A question I have been pondering for a while....What is the music format of the future? This is such a broad subject its hard to know where to start. So lets start somewhere around the beginning. Hundreds of years ago the only way to record music was to write it down. The 1800's came along with the new and exciting wax cylinder created by Thomas A. Edison. This format lasted for quite some time but then records hit the market and pretty much put wax cylinders on the back shelf. *smiles* Good old vinyl records. Their sound was so deep and full. For some reason we moved on farther than records. Maybe they were to big. Maybe they got warped and didn't play smoothly anymore. Who really knows what happened. Maybe 8-tracks and cassette tapes just seemed to be more handy. In 1983 cassette tape sales surpassed the trusty vinyl record by 27 million units according to the R.I.A.A.(Recording Inustry Association of America). In the same year we saw the introduction of what we know today, CDs. In 1991 vinyl records finally faded out to below the 10 million mark of sales. They were a supporting factor until about 1988. The downfall of vinyl took 9 years. CDs passed up our favorite cassette tapes with sales of 407 million compared to that of cassettes at 366 million in 1992. Cassettes were still around and goin' pretty stong until about the year 2000. They finally dipped below the 10 million units sold mark around 2004. It took a long and tiring 12 years for cassettes to fade out. Some believe that tape cassettes were drawn out by the record companies to prolong their life and increase revenues. After that we were left with CDs, but in 2004 we were already beginning our fated digital revolution. So now we are in 2006 and we have handy tools such as the iPod and other MP3 players. We can download individual songs or whole albums through many places such as iTunes, Morpheus, LimeWire or Kazaa. Whether it be legally or illegally we have found ways to get our music. So what's next? Will everything be digital in the years to come? Will the record companies figure out a good way to promote and sell music digitally? Will illegal downloading ever stop? What happens to the linear notes and album artwork that we find when opening a new CD? What about the lyrics or the simple "Thank Yous" that music lovers enjoy reading? How are you going to be able to download such prized items as boxed sets? What about the quality issue? Vinyl was definatly better quality sound than CDs are and CDs are a for sure better sound quality than MP3s. What if your computer crashes? You would have to back up all your music files on some kind of data disk, perhaps maybe a CD-R? So what would be the point of downloading all your music to your computer to put it on a CD anyways? What if you don't have a home computer or access to the internet or such sites as iTunes and Napster? In that case are you just simply denied the music you love? I personally love my CD and Vinyl record collection. I love the to have the physical product in my hands. I want to buy a new album, open the case, put in the CD and flip through the booklet it came with. In some ways it connects me to my favorite music. There is a certain nostalgia that comes with a physical product. Something you can hold and cherish. So what is your opinion? How do you feel about the digital revolution? What do you think is next?