Oh man, don't get me started on Vinyl! I have two direct drive and one belt drive turntable and an extensive selection of vinyl. I enjoy listening to records. I still consider it quaint and quite dead as anything other than a small niche market.
And I will personally come over there and throttle anyone who, while describing the sound of vinyl, uses, in any way, the word "warm" or any of it's derivatives.
BTW, my buddies and I were talking about "chip based" playback in 1978. I do think the day of mechanical playback of ANY sort is quickly coming to a close. I am thinking maybe a music "skin patch" which the brain can be trained to read. Perhaps it could receive a satelite signal. Perhaps it could help you make up your mind on what to do in situations from time to time. You know, like what to buy, where to go - stuff like that...
I still like to have a hardcopy of what I own (for backup, packaging, resale, etc.) but the new trend seems to be uploading a person's full library to a harddrive and using THAT for playback.
No scratching of CDs, no muss, no fuss. No discs getting lost, etc.