This isn’t a discussion on which medium sounds better, analogue or digital, vinyl or CD (or SACD). There are already plenty of articles disputing either way. My only two cents on this is that some vinyl recordings sound incredible on a good analogue system, way beyond what any CD can offer, though CDs offer accurate sound reproduction.

No, this article will tackle listening to music as an experience and how the digital age has changed that. The two extremes are the slow, involved process of listening to an LP and the quick “take-out” experience of listening to digital audio files on a media player, be it an iPod, a Sonos system etc. It’s a subject that has not received much attention and is analogous to the comparison of the reading experience between the good old-fashioned book and the rapidly emerging eBook.

I will certainly not argue that we should trash our PMPs or digital audio systems and go back to listening music on vinyl. I store 95% of my music as digital audio files on a NAS and mostly listen to it from a computer and on the go on a Zune HD. But then I also have a relatively small collection of LPs that provide something more than a quick fix.
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