[domfjbrown]

Jeff - you've bought hook line and sinker into digital...

Vinyl's still far more musically coherent than any silver beermat. VHS always was and still is crap compared to DVD, but Laserdisc, in many respects, can look better (especially in comparision to early DVDs with poor bitrates/blocking artefacts).

As for LCD/Plasma - I've still not seen one that can do what CRT does (decent dynamic range, colour fidelity); when an LCD 28-inch widescreen costs the same as an equivalent sized Sony Trinitron/Panasonic TAU in the UK *and significantly* outperforms these CRT sets, I might well be interested. My 9-year-old Sony Trinitron can produce a picture every bit as good as (though obviously smaller than) a £6000 Pioneer plasma that one of Exeter's hifi shops has - with NONE of the horrid blocking/banding/smearing artefacts.

Progress isn't always good, and it's forced on us. I for one resent having to rebuy all my music on CD, and when they ditch CD player manufacture (DVD players are crap for playing CDs - really flat and dull sounding) and force a new format on us, I might well say "stuff it" and give up on music altogether! Corporate greed = another word for progress.

I mean, I have a UK copy of "Hunky dory" by David Bowie on 8track that outperforms the 2001 EMI CD reissue. And I'm not joking. Sure there's a bit of hiss and some minor wow, but musically and soniically it's streets ahead. The timpani on the end of "Life on mars?" on the 8track sounds like a timpani; the one on the CD sounds like someone slapping a kipper against a kitchen worktop. Even the original US-pressed 1983 RCA CD copy I have of this pees on the 2001 copy from a great height! Let's not even mention the LP...

You can't claim that 30 years' age on the mastertape is why the CD sounds crap either - this 8track's been to hell and back and is the same age as the master, with much slower tape speed and no environmentally controlled long term storage (I got it from a carboot sale!). I blame digital for most of today's musical ills - it's what made Kylie Minogue sing in key, what made Oasis "talented", and what removed the soul from all bands' albums. Listen to "Elephant" by the White Stripes to hear what an album SHOULD sound like (direct to 8 track open reel - all valve; even on the grossly-inferior CD format, it sounds good; on vinyl.. well...). I tell you one thing - manufactured crap like The Spice Girls would have got nowhere without pro-tools and other digital malarky.

...and here's the killer; my turntable/arm/cart/phono stage cost a quarter of my CD player - and still sounds far better. Figure that one out.

I've heard pre-recorded (as in shop-bought) cassettes that outperform remastered CDs - my original 1982 unbarcoded tape copy of "Love over gold" by Dire Straits is one such example.

As for washing machines that are designed to break after 5 years, and computers that have, what, a six-month lifecycle at best, and other such crimes to our bank balances and the environment, SOMETHING'S got to give...