The thread kinda says it all, doesn't it? What's your prefered format and why?
As for me:
1. Vinyl
To me, vinyl sounds warmer than tapes and CDs, and there's something very magical about flipping it over after you've heard the A-side. It's a format for when you're gonna focus soly on the music an pay a little extra attention to the music. Get yourself a glass of your finest whisky/wine/beer and enjoy the huge artwork, read the lyrics (if it has that) and just enjoy the music to the fullest without fuckign around with your computer or phone or anything else. It's the format which makes listening to music a bit more special.
2. Tapes
A small, beautiful format which tts rough sound makes it perfect for demos and certain genres (black/death/thrash metal for instance), and it's a fantasticly charming format to me. It's a fun format, and a format that gives me a bit extra that the CDs lack. It's cheap too, which makes it possible to get three of these for the price of one CD.
On the minus side it's a format that will get damaged over time no matter how well you take care of it. Time will fuck 'em up, even if you don't, and that sucks. But it's worth it.
3. CDs
Sounds good, but gives me nothing more than the music, and for someone who pays for a lot more than just the music there's nothing to gain here really. Sounds good and is easy to deal with and take care of, but the artwork's small as fuck and there's nothing special about it. Nothing special at all, and a format I spend close to nowt on. I'll only spend money on CDs if it's something really special or a band I collect (Sigh). But that's it for me. Most of my CDs are laying in bags somewhere and I'm not using them other than in the car and whenever we're getting drunk.
And you?