Once upon a time you could only buy your music on a 12" or 7" vinyl, but then modern technology brought us the wonders of the smaller cassette tape, and from then we now are dominated by CDs.

So which format of music do you purchase your music in? Forget mp3 websites, I am only concerning tangible formats of music here.

-Vinyls, LPs, records, whatever you want to call them - they are the daddy of the modern music format - large card packaging with large artwork, usually the packaging opens out and there might be a huge booklet if you're lucky as well. Unfortunately there are some problems whilst playing, you can't pause them for example also you cannot record onto them and they may be a little fragile as well. Some people seem to think they sound better than CDs, but this discussion can be re-opened in here if you like as well.

-The tape, it was smaller, lighter and you could record your favourite songs off the radio without anyone knowing (learning to predict when the guy would stop talking so you can press the record button at the right point). Unfortunately you never could fit a good booklet in, and the audio quality wasn't the best after a few listens as well as the possibility of your tape player actually eating the tape inside the cassette.

-Now we have the CD, small, light, reasonable sturdy, fits a maximum of 80 minutes and can even be bought blank to let us burn our own audio onto them. With the CD we are able to easily skip tracks and do all sorts of other things being digital lets us do.

I think it's pretty obvious the CD will win in this poll but the main interest lies in the discussion as to why one prefers the humble vinyl over the CD for example. Tapes seem to be extinct these days, but music is still today released onto vinyls as well as CDs.

Does the grand feeling of placing the needle on the edge of your spinning LP nullify the convenience of being able to pause, fast-forward and skip tracks, do you like the.. boxy qualities of the tape (yeh, I couldn't think of anything good about them either), or does the modern technology of the CD win it over for you?

Also - what will be next after the CD, or will we be using these foevermore?

what about DVDs where whole music concerts in full quality audio and video can be recorded? and how much time will cost to Blue-Ray disc will take their places in music industry ? and what will be there available within next five years?

so far it is definitely CDs but i give them up to ten years before they will be so out-of-date like vinyls are nowadays...

I prefer CD because is it a digital format, is totally suitable for backup and lasts longer than any of the other formats shown, also, digital format is the best way to store the music, cause digital formats could last forever.
About after Cd, maybe the sollution are to buy directly mp3, mp3 players are so popular, than in a couple of years, everybody should be able to buy one, it's not hard to imaginate that you'll visit your local store, connect your mp3 player, slide your credit card and the music will start copying (If there's some bussinessman over here, remember me if you implement this ). About people who prefers physical copies of music (including artwork, etc) maybe we can use mini DVD, HD or blue.ray disc (like PSP's UMDs) to store about 2GiB in a 7cm disc (and a normal 12cm Cd stores 648MiB)

Buy CDs, absolutely no question about that - I don't have a record player, and records and tapes are impractical anyway. Sometimes cool to find an old tape for cheap in a second-hand store, though.

For sound only, vinyl is still the best (although with acoustic processing etc. digital media is not far behind atm). In terms of a tangible, physical medium, I'd go with Mini Dics since they sound better than CDs. They are hard to buy though, and if we just copy CDs onto them, the sound quality will still be CD quality obviously.

I prefer digital formats by far though, mp3, ogg, flac etc.

I do agree that vinyl still has the best sound although, I think that's really the only high point of them. As mentioned, they are quite delicate and the lack of pause/skip track/repeat etc options detracts from them. Tapes, in my opinion, have the worst sound quality and they never really lasted very long. While they were small and handy when recording songs directly off the radio, I just could never get over the low sound quality and nowadays I just avoid buying them at all.

