When CDs came out we ran to it just to get away from the pops and clicks of vinyl. Everyone I grew up with couldn't wait to sell off their records and get CDs as soon as they could afford a player. I mostly had cassettes to sell off since I couldn't afford a decent turntable. 30+ years of digital enjoyment later and most of them have gaslighted themselves into believing they never liked CDs and missed the warm wonderful sound of vinyl. I know it isn't true. I remember them all praising CD, but nope that never happened. They have missed their records for three decades even though records were still being sold in the 90s and they could have been buying them the whole time.
When CD’s first came out I remember very distinctly how odd they sounded to my ears.
I was blown away by the clarity and lack of noise, but I also remember, at least with the first album I heard, a strangely icy, clinically clean and sometimes sort of thin quality to the sound. This could’ve been simply trying to adapt to the new level of low noise and clarity, but I do remember perceiving some slightly offputting qualities.
However, I was quickly went over by CDs, stopped buying records and never looked back for decades, and had no problem whatsoever fully enjoying the sound quality of CDs.
Still, occasionally listened to some records at some audiophile friends who maintained turntables and their vinyl collection, and I would always think “hmm…. That actually does sound really nice.” I could see things that I liked about both formats.
I later got a hold of my dad’s old techniques turntable, and would just occasionally plug it into my system to play some of the few dusty old records I owned. Just a trip down memory lane.
At some point I was gifted my father in law’s higher quality micro seiki turntable, and cartridge, and as I remember this somewhat coincided with vinyls rising profile. I noticed that with that better turntable the occasional record in my collection that was not in poor condition could sound really wonderful.
Once the vinyl revival kicked it really wasn’t anything like the 90s. Through that actual record releases were incredibly thin. They could never have satisfied me so I would never have bothered.
But once final started being produced again in large quantities with many diverse titles, it caught my attention.
And since I was a huge fan of soundtracks, and I noticed a whole bunch of soundtracks were being released on vinyl, which had never been released before, I started to buy a few of those.
It was when I was holding those new LP’s in my hand, just really beautifully done covers, and even the covers felt really nice in the hand, and these weren’t like my old moth eaten record covers, these were shiny and brand new. Likewise, shiny brand new vinyl slipped out into my hand, and played essentially noiselessly. And the sound quality was terrific. That was really the clicking point to me. Vinyl to me had always been associated with the past, with old creased and moth eaten records in my collection, scratchy sounding records, or the type of stuff found in the few Dusty old existing record stores through the 90s.
But the newly produced vinyl in my hands made vinyl feel fresh and new again.
And it made the whole experience, feel fresh and new again. And as I bought more and more records and played more records I upgraded my turntable so that they sounded fantastic. And then I started buying used vinyl as well, Always in near mint condition, and also a record cleaner. In which case I could enjoy mostly very clean and fantastic sounding records from the past as well. Because up till then I had only really had a few of my old mishandled records from when I was young, and I had never bought records since. And now I realized I could buy records that sounded essentially brand new and would sound great.
And ever since I’ve loved playing records and adding more to my collection.
So this is a case of somebody who did indeed dump records for CDs, and mostly listened to CDs through the 90s and 2000s, but when the vinyl revival happened, it made sense for me to get back into records.