I will go to HD Tracks first, and if the title is not available there, I’ll buy the CD from Amazon. Mike Campbell’s (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) band The Dirty Knobs, is an example. I do buy vinyl occasionally, but the physical quality of modern vinyl, combined with modern production methods, just doesn’t allow vinyl to do the voodoo that it can do. And I’m a recording engineer, with several excellent playback systems. I listened to a Buddy Miles record the other night, a scratched up beat to hell flea market find that didn’t even have a jacket. And it was transfixing. Played back through a pair of Tannoy PBM-8s. So technical perfection really has little to do with it sometimes. Sometimes the emotion will still come through. Everything converts to Apple Lossless, into iTunes/Music, then digitally out of a Mac mini using Bit Perfect. I keep backups of the original .flac files offsite. I still buy used SACDs and BluRay editions of audio surround releases and concert films too, which go on my Emby server. The vinyl stays downstairs on those systems, I don’t bother to transfer any of that to digital, even with Avid and Antelope converters sitting right there. I prefer the ritual of vinyl, which usually involves a cocktail, a sofa, and good company:-)
That Sansui cassette deck is a fantastic piece of gear. I had one back in the day, and recently picked up an AIWA F990 ,(?) and Maxells and TDKs recorded on that Sansui back in the 80s sound great all these years later. You can tweak the bias internally on that unit to really work well with Maxells, especially the MX series of metal tapes.