When hip-hop DJ Rob Swift went on tour with his group, the X-Ecutioners, earlier this year, he brought along the basics: vinyl records and a pair of turntables. This winter, though, when he sets out from New York on a solo tour, he intends to pack an additional device: a compact disc player.

He is not alone. Recently some of hip-hop's most celebrated DJs have similarly made the leap from analog to digital. From Jurassic 5's Cut Chemist to California's DJ Shadow to DJ Swamp, a member of Beck's touring band, the list of converts includes some of the most respected hip-hop DJs in America.

In hip-hop, CD players have always been second best, a tool unworthy of a serious performer.

In dance club performances and the highly specialized style known as turntablism, vinyl lets users cut quickly between two records, stop and start almost instantly and -- most important -- to manipulate the record against the needle to create the percussive scratching sounds that serve as rhythmic embellishments in the music.

Over the past year, however, digital technology has caught up with hip-hop's techniques. Companies such as Pioneer and Stanton have introduced digital devices that offer many of the same sonic qualities as traditional turntables. Fans of them are finding that these digital turntables also allow new creative freedoms and musical opportunities. The results are changing the nature of live performance while sparking some controversy among DJs.

"It's like if baseball players switched from wooden bats to aluminum," Rob Swift explained. "The aluminum bat will help you hit more home runs, but the feel just isn't the same."

Technology companies have been trying to attract the hip-hop market for years, but the earliest "CD turntables" couldn't meet the needs of working DJs. The newer machines are more successful in re-creating the sound and feel of a turntable.

Among the products attracting a hip-hop clientele are the Numark Axis 8, Stanton's Final Scratch, the American DJ Pro-Scratch 2 and the Pioneer CDJ-1000. The Pioneer CDJ-1000 has been the most successful at winning over hip-hop DJs, with prominent advocates like DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist.

A rectangular tabletop device, the CDJ-1000 imitates many of the tactile qualities of an analog record player, including the ability to "scratch" the compact disc and manually speed up or slow down a song. Users are not moving the CD against the laser; rather, using a touch-sensitive "jog dial" that imitates the spinning platter of a turntable, they are "scratching" a copy of the song stored in the memory.

Digital turntables have become so popular that they are now often de rigueur in many dance clubs, occupying a spot alongside the traditional turntable workhorse, the Technics 1200. "It's just become standard operating procedure," said Darren Ressler, senior manager of the DMC organization, which organizes yearly hip-hop DJ championships. "Every single nightclub has one now."

For DJs, this means they can come to a club armed with beats and songs they put together hours or even minutes before.

"I used to have to get samples and new beats cut onto a temporary acetate, which costs $50, doesn't sound very good or last very long," said DJ Swamp. "Now I just burn the music onto a CD. My laptop burns CDs internally, so I can be backstage putting stuff together right before I go onstage."

Cut Chemist takes the process even further; at recent shows, he has ventured into the crowd to record audience members talking, quickly burned a CD onstage and then immedi- ately scratched up the vocals using the CDJ-1000. "It's something that you could never do with vinyl or a traditional turntable," Cut Chemist said. "And the audience just freaks out when they hear it."

There are still pockets of resistance, though. Hip-hop DJs are a stubborn and purist bunch, dedicated to the pairing of vinyl and turntables for reasons romantic as well as rational. In a genre that is obsessed with notions of authenticity, vinyl signifies a connection to hip-hop's historical lineage, which starts with those South Bronx pioneers who began a global movement with little more than two turntables and a microphone.

In last year's turntablist documentary Scratch, DJs mused about the thrill of tracking down rare vinyl, a pursuit memorialized in many a song.

"I still like playing the original records," Cut Chemist said. "It's just a bigger thrill. If I pay money for that rare record, I want to share it with you. And it's just not the same with a CD."

So it is unsurprising that a philosophical divide has popped up along with the growth of this new technology, not dissimilar to the uproar when Bob Dylan and Miles Davis went electric in the 1960s. Even avid practitioners of the new, though, feel a tug toward the old.

"I feel kind of torn, because I like to consider myself a purist," Rob Swift said. "I just hope the turntable doesn't get lost in it all."

It well may not.

"Some people are always going to like the rawness of vinyl," said DJ Q-Bert, the pioneering San Francisco-based turntablist. "It's like what happened with keyboards. First there were pianos, and then there were electronic keyboards, and then a whole new style of music emerged.

"But," he added, "people are still playing pianos."