<heavily edited for brevity>

Lots o' luck, trying to find a cheap USB phonograph with a user-adjustable
"antiskating weight."

There's hardly any >need< to do so! A "laser assembly" is rather unlikely to
wear out, during a CD player's serviceable lifetime.

Why >should< he care about anything else, eh? Whether Compact Discs or vinyl
records are involved, the idea is to produce "high fidelity" sound, suited
to the listener's personal tastes.

Knowledge of how an electronic device operates, is of no assistance toward
the true goal of musical enjoyment.

On a related note, I recall horror stories concerning Russian television sets,
manufactured in the days of the former Soviet Union.

It seems that those Commie "boob tubes" of old, had a terrifying propensity
to catch fire...which, at the very least, was not exactly conducive to TV
viewing pleasure!

a properly stored and cleaned record sounds as good as a cd

that's a minus for records

strangely enough, I have many cds that are scratched, skipping but no
records. For records, they are,of course, less convenient than cds.

Indeed, it's going back. records are so much 20th century, cds are 21st. But
many people are nostalgic about the '80s. But the big thing is that with the
turntable-you participate in the whole thing. You pick the cartridge
yourself;possibly install it. Set the tracking weight yourself; set the
antiskating weight;put the turntable together, from its individually packed
pieces. While, OTOH the cd player is a "black box";you don't even know how
it exactly works and you have no access to its mechanism. (All turntable
owners can change the stylus, but how many people can change the cd's
equivalent, the laser assembly?). With the turntable, it's easy to
understand its operation, a very simple principle. I understand that what I
wrote does concern a small niche of people, not the general public. The
average Joe doesn't give a damn if his cd player has an infrared laser or a
red one, or if it's PCM modulated, all he cares is he presses play and he
has music. But what makes our western countries great is freedom;I want a
turntable, so I work and buy one! No chairman of the supreme Soviet decides
what should the people have, everything is available.

I was in Waterloo Records in Austin a few days ago and the had over 40
turntables (several brands) boxed and stacked on the floor; I assume
they had more in their stockroom. From the sound, storage space,
durability and convenience standpoints, though, I don't know why anyone
would want to go back.
Allen

I >do< use Amazon (and several similar sites), Herr Kaiser Wolfgang.

In reality, you're not quite so omniscient as you appear to be (in your
own delusions of grandeur). Else, you'd know that I've made numerous
online transactions, during my 14 years on the Internet.

For instance, I became an eBay member, in July, 2001; I'm strictly a
buyer, there, and presently have a feedback rating of 86 (100% positive).

Before that, I'd bought and sold some items, by way of Usenet "forsale"
groups. My best deal involved receiving $4,500 USD, for my 2,000+ comic
book collection (in the summer of 1996).

Also, I've downloaded countless freeware applications (among other
stuff) and gleaned vast amounts of information, on various subjects.

Best Buy most definitely >does< sell DSLR's -- and even Wal-Mart and
Target carry them, now. Nonetheless, I obtained my Pentax K100D (body
only) from BuyDig.com <http://www.buydig.com>, in Sept. '07.

Oh, yeah; the K100D is "certainly not high end," nor is it as "readily
available" as its Canon and Nikon rivals.

Which means *nowadays* it's just going to the next big
retailer, e.g. amazon, and putting the type of thing you
search into the search box.

You see, if one has no hands, feeds, tongue, nose etc. in order
to type with --- well, then, the word "readily" wouldn't apply
to typing, either!

But in your case it's just a case of being completely unskilled
in finding things on the web --- anyone with basic skills
does not need to scour the web at all.

Sears and Best Buy don't sell DSLRs, and certainly not high
end DSLRs.  By your logic, they are not readily available.

-Wolfgang

Okay, Wolfgang...you made your point. My response to you (and to a couple of
others, who replied to my earlier post) is that I'd qualified my statement,
by writing:

"readily available nowadays"

You see, if one must scour the World Wide Web, in order to find current
turntables of any adequacy -- well, then, the word "readily" need not
apply!

Here in the USA (until a few years ago), such electronic equipment was
sold in common "brick and mortar" stores (e.g., Sears and Best Buy).

Go to amazon and enter "turntable"
   http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=turntable&
x=0&y=0
and you'll find lots of non-USB turntables.  In fact, the
first page, there are 8 non-USB record players and only 7 USB
record players.

Additionally, look at the prices for USB turntables there.
You'll find quite a few costing well above $200, when some others
sell at $70 or $100 ... do you think the expensive ones must be
crude, just because they also have USB?

Some are, some write directly to CD.
   http://www.amazon.com/ION-USB-Turntable-Built-Recording/dp/B001B9SH4U/
   http://www.amazon.com/Crosley-CR6001A-BK-Archiver-Turntable-Black/dp/B001IVM51C/
   http://www.amazon.com/Crosley-CR2413A-BK-Memory-Master-Recorder/dp/B002P8M5FS/

Others have not only USB, but also S/PDIF ...
   http://www.amazon.com/Stanton-T-90-USB-TURNTABLE/dp/B000UBSY48/

I doubt this one is.  It's probably not what your oxygen-free
cable audiophile wants, though, I suspect it lacks buzzwords:
   http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/16/ces.luxury.turntable/index.html

Maybe you would now reconsider your position on the
availability of phonographs?

-Wolfgang

<edited for brevity>

Unfortunately, the only phonographs readily available nowadays,
seem to be of the crude USB variety. They're designed expressly
for the conversion of vinyl records into digital files, on home
computers.

Hence, these cheap, rudimentary turntables are mainly suited
to archival purposes, and little else...audiophiles, beware!

If you care for your data, you'll copy it to another medium before
DVDs in general stop being widely readable.  So it'll not be
any problem.

Yes.  Do you really think everyone is going to upgrade their
DVD collection to the newest fad of the industry?  Do you think
they'll outlaw DVDs?

See, the market for DVD readers will be there and hence it will be
supplied.  You can get a record player if you want, even today ...

-Wolfgang

So, will there be DVD readers a millenium from now?

Hell, will there be DVD readers even 10 years from now??

Supposed to last for 1000 years. Instead of an organic dye, they have some
mineral, and they need a special burner, that costs $5000. If you want to
send the data to the company, it costs 30 euros for a DVD (4.7 GB, of
course). Full story here, only in german:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/0,1518,661479,00.html