then.

I was in the record business from the 70s through the early 2000s, and oversaw the transition from LPs to CDs. I had a huge LP collection (50% classical), which I transitioned to a huge CD collection, and got rid of most of the LPs. I still have the entire collection.

CDs were the better format by a long ways, but I totally understand why people love vinyl. For one thing, the large format cover. I remember working for a classical record label, and we were looking at the final cover proof of the last LP we were releasing before going all CD, a particularly beautiful photo of the Alps, and my boss saying “Aren’t you going to miss the big cover art?” And all of us nodded solemnly. It really felt like a funeral, like I was saying goodbye.

I also remember wondering how people were going to clean their weed, and roll proper joints without an LP with a gatefold cover.

Properly keeping a vinyl collection is a chore. First of all, if you are doing it right, ALL of your LPs are in a poly sleeve for protection, so the process for playing an LP is this:

• Remove the album from the shelf, where it is properly stored upright and tight.

• Remove the LP from the poly sleeve

• Remove the inner sleeve/ dust cover from the cover.

• Remove the LP from the inner sleeve/ dust cover, carefully using fingertips on the edges and label only.

• Hold the LP, and look at it from the edge, to see if there are any obvious warps or kinks. Of course there aren’t, you store it properly, but you look anyway.

• You blow off any obvious hairs or dust.

• Set it carefully on the turntable, trying to put the spindle through hole on the first try, without rubbing it around, making nearly invisible, but bothersome, marks around the hole, that will irk you every time you see them.

• Carefully clean the surface with a Discwasher or some other cleaning device.

• Use a stylus brush on the needle to remove any schmutz.

• Carefully place the needle on the surface, and relax for the next 20 minutes as you listen to your music. Or dance. Or my personal favorite: Air Guitar (I play for real, I’m allowed).

• Flip the record, repeat the entire cleaning process, and drop the needle.

• Reverse the process, put the LP back into the inner sleeve, put that in the cover, put the album back in the poly sleeve, and slip it back into its proper place on the shelf.

That’s a lot more complicated than simply dropping a CD into a drawer and pushing a button.

The psychological result of all those steps, EVERY time you want to play music, is that it starts to feel like a ritual, and takes on a feeling of importance. The music you listen to, the LPs that that you fuss over, that you preserve, and collect, take on a personal and cultural significance, that you feel a need to protect.

As new formats came along, CDs, then Digital Downloads, the ritual was removed, and music stopped feeling important. In the 60s and 70s, music was a significant factor in ending the Vietnam War, but it is hard to imagine today’s music industry mobilizing against the government. Most people don’t take their music as seriously as they did back then.

Yet some have rediscovered the satisfaction in having such a strong, PHYSICAL relationship with their music collection, and are collecting LPs again.

I get it. Music has ALWAYS been important to me, so I don’t need the ritual to remind me anymore anymore, or maybe doing the ritual 100,000 when I was young wove it into my DNA. Either way, CDs have the durability, combined with the punchier sound quality, ease of use, and longer duration, and I was hooked the first time I saw one. I’ll take the advantages of the CD over The Ritual any day.

I still buy music CDs, and rip them to digital media. CDs are a lot easier to rip to digital media, but vinyl is cooler, but I listen to local music mainly through strawberry media player (or USB stick in a car)

If I was doing it as a way to acquire music to listen to, CDs, it’s easier and more convenient to rip them to a computer, they take up less storage space, and are more tolerant of a bit of neglect.

If I’m just looking to collect something for the sake of collecting something, probably vinyl.

Same as I do now.

CDs.

You can rip CDs to digital easily. You can get them cheap at resale shops and garage sales.

I buy and listen to vinyls, but also I moatly only buy them for my top 5 artists, partly for display. I do buy some if Infind them cheap or they are special, but I don’t really collect vinyls. They are impractical.

I collect both but have begun focusing more on CDs for their portability, price, and their ease of digitization. I’m actually in the middle of extracting CDs I recently picked up at the thrift store as I type this. I have an MP3 player and I load them on there, keep them on my hard-drive AND a separate back up. I still have CDs from the 90s and have had no issues with them playing or being digitized.

Vinyl, without a doubt. Because it’s analog.

CD’s are lossless 16-bit/44.1 kHz PCM digital audio. You can already get that in file form. Why would you want digital audio that’s stored on media that degrades? It doesn’t sound any different than the digital file…it’s quite literally (not figuratively literally but literally literally) the exact same data.

Vinyl. Grew up on the sound

These days I try to buy either DRM free flax files. If I really like the art or the artist in addition to wanting to regularly actually listen to as an album, then I may try to buy vinyl + flac files. If it’s at a show I’ll buy whatever is available that I can play because at that point it’s more about the merch than music. I’m probably going to pass on the wax cylinders and I may think long and hard before buying a cassette.

My wife is totally into vinyl but I keep telling her, the best it will ever sound is the first time you play it and it degrades just a little bit every time the needle hits it.

CDs are consistent. The same data every play, and it’s easier to rip them to digital.