Vote

This is what I have been waiting for! Portability is important for music. I want to listen on my iPod, in the car, and throughout the house. At the same time, I want the vinyl for the sound, the sleeve, and the whole look & feel of it. Sell my vinyl with a download code to an uncompressed (!) file attached and my music purchases will double!

Or better yet, $20-25 bucks gets you an LP, CD, and download.

SACD and/or hi-rez download. With hi-rez, I don't need the vinyl option.

CD wins—vinyl can be good if you have a $2500+ front-end, but a <$500 CD front-end can be its equal. The future is clearly with digital.

I'd prefer another option—a CD-vinyl bundle? But since that's not an option in the poll, I'd have to say CD. It preserves better.

I think it is a brilliant idea! Long overdue, as long as the download could be of decent quality, so much the better.

While I love and own a very nice vinyl rig, I do so only to purchase second-hand vinyl from the '50s and '60s. I would prefer the CD release so I can play and also upload into my iPod—much easier, even though it won't sound as good as vinyl.

Of course, I want the download to be 24/192 and the vinyl to be 45s, single-sided on clear JVC vinyl for, say, 30 bucks. Well, I can dream!

The only way I'd find use for the download is if it's a high-rez 96/24 download. Otherwise, I'll just rip the LP and load it as a lossless file for casual iPod and car listening.

Vinyl download. But they should be well-recorded to begin with, the download should be high-quality, and the album should be something I actually want to spend time alone with, listening, rather than just having it over headphones as I go about daily life.

Give me vinyl, or give me nuttin'.

It depends if the music is worth gluing myself to the listening chair for, or worth $18-40 for, as opposed to $10-12 for the CD from Amazon.com. But the idea is, in general, a winner.

That's a trick question. The vinyl dub would sound better only if whoever records the music does not doctor it with software. All the click and hiss removal programs severely degrade sound quality.

How do you download vinyl? LOL! I'll take the CD.

I'd prefer the vinyl-download bundle, especially if they offered high-quality FLAC files. As a higher-priced premium format, vinyl should include all the extras possible.

Good quality vinyl and 24/88.2 or 24/96 FLAC—puurfect!

With the caveat that the download be at a very high or lossless sample rate.

Turntable + iPod = :)

And if the download was FLAC, all the better!

LPs allow for more artwork; and there is also the collectability aspect of vinyl. And, of course, the smoothness of vinyl.

More flexibility and "wired" into the future.

Great idea—Paul McCartney did a fine job with the Fireman album recently.

Just give me a high bit-rate download.

Definitely vinyl first up—the download bundles can be convenient, but better still is the actual CD in the vinyl sleeve. A few are coming this way, which is great; unlike the download, you can rip to FLAC for a music server

The vinyl-download bundles are fine. They include vinyl! Microsoft programs can't suddenly scramble up those "files," as they can, and did, to my computer-stored terabyte of ripped CDs. And, of course, vinyl sounds glorious in ways to which digital can only aspire. I just bought a new phono preamp Saturday to upgrade that capacity , putting the money where the mouth is. Thanks to my dealer here in north Dallas for letting me spend over a week auditioning units at home before making a confident, and unexpected, decision.

Ideally, I'd prefer a high-def download and the vinyl. Unfortunately, space would be even more of an issue than it is at the moment—currently, I have to use a computer as my source with my CDs and vinyl (nearly) are all in storage some 450 miles away. Still, I read reviews of $100,000+ equipment I can't afford, so let's stick with the dream.

I'd prefer a CD + hi-rez download.

Honestly, I'd rather download a nice set of 24/96 WAV files with some type of database info and skip (and save $ on) the physical media. BTW, what type of files come with the LP-download bundle?

Yep. But only if the download is FLAC or similar.

Vinyl is better, after all, isn't it?