R.I.P. Technics 1200's

It's a sad day to discover that Technics will stop production of the indisputable institution of the 1200's in February 2010. It really is the seeming passing of an era. They'll be replacing it with the SL-DZ1200 digital turntable. And it's almost like rubbing salt in the wound to find out this digital turntable will play almost anything but vinyl, "The distinctive slip surface on the 10" platter lets you spin, scratch, break, and otherwise work a track in a number of formats, including CD, MP3 and AAC." I mean, c'mon, really? If they have the technology to pull this off I would think it wouldn't be too far off of a cry to enable it to actually play REAL vinyl as well.

Sigh.

There should be no war between digital and analog. There's no reason it should be an either/or situation. It's the unfortunate case that instead of a more utopian reality of coexisting with analog, digital is completely pushing it out. Why is it there can't be a more dynamic reality than just right/wrong, better/worse? Why should technology edge out tried and true solely for the sake of technology? The 'best' is not an absolute. I think this is a real root problem in a lot of instances of conflict whether it be opinion, race, nationalism, religion (no religion), etc. There's enough room in the world for a lot of things to coexist as opposed to being one or the other. To make another illustration along this line, yes, the U.S. is ONE of the best places in the world but it's not THE best, 'THE best' doesn't exist. To quote, "what might be right for you/might not be right for some."

I'm all about rockin and ipod or Serato but that doesn't mean I still don't want to go back to my real turntables. For reasons both logical and sentimental there's some music I just don't want in digital format- old school soul, r&b, jazz. Like I said, it's sad that what was a true innovator doesn't see the room for both. Technology is a good thing, it just shouldn't be the only thing.