After a steady string of Pixar movies, my 3.5 year old's favorite movie is now Pinocchio. Maybe he's finally ready for his first vinyl 
Pulled the trigger on one, kind of wish I'd gotten two so I could leave one sealed.
The record player on sellout is cool if you want to rip, otherwise look around local for a used one. You can buy very nice quality players for ridiculously cheap these days. We picked up a Benjamin Miracord table with a good Stanton cartridge in it at a swap meet for $10. Of course ones of these might be more appropriate in this case:
Mickey Mouse Record Player
Records _can_ sound better than CDs, but usually don't. Most people today believe the marketing hype that digital is somehow infinitely superior to drab old analog. The reality is that sound is analog, as is video. We hear and see in analog. Digital at its very best is a good approximation of analog. Often its not a very good approximation, but good enough to get by. Analog can be superior, but is inherently much more susceptible to degradation and noise. For the most part with digital you either get the signal back or you don't. There is some grey area where you get it back with errors, but mostly you get it or you don't. Analog, every little imperfection you hear/see. If your equipment and source material aren't perfect, you'll know it. In that sense digital tends to look better for most people most of the time, but can never be better than or in most case as good as the best in true analog reproduction. Most CDs and movies are still captured on tape and film masters, because their equivalent digital resolution and dynamic range is orders of magnitude beyond the current state of the art in digital.
Standard 35mm film is equivilent to ~10MP. The best film on the best equiptment is estimated around 50MP. IMAX movie cameras at about 10X the frame area, or 500MP equivilent. Medium format still cameras use film about the same size. Large format cameras start at 4x5" film, which would be equivilent to 17.4 GP, and goes up from there.
On the other hand, my ipod sounds way better than my walkman used to. Still, the most amazing recording I have ever heard was a 1908ish single sided 78 of Caruso played on a Victorola. This was before electronic recording, so it was probaly the worlds greatest singer of all time standing in front of a big horn making a needle cut into wax with the shear force of his voice. That wax impression was then copied, picked up by another needle, vibrating a diaphram through another horn directly to my ears. Audio-phonically it was a noisy band limited mess. But it was the most powerful, impactful, amazing recording of anything I've ever heard.
Rob
