I'm so excited that this subject has come up.
My collection is running around 5500 albums.
Something like 65% of all music that comes out is still available on vinyl for a couple of reasons.
First....in Europe there is a high licensing fee for CDs so they are expensive (about twice what a LP costs) so that over there lots of people still use vinyl.
Another reason is that until the very latest advancements in CD playback, vinyl often offers superior sound to CD.
Now before you go throw something on your technics piece of crap and tell me it doesn't sound better to you, you need to understand that you
have to have a high-end turntable and cartridge to hear what I'm talking about. But with $1500 (or much, much more) invested in a good turntable and cartridge, I guaruntee you that you would hear it because I have shown many, many people from musicians to kids and they all heard it.
Suprisingly, vinyl actually has a greater dynamic range than 16bit/44.1k has. I forget the numbers exactly but it was something like a 98db total range on 16/44.1k and about 105db for vinyl.
Don't misunderstand me......I'm not suggesting that everybody should run out and go back to vinyl,....people won't and besides...the new technolgy such as SACD and 24bit/96k has finally eclipsed the performance of the vinyl disc. But it is
much better than you can realize if you've only heard it on a direct-drive plastic turntable even if it's fairly expensive. It needs to be belt-drive with a very dense and inert plinth and a well-damped arm and all of these things are expensive. About the minimum to get into a turntable that can make you a believer is about $500 to $750 bucks and the ones I'm drooling over now run 5 to 10
grand!
Oh well....dream on.....
dream on........