OK, I'm only posting this so that Altec's conservative thoughts will look positively progressive. (Actually I think I told him this story once.)

MANY years ago, I purchased a Granada model Victrola at an antique store. It's an ancient acoustical, windup record player circa 1925 (unfortunately, my ex-wife took it in the divorce). When I got it home, I put in an old acoustical recording and, despite the high level of surface noise and the artificial resonances of the acoustical recording (no mics here, they sang into the horn and a needle scratched the wax), there was SOMETHING about that recording that sounded incredibly real. My only explanation was that some aspect of the performance was directly conveyed in that primitive recording process that was missing with the advent of electrical recording.

Would I want to listen to music that way? Absolutely not. But it taught me that A.)I'm crazy (high likelihood), or B.)the human ear is capable of resolving incredible subtlety in sounds, no matter what compromises may be in place.

Sooo, there is something that IMO is even more direct than electrically recording vinyl playback and that is acoustically recorded vinyl playback.

OK, it's time for me to return to the secure area. I'll write again when the doctor lets me near the computer. (Sure beats writing with crayon.)

We now return to our conversation about the 997 (which I'm HIGHLY anticipating, by the way.)