I too have to find the time to copy my LPs to my computer. It will take me a while as I have approx. 600 LPS

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Current Gear: Ron Kirn Barnbuster Tele,
Marshall: 1971 SuperLead 100>1997 1960-TV, bunch of pedals
and a 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera coupe named Veronica

There's another digital audio form out there called FLAC that's supposedly pretty good.

Sometimes it just feels like a scam to get more of our money.

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It wasn't Willy-Nilly, it was at crows.

Yes FLAC be good, so can mp3 if they are not squeezed like crazy and a few other formats out there too. Trouble is most files you can get hold off are compressed to squeeze the most files possible into the smallest space and end up sounding like dung.
Up to the control of the ripper, also GIGO applies.

I am guessing here as I don't use them, but I suspect most portable mp3 players/ipods can't play uncompressed formats like flac ?

In any case I'll be buying the blu-ray format disks, "the sound" is all there.
Go give a listen to some of Neil Young's latest blu-ray pack (a bit overpriced at 300$cdn though)

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.

I am a pretty serious vinyl head, i have hundreds of CD's and about 300 gb of mp3's but more and more i am finding myself listening to the old vinyl. Cool thing is more modern groups are releasing on vinyl. The last few new vinyl albums i got had a cd inside them or gave a code to download the same album for Ipods.
i like the warm sound of vinyl records but also acknowledge that MP3's are the wave of the future. they are very easy and take up no space. I have a record player that converts into MP3 so when ever i rip an album i try to keep the settings as high as i can to maintain audio quality. i enjoy having 16,000 songs on my ipod but i LOVE holding a record cover and looking at the art as the house floods with deep rich audio (record player is run into the surround sound system). original questions... CD's are going to be extinct but in about 10 years i will be reading a forum where someone is talking about the beautiful art and warm sound of a CD. the more things change the more things stay the same.

Some can, some cannot. they can all play mp3 and AAC, both of which can be encoded for lossless quality.

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Physical media is on life support. When one dies, it happens quickly: I still remember ordering blank 10-minute demo cassettes 50 at a time, and cranking them out like clockwork, until one day I realized I had 47 of them and hadn't recorded one in months. I still have every one of those 47 cassettes in the tape room. It was like the format ceased to exist overnight. (We were early adopters of CD-R: my first CD burner cost $1,200, and required $700 Digidesign software to drive it.)

The same thing will happen with CDs. Vinyl only exists as a hipster curiosity, not as a mainstream format.

Digital formats like MP3 and MP4 will continue to improve, just as all technologies do. A modern DVD doesn't look anything like an early DVD, a current CD doesn't sound anything like a first generation CD, and in 10 years, the standard digital format will sound really good.

By which time it won't matter anymore since my hearing will be completely shot.
Unless direct input is achieved and you can just jack in directly to your head

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.

Check out TapeOp Magazine :

http://www.tapeop.com/

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

That's the truth. It ain't goin' away 'cause people all over the world use it, buy into it and put up with the (small) downside for the huge gains in practicality. The loss of quality is something that I don't notice in my car, in my boat, or for that matter, in my house while I'm cooking dinner. I don't have the perfect soundroom, the high end stereo, or the time to sit and just listen to beatiful, perfect music. Although I realize what a fantastic experience that is because I enjoy great sound too, practically speaking, digital works for me. It allows me to download a backing track from a link from this site, (thank you) and be jammin' with it in ten minutes!!

Uber cool!

Gridlok (But I know what you're saying)

very funny Bro!

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Digital is so convenient for sharing music, exposing people to your band's stuff, and recording and mixing. I can't imagine going back to slinging CD's after shows from my trunk. *still pass out sampler CD's though.

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I miss 8 track and still think it will come back someday.

My current car had a cassette player but the quality of the recordings started getting bad (Black Crowes Shake Your Money Maker) to the point that I had to install a CD player.

Still I think it's all a scam to get people to re-buy the latest tech like Blue Ray or whatever else they come up with.

At least in part

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It wasn't Willy-Nilly, it was at crows.

I don't know what will happen, but I hope the physical product doesn't go away. I miss liner notes, photos, inserts and other freebees. I learned a lot reading liner notes, in fact, I discovered the Blues by reading covers and labels of my favorite Rock bands.

When we went from vinyl to tape and then to CDs, I think the overall experience diminished somewhat. Buying recordings was more than purchasing songs. Regardless of whether or not digital downloads achieve audiophile quality we have lost something that I value and I suspect many others do, too. Maybe that's why vinyl has made a small, but surprising comeback.

If you grew up in the mp3 era, you probably can't understand it. As Muddy said, "You can't lose what you ain't never had."