Okay,
my two cents:
One issue I haven't seen mentioned here is the higher heat resistance of CDs. Sure, they will degrade when exposed to high temeperatures, but vinyl has a lower melting point, and is more likely to go soft when stored in an attic over the summer.
- I don't know what kallen is talking about when he says that just one scratch is enough to ruin a cd. When I was in college, one of my classmates had, for some reason, a CD of Barney songs for kids. One of his suitemates nailed the CD to the door. It could still play songs. Sure, if you scratch a CD hard enough, it'll be busted. That's true for pretty much any efficient recording medium. He also claims that it's more involved to rip sounds from vinyl.
- Connect speaker out from turntable to mic in on computer.
- Record sound into .wav
- Convert .wav to mp3
Still dirt
simple.
As for the charges of commercialism, it is ludicrously easy these days to put out your own DIY CD. If you don't want to send your music to mp3.com to be pressed just in time for custom orders, you can always get your own cd burner or take it to a local house to get them burned in bulk for about 50 cents apiece. Today, you can go to a club, listen to a local, dirt-poor band, and then buy their cd for 5 bucks afterwards. How much more independant can you get?