silverjet said:

Wow, great news! BTW, early albums?! I can't even find Seventh Tree! I came across a music store in Bristol and the guy tried to sell me Black Cherry for £150! So this is just capital news! Independent labels are very cool. If it was EMI I doubt you'd get an answer. Thanks so much by the way for asking them. (sorry for all the exclamation points I'm very excited :) )

As am I Silverjet, as am I !
I may even buy additional versions of what I already own if they are 180gr. I bought them on vinyl at the time they were released, except Black Cherry, which I got later for about £30. No sign of FM though this side of a ton. Hopefully, a lot if greedy dealers will weep in their beer.

If Black Cherry was rereleased on 180g I might dip into that. I have all the album vinyls but BC was the only one not on 180...

The only piece of Goldfrapp vinyl I ever bought was the "Satin Boys, Flaming Chic" 7 inch.  In those days, I attempted to buy everything by Goldfrapp -- and it was announced that the record would be vinyl only.  I later found that wasn't true, as I bought a CD promo of it.  I've played the CD, but have never played the vinyl.  I know where the CD is, but don't know where the vinyl is.  I assume that I still have it.  Perhaps I should seek it out, and maybe sell the thing (I don't suppose that I'll ever play it).

Whether or not it is now, vinyl has certainly not always been the premium listening format for music.  The first vinyl record was released in 1931.  That's actually quite recent.

^:)^ I'M SO HAPPY THEY ARE RE-RELEASING THEM ON VINYL ^:)^

Since I first bought the device, I've found the sound on my iPod a bit unsatisfactory, and only use it when travelling by train or bus.  My problem with it isn't just the earphones, I think.  Back when I had a day job, I used to take a CD and a Walkman into work for lunchtime listening.  Using similar earphones to the iPod ones, the CD Walkman didn't sound too bad.  I still have the Walkman and now use it with little speakers for listening to CDs when I'm in the bath or working in the kitchen.  Listening to vinyl in those places would pose problems.

rewak said:

On the quality thing though Urban, 24/96 or higher lossless digital downloads are now a very easy possibility and arguably those would be equal to or greater than a high quality vinyl rip. At that point it becomes a warmth of analog vs clarity of digital argument, but if the recording was all digital (which Frapps albums have been) it's a moot point.

I think it is a preference with some people of the clearness of the digital sound, and the lack of background noise that is always present on vinyl to the warmth of the vinyl sound. Digital does better suit genres that are digital in the nature of their creation, such as electronica and synth based music but the point is that the sampling process always involves breaking down the music itself into those ones and noughts. Even with electronica, the final output/ product is analogue as, if not, we would not hear it. Another of the common discussions with the digital/vinyl debate is listener fatigue. The clear sibilant sound of digital reproduction is regarded in some circles as being more wearing on the listener, leading to earlier termination of listening sessions than with vinyl.
A similar process occurs in photography with storing digital pictures in the JPEG format. Every time you save a picture as a JPEG, it goes through the similar process of dumping large quantities of the data to make it easier to store, and then the reverse process of recreating the file using the data that was retained and interpolating the data that would have been in between and recreating it. If during the editing process, a picture is edited/saved, then edited/saved say 1/2 dozen times, then every time it goes through that compression process, a little more of the original data (the picture in photography, the sound in music) is lost and replaced by the data the software is recreating. In theory, do it enough times and none of the original,data remains, just the facsimile created by the software.
There is more to this discussion than one of just preference for the sound produced by each method of playback. In today's world where music has become throw away, the CD has lost out to the digital download, bizarrely on the back of convenience, which is exactly how it gained its supremacy over vinyl in the first place. The music industry seems to be taking heed in its desperation to turn back the wave of piracy it is currently battling on the digital front. People think vinyl gives you more of an experience, more character and the feeling of getting more for your money, and it is one that people are turning back to and are prepared too pay for.

Listening back to back is the only way to resolve the question of sound quality. I would be interested to see how far the most up to date CD reproduction systems have come. Perhaps we need to arrange a big Frappy listening session !