Therefore, my vote goes to CDs. The sound quality is very high, they last for a very long time (unless of course you scratch the CD which fortunately doesn't happen to me very often) and generally I just find them a lot more convenient than other formats. While mp3s seem to be rising in popularity with mp3 players coming with very large hard drives nowadays, I still prefer CDs simply for that crisp sound quality.

it's strange you say the vinyl has the best sound - because I would have always put money on CDs sounding better - but after I played a load of vinyls yesterday I put a CD on and it seemed so weird.. it was like "where is the music coming from?!" and it didn't seem so real as the vinyl sounded..

still.. I think this is probably mostly a psychological effect

p.s. - to the others.. I am talking about the formats that you buy an audio album of - you get albums on vinyls, tapes and CDs - bands don't release studio albums onto DVDs or whatever else..

I vote CD, because I moustly ue CD and its more easyer in nowdays, Dounloud, burn and listen, but also i love original CD, but its quate expencive here sorry 10 lats(same like 10m pounds) its huge money for me

Tapes I like it but since I had damige one tape not my im mor carifull whit them, still had tape recorder and a lot of tapes, moutsly whit non info, from times when no I - net wa sand mid 90ties what I coppy from friends

Vuny - I had recorder from 60ties but that (vire who tuns it)its damiged, so also I had Vinys but noin metal, moustly Jazz and it 60ties it was werry had in USSR get soem Vinys

Baz you forgot Live musit format, concerts

live music format? what? band's don't release an album onto a live music concert..

this thread is about the tangible things you purchase with studio recorded albums on them.. vinyls, tapes and CDs

Written by Baz Anderson on 10.09.2007 at 15:08

live music format? what? band's don't release an album onto a live music concert..

this thread is about the tangible things you purchase with studio recorded albums on them.. vinyls, tapes and CDs

I mean listen it in concert, but it was like lil joke

hahaha oh right, sorry.. it's a little hard to tell with text

I prefer ORIGINAL CDs. I heard, that their quality is worse, than cassettes, but it is more convenient to rewind songs, let alone that now almost all equipment is intended for CDs.

Vynyl definitely, the best sound and atmosphere, also, they have much better booklets.. Only problem with vynyls are that they are not very practical, I can listen them at home and that's all, imagine you are going in camp or something and you bring vynyls with you haha, actually there is one more problem, they are god damn expensive. ..

...Also, I would pic a tape in front of CDs any time, I have huge collection, and I am also open for buying or trading tapes if anyone interested from !European continent! , just drop me PM. Also, there are problems with tpes like, they are very hard to find, and I am not even sure are the producing anymore.. .

CD's... always! Although tapes can be awesome, especially the Black Metal ones! Vinyls are of course also cool but a little hard to handle IMO.

CDs are my personal favorite format. Ive found out from my saxphone teacher that you can rip LPs to computer, plus they have very good quality. The problem for me with them is that their usage is not nearly as flexable as cds and tapes, record players for sale are next to nonexistent in my area, and LPs are 2 times as expencive as a CD. Last and by far least are tapes. They suck. their only pros are that they are small, more conviniant that records, and cheap. Their Cons are many so I wont go too into it, but thier sound quality sucks, you cant go to the nextsong. you must fast forward, which is anoying to me. at least on records you can move the needle or something(I dont know much about records, as the people I know who own them are very protective of them and dont let me near the player.) Tapes are also very fragile and mine used to get tangled often. I used to mainly buy tapes 'cause I could get them at my local record store for $1.99-$4.99(USD). All of my tapes are either broken(most of them) or sold, and have been somewhat replaced with CDs. luckely for me this was before I reallystarted liking a large variety of music, and only liked classic rock, so I just had to replace Led Zep, Cream, AC/DC, Queen, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

Written by Alex Smith on 10.09.2007 at 16:31

I prefer ORIGINAL CDs. I heard, that their quality is worse, than cassettes, but it is more convenient to rewind songs, let alone that now almost all equipment is intended for CDs.

But cassettes you can fuck tape, it splitt and what then
CD are better but cassetts you need good recorder and us eit ewery day, I fuck 3 cassetts after 3 yeasr when start lsiten cassett recorder again,

Gotta go for the CD option today......I couldn't play vinyls at home for I don't possess the required equipment...plus vinyls are rare nowadays and quite costly plus they are uncomfortable to handle....

