…. was not sound quality. Modern media and machines equal and regularly surpass vinyl as regards sound quality, and of course convenience is not up for debate.

Yes, yes, I know, nothing sounds like an LP. Keep using film and drinking the Kool Aid.

No, the saddest loss from the demise of vinyl was the loss of a large outlet for great photography, reproduced in a size that could be properly appreciated.

Compare the cover of an LP to the small CD box or the even (ridiculously) smaller iPod screen.

For those interested in these things, I use classic 1970s gear to listen to my two hundred or so LPs – Shure V15/III in an SME 3009 S2 Imp. arm on a Thorens TD150 turntable, thence to a Quad 33/303 pre/power amplifier and Bowers & Wilkins DM3 speakers in my small office. Truly international and look how times have changed: American/British/Swiss-German/British/British. Hmmm, lots of British. Now it bears adding that I have only owned one machine which surpases an early M Leica for build quality and for stunning aesthetic appeal. That British SME tone arm you see pictured above is that machine – a unique merging of sublime form and superb function. A very beautiful machine.

That’s the great Polish pianist (why not the best?) Krystian Zimerman tickling the ivories in an all Chopin disc (I ask again, why not the best?) and, by golly, I must say his magnificent instrument, a giant Steinway Grand, sounds …. well, as I know it to.

It is a fine photo of a young God on that cover, pensive, apprehensive even. Not the lionine gaze of Richter or the charm and confidence of Horowitz. All of this is clearly visible from the large picture that is the LP’s cover.

So shed a tear with me for the demise of that pain-in-the-rear-click-sizzle-pop-twenty-minute-a-side LP which was such a fine gallery for the photography of the world’s greatest talents.