I base my ultimate preference upon sound quality, so, by definition, I'm a vinyl lover.

David O., ya gotta find a vinyl junkie in your area to let you audition good vinyl playback.

Plus, college chicks dig vinyl.

Or, at least they used to!

After vinyl, I'll go with CD. I've heard the Alex Paychev gear and it sounds better with CD's than most SACD players playing SACD!

APLHiFi.com, I think.

He's really a great manufacturer.

Big Mike and I are currently working on a top secret project with a piece of truly 70's "zietgeist" playback medium that we're hoping to re-unveil at CES, too....(mysterious emoticon goes here.)

Cheers!

Vinyl for me, too. Since variety of selection is important, I also like CD's, especially since that medium has done so much to bring early music, performed on quasi-original instruments, to the fore. I do have a few superior-sounding examples of SACD reproduction, but, about 95% of the time, CD's sound just as good and are cheaper. I have never heard DVD-Audio through a high quality player, but they, too, are limited in repertoire.

Now, Buddha, don't tell me you are reviving the 8-track.

Like all the others so far, my favorite is vinyl. It may be the great hope for musicality in the future. Your favorite genre notwithstanding, there is a lot of music available on vinyl now and, better yet, there are numerous entry level turntables, cartridges, and phono preamps which will give you the vehicle to learn why so many of us choose vinyl. CD has to be next because of the vast array of music choices. When SACD is good, it is very good, but if you're not already equipped with a good SACD player, forget the format and go for one of the several CD players that make that format sound better than we thought it could a few years ago. Don't restrict yourself to CD only and be wary of any significant investment in compressed formats - you'll be missing too much.

My favorite is also Vinyl. However, LP's wear out and finding a replacement for a treasured LP can be nearly impossible. Since I am currently looking for a new turntable I've been on an LP diet. The good news is the the new amplifier is finally burning in and the new system has really made a remarkable improvement in the listenability of my CD collection. It's given me a new found respect for the CD but Vinyl will always be my first love.

Vinyl just sounds better than anything else. I have and play CD's, DVD-A's, SACD's, Cassettes and RtoR. Of the half dozen or so recordings that I have in multiple formats LP's win hands down. There is simply more there there with vinyl. My guests both audio buddies and casual listeners agree. Vinyl just sounds better.

Just because most recordings are digital doesn't mean they sound better. The best recordings I've ever heard are all analog. Recorded direct to disc on vinyl, no tape no tweaking no multitracking. Straight from the microphones through a simple mixer and from there to a cutting lath that cuts the master from which stampers are made.

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I like the popularity of Vinal around here... i am courious while were on the topic, what is the format that most music is recorded onto? And if that is digital, then wouldnt digital be the true-ist to the music? As well, what are the main differences between say my portable cd player and what would be conidered a more professional player, besides the d/a conversion. Because isnt it still a digital signal before that anyhow?

Well, I'll try to get the ball rolling.

Since more yeast is used to make to Budweiser than any other beer, then is Bud the truest to the yeast?

Brittany Spears outsells John Prine, so is she truest to the music?

More grapes are converted to Gallo box wine, so does that make Gallo more true to the grapes than a fine Bordeaux?

The dominant marketplace format may be CD, but that doesn't make it truest to the music.

The thing with vinyl, I think, is that it has had 50 plus years of dedicated refinement, and those vinyl grooves contain more actual musical information than any CD.

I like pointing to the CD's reproduction of a simple 1kHz sine wave - they can't even get that right.

Digital still has a ways to go to catch up. Except for DUP, for his purposes digital is all he needs.

The next question is tougher...the differences between CD players take place at:

A) Getting the info off the CD - getting the most possible information off the CD.

B) Getting that info to the D/A converter in the proper way for the converter to properly decode.

C) Decoding the info with the greatest resolution - losing as little info as possible.

D) Converting the digital bits into the most representative analog signal it can. Keeping that digital resoulution and properly translating that to analog resolution.

E) Getting the analog info out of the player and into the rest of the analog system with the highest fidelity possible.

There are many ways to goof up the signal during any of those processes. Hi Fi digital and analog systems try to minimize those problems and get as much music from point "A" (the disc) to point "B" (my ears) as humanly possible.

Hi Fi is just a more and more refined way of doing what your portable does.

Hi
If you've got a bit of time on your hands you might want to try a little experiment - recording audio onto a videotape, say, from a CD source.
This is a good demonstration of its dynamics (remember that it has a bandwidth of 3MHz! I can't offhand remember its dynamic range. Compare that with 44KHz for CD)
Whether you like the sound, well that's another issue!
Martin

In order of importance:

Vinyl
SACD
DVD-A
CD
iPod
everything else

Welcome, John Crossett!

I like the way you think!

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Welcome, John Crossett!

I like the way you think!

Is there any other (real) way?

I love vinyl but, I own almost all my music on cd (with about 10% as *gasp* downloads!).

I started out loving DVD-A but, now I am fond of SACDs and look forward to ignoring the next round of ripoffs er, I mean formats.

My 2 cents:
SACD
CD
IPOD with WAV files
Vinyl
MiniDisc and MP3s
Cassette

I listen to much vinyl and only discount it do to the fact that to retrieve really high end sound from the format you must spend considerable money on a great TT, phono stage, and cartridge to hear most of it. Mikey's Continuum is in another solar system altogether. A low noise floor is not to be discounted when listening to classical music with great dynamic range.

I often think that vinyl and mylar tape are the most remarkable inventions in audio playback given all the mechanical/technical shortcomings. The fact that they can sound spectacular is nearly a miracle and great science.

Vinyl and SACD

Angelo/Italy

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... not too familiar with analog formats (I am only 18, I grew up in a digital world)...

Being 18 years of age you probably aren't familiar with a cassette, not to mention 8 track, 4 track or reel-to-reel.;)

As for formats, I like vinyl coupled to tubes...this from the guy who just bought a synthesized, digitized & computerized set-up. (I retained my old gear to hear my vinyl collection.)