A 20 year old flagship analogue 2ch preamp isn't very old, A 20 old entry level digital / analogue 2ch preamp will be ancient well before it turns 20.
When the C100 was made in 1998, there wasn't very many digital cameras. Kodak modified cameras like the Cannon EOS 1n by adding a digital back because Canon nor Nikon had professional digital cameras yet. Professional companies like the media would buy them at $20,000.00 each. Kinda a clunky 2 mega pixel camera that needed all sorts of support to transfer the images to a computer. They would then need to reduce the size of that image and zip file it to get it to their headquarters over severely limited email, or send a fax of the image. Today you can find these camera bodies for $150.00 or less. But the problem is getting them to work with todays computers.
I bring this up because today a $400 iPhone can do a lot more and has other uses than a $20,000.00 SLR did in 1998. Conversely a 2009 iPhone 4 without anymore support from apple has troubles talking to apples OS today. As soon as you buy something digital the clock is ticking to obsoleteness, it may not even talk to a computer in 10 years.
I bought my C100 used 5 years ago and now it's 20 years old, but I'll never need to worry about what the digital world is doing. I can simply add current digital equipment every few years or as needed.
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