supposedly amazing phono stage (mm and mc) and balanced input option (would come in handy for my reel to reel and other "pro" level gear)
Reel to reel and vinyl making a comeback?
It never went away bro! In fact, vinyl lp's are currently the only real growth area in the music business. A small market share obviously, but doing a healthy business nonetheless. Lot's of younger people are getting into turntables and vinyl culture.
Almost all new releases (of quality) are offered on vinyl now.
I'll take a 180 gram audiophile vinyl pressing over a 16 bit cd any day!
DVD audio is much better than cd's, but because of illegal downloads and the stupidity of the music industry, DVD audio is stagnant and not really fixing the "problem" of the decline of recorded music sales. I believe this will (hopefully) change.
In audio, digital is only good for one thing (and up until high resolution dvd/sacd, just barely that), for storing/editing/processing analog sound.
But there are new developments that give me hope about digital audio. DSD (direct stream digital). It is the future, and is almost as rich and audiophile as analog recording is. You heard it here first kids!
In the music industry, most big budget projects are typically recorded onto two inch analog tape and then transferred to digital audio workstations for editing/mixing/mastering. Why? Because digital is just not quite "there" yet.
I'm currently working on a medium budget project being tracked (recorded) onto two inch tape. The cost of the tape alone is enough to finance a decent home recording set-up! But, quality cost $$$, and there are a few of us around who still care about that sort of thing.
That's also why most big budget films are still shot on film, not digital (unless it's mostly CGI/animation) and then transferred to digital for editing, etc.
So reel to reels and vinyl have not been replaced by digital. And until digital get's "better", they won't be.