I agree that a vinyl may sound better but ONLY if stored and handled perfectly.....otherwise the quality will degrade fast and you'll have the crackling sound coming from the speakers.....

Tape.....doesn't last as long as CD....quality will fade away.....the tape recorder may always screw it up and of course fast forwarding and rewinding are awfully tedious....a plus is that it's smaller than CD and the player's also smaller...thus it's easier to handle and carry around...

CD.....you can skip tracks and rewind/fast forward easily whenever you wish, the quality will be better(unless the CD starts crackling....)....only minus is that it's rather uncomfortable to handle and carry around compared to the tape.....

Quote:
But cassettes you can fuck tape, it splitt and what then
CD are better but cassetts you need good recorder and us eit ewery day, I fuck 3 cassetts after 3 yeasr when start lsiten cassett recorder again,

Yeah, I have the same experience. CDs Rock!

What I hate about vinals is when you buy them "new" they can warp or scratch easily in shipping to the record store. my friend's dad says it j happens all the time. and at the local record store, all formats are plastic wraped, and you cannot open them.

I have a peference for CD's.

I own all three of the mentioned formats in the introductery post, and while owning tapes and vynal is cool (listening to them as well) they just aren't as cool as CD's. This is just my opinion, of course.

CDs for me too.. Their easy to put into the computer as mp3s.. Though vinyls and tapes are cool to own too, my dad has huge amount of vinyls.

As far as sound quality I like Vinyl (assuming you have a good player) but putting on an album is such a hassle and really inconvienient switching songs....that and I put my foot through my player in a drunken rage. Not to mention tracking down albums that you love on vinyl can/is alot harder than finding them on CD. So I had to vote CD, I can upload my CDs onto my mp3 player and what not. And when I do play them it doesnt take precision work to change a song. As far as tape goes, I never liked casettes, even before discmans or mp3 players came out, i had a walkman and found it to be a bit of a hassle changing songs.

I've only ever bought audio CDs. I didn't know metal bands release tapes anymore. Anyway, they degrade easily. So my vote goes to CDs. Oh, and if you have a CD-player with a 24-Bit 96 kHz processor, then i don't see how the sound can be worse that that of a vinyl.

CDs of course. If I buy vinyls, i do it only as colletion, not to actually play them. Tapes get damaged after too much use and trhere's always teh risk that someone records something on them...
While CDs always have a great quality no matter how many spins you give to them. And have tha advantage of teh nice booklet that Vinyls and casettes don't have usually.

for me it's definitely CDs

out of the simple reason that i can do a lot more with a CD than with a vinyl. it fits into every single stereo, in the car, at your friends house, etc. this can't really be said for vinyl. apart from that i can put CDs into the pc which is another huge pro. i can easily listen to it while surfing the net and i can transfer it onto my ipod

i mean vinyls are "cooler", i can't and won't deny that, but if i'd have any they'd just be catching dust somewhere in a corner

Strange... I only see this thread now.

But I just love the misconception that you can't pause a record player or skip songs. Okay, so it isn't possible with a very cheap model but then again thoise sound crap anyway. But with midrange to expensive record players you can pause or skip a song.

vinyls sound better and more vintage/authentic or what have you but nothing beats the clarity and power of a well produced cd

MP3 and other Digital

i used to have CDs and stuff, but then they started disappointing me... breaks easy, gets lost or misplaced, scratched surfaces, get stuck, just too damn messy to keep...

So now i only do MP3 and other Digital formats. Simple. Convenient. Easy to manage.

Well I will say CD but I haven't really heard a Vinyl cd in my life, so I shouldn't vote.

I had tapes but honestly I can't remember how it sounded then. I guess I'm a victim of my time.

Since I have never owned any albums on vinyl or have a player my answer must be the CD. For the same reasons I didn't vote, 'cause you really can't vote if you only know about one of the options