Just how many times have you heard it said that proper DJs only use vinyl? Quite a few times, I don't doubt.
Here I am going to look at the pros and cons of each format, and give my own particular take on it.
Let's start with the big one: sound quality.
This is what the vinyl lovers just can't stop ramming down our throats, that vinyl just sounds better and warmer than a CD.
Well, technically, they are indeed correct here.
A digital music signal is just an approximation of an analogue signal - the wave signal is a series of small steps, as apposed to the true curve of an analogue signal.
But can you really tell the difference? Next time you are in a club and you can't see the DJ booth, see if you can tell.
You can't can you.
It just isn't an issue as far as I am concerned; maybe for the ultra-keen audiophile at home, but not in a club environment.
Then of course there is one aspect of sound quality where CDs are better than vinyl, and that is with regard to wear and tear, dust, scratches, etc.
A new piece of vinyl sounds great but it is only going to deteriorate over time.
Our digital recording, however, will still sound as good as the day it was bought.
How about portability? No contest there, as it is obviously a whole lot easier carrying a case of CDs around when compared to a few crates of vinyl.
Remember the record-carrying gophers that top DJs had to employ? Then of course there is the hardware.
A pair of Technics 1210s and a mixer is a serious lump of kit: both weighty and bulky.
Compare this to a pair of Pioneer CDJ 400s and a DJM-400 mixer.
The CD setup is a winner here by a mile.
What about the hands-on experience that you get with vinyl? You don't get that when you DJ with CD do you? Well, wrong again, I'm afraid.
Modern CD DJ players with a good jog wheel allow us to manually manipulate the music every bit as much as we can with a vinyl record.
Even scratching is possible.
At the CDJ-1000 launch party, Roger Sanchez famously challenged the press to turn to turn their backs and see if they could tell whether he was scratching on CD or vinyl.
Have a look at some of the CD DJ scratching videos on YouTube.
You will be amazed! Then there are quite a few things that you can do with a CD DJ player that you can't do with a vinyl deck: auto BPM, looping, setting and storing cue points, track search, CD-start, master tempo feature, etc.
The list goes on and on! Availability? Well, only a few years back this was one area where vinyl won hands down; it really was a struggle to find the tunes on CD.
That, however, has all changed.
Most dance music labels now release everything on both formats, and some are even now shifting towards CD and digital download only.
In fact, the advent of online digital music stores such as Beatport has now swung things firmly in favour of the CD and digital DJ.
Now anyone can find and download that track that they heard in the club last week, burn the track to CD, and hey presto, it's done.
No more tracking round the record shops, vainly searching for that elusive tune.
Give it ten years and let's see how many DJs are exclusively using vinyl.
Give it another ten years after that and will there by any DJs still playing on vinyl?