Hi there
Although "I'm almost retired" now -- one of my biggest money makers is STILL in cutting VINYL for people --I still have to use an XP VM for this - but they love the customised records and personalised labels I can make for them. I even get demands for 78 RPM's which can still be played on "Wind up gramophones".
It's quite fun though creating a 78 RPM for someone of a RAP record -- probably the "Rapper" wasn't even born when the 78 RPM died. (Although I prefer Classical music myself -- well give the customer what they want !!!).
The biggest problem was actually sourcing the Blanks -- now though they are easy to get hold of. Vinyl has been a total surprise to me --there's a HUGE and growing demand for it -- even in this digital age. !!!!
@all music lovers -- forget loss compressed mp3's -- FLAC can be handled and played by most decent music players -- even some smart phones have a decent enough quality DAC in them to handle FLAC. The cost of storage is really MINIMAL these days -- no reason to accept anything but the BEST quality for your music.
For copying on to a small SD card for portable devices and those hideous bud earphones --you can create mp3 versions from the FLAC - but it doesn't work properly the other way around. FLAC works, is reasonably LOSSELESSLY stored on HDD's , is NOT a proprietary format and you keep the ORIGINAL music.
I love listening to High Quality audio -- my reference speakers at home cost probably 2,000 USD a pop -- but I still get that great feeling when you hear a high quality VINYL record -- somehow there's something missing in the whole digital experience. -- I suppose it's a bit like saying how is a STRAD violin different to a top quality modern instrument -- scientific analysis of the sound waves etc can show the modern instrument faithfully creates the music better but I don't believe any violinist on this planet would refuse the chance to play a STRAD, and I'm sure concert goers would pay a premium to hear a violinist playing a STRAD.
For those of us who have missed out on the whole classical experience -- start with this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius
@Forum Mods -- Build 10041 -- can't cut and paste URL links unless you switch IE to "Compatabilty mode".
Cheers
jimbo