"I Swapped Spotify for Vinyl and It Changed My Life"

[JP]

Reward systems and habits would be an interesting path to explore.

 

[Taddpole]

I get that. I'm starting to feel that way about my large blu ray movie collection. I'd frankly like to ditch it all for the reasons you give, and would move to just streaming. (My main issue is the poor selection of movies on streaming - many in my physical collection aren't available on streaming).

Yeah that's one of the issues with video, they've carved up the market into small chunks. Other one is that streaming quality for video is lower quality than blu ray, even more so during the start of the pandemic when the streaming companies were limiting bandwidth unsure if they've stopped doing that tbh.

 

[jsrtheta]

Cool.

It's like how a lot of people like to bring "real" books to read on vacations, or to just curl up on the sofa with a real book, rather than reading on an iPad or whatever. It just makes reading books more appealing. It's one reason physical books never went away like some assumed they might when the kindle showed up. Plus, and this is a big thing, spinning vinyl, like reading a paperback book, is a wonderful way to unplug from digital life for a while. Working on screens all day, with screens tugging for my attention all the time (my phone, my car's wretched dashboard "infotainment system" screen etc), it's just nice to take a break, listen to music and not have to interact with yet another g*d d*amned computer system or screen.

I only read real, physical books.

 

[MaxBuck]

Phonograph records, physical newspapers and physical books are all in my rearview mirror. In retrospect they all strike me as a pointless waste of time, energy and space given my priorities and preferences. But if others enjoy them, they should certainly do so.

 

[Ken1951]

Since getting a hand-me-down iPad from son #1, 8 or so years ago, I read almost 99.9% books on the Kindle App . Something like 200 titles per year. Love it. Also use zero physical media for music. Life is easy as well as super good!

 

[jsrtheta]

Human perception is complex, as anyone on this site should know, hence there are all sorts of influences in how one person may experience something vs another. I enjoy looking at a nice garden. But I hate gardening. I have a friend who is in to gardening. For him all the work enhances his appreciation of his garden. For me, if I had to devote that amount of work to my garden I'd never want to look at a flower again.
Different strokes and all that.

When I was a (much) younger man, I used to race yachts out of Chicago. I loved sailing, day sailing, night sailing, even bad weather sailing. I just loved it.

I started crewing on races to jump-start my skills. I didn't really care if we won. I raced mainly Tartan Tens. Then a guy I knew bought a new design, a Pearson Flyer 30. He was looking to put a crew together, so I signed up. After the first race, it was still early afternoon, and I figured we'd crack open some beers and just day sail. But he wanted to head in. I said it was a great day to be on the water, we had a brand new boat, what was the rush to head in? Everyone else wanted to sail the afternoon away, but he said no, he just was interested in racing. He said he didn't even like sailing.

I was flabbergasted. How could he not like sailing?

I felt sorry for him.

 

[mhardy6647]

I joined the Flat Earth Society and it completely changed my life.

Folks all around the globe have reported the same thing!

 

[Galliardist]

This is not a "problem" unless you make it one. why cant u allow her relationship with music to be her preference without that having to be justified or adhering to your own specific standards?

Interesting points. Except it seems to me you are battling against the norms built in to human psychology - e.g. "the medium shouldn't influence our experience or relationship to the music." But it DOES. That's how humans are built. It's almost like saying "if a recipe is turning out too sweet, don't attempt to balance it by adding acidity - you shouldn't have to do that, just re-orient your attitude towards the sweetness." Except that's how we are built: adding acidity will influence our perception of the sweetness. Hence good cooks work with this, exploit how our perception works, in cooking.

Same with physical media like records. It's just a fact that for some the physical aspects of the media enrich and enhance their attention and attraction to some of the music. It's not something to get rid of (unless it's deleterious somehow), it's something to enjoy. Just like how reading a real book can, among other things, allow one to unplug from digital life which for some can enhance the feeling of relaxation and escapism from "life being online."

Similarly, you seem to imply that limiting options is automatically a bad thing. But "too many options" aren't always the best thing for everyone.
Limiting options...at least by curating them...can have a salutary effect. Just as I (and that author and plenty of others) found out once we experienced having "limitless" options at our fingertips that diluted our attending to those options. With my LPs they are of necessity carefully curated purchases of music I really love. So my music listening experience is helped in this way. But it doesn't mean the options for music on vinyl is terribly limiting. Far from it: you could spend a lifetime and never explore all of it. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, many young people getting in to vinyl extol music they would never have come across or been driven to discover if left to streaming (and the way algorithms tend to guide one's streaming habits).

But it is a problem. And I'm not addressing the author of the article here (of course she might be an ASR member, but I highly doubt it). I'm addressing and bringing this up with a section of the audiophile community.
In other environments, I might have used a milder negative word than "problem". It may well be a downside that the author lives with, not something life-defining or anything like that. I also described her response as "fetishising" vinyl. That's a strong response on my part, and not one that I would use for either of you. Even though your choices may seem similar on the surface, I see something different in her wording, and something that I see more strongly in some of the posters here and more so on other forums.

On problems. They vary a lot in intensity -
Last night I stayed up late listening to music when I should be going to bed at a reasonable time. That's a problem. It's probably also led to me being in a more positive mood this morning. Maybe I need to be aware of both things.
I've spent more on equipment in the last year than I needed to. I can afford it. It's still something I need to be aware of.
I'm on medications that affect my immune system. During a pandemic, that's a big problem. It's not one I'm going to "solve" in a hurry, I have to live with it to do things like, well, walk a reasonable distance without soreness and stiffness.

So, we all have problems that we either choose or have to live with.

And I'm not disputing that there are also advantages to her particular choices, either.

As an aside, our various responses here are all enlightening in that regard. We either are holding up our own standards (guilty as charged), or seeing this as about our own choices rather than that of the author, or heading straight to a gear centred response.

 

[Deleted member 23424]

As a former vinyl, or "record" as they were known, buyer I fully understand the tactile aspect, but from an environmental standpoint vinyl can get in the bin.

The recycling bin, obviously, but in the bin all the same.

Fair enough someone enjoying a vintage collection but enough with the unnecessary endless plastic.

 

[jsrtheta]

I had hundreds of LPs. When CDs came out I switched pretty fast. To me, the difference in noise floor was the key, plus I didn't have to worry about cleaning, avoiding warping, isolating the turntable in my college dorm room, etc.

Hear, hear. When I finally got a CD player and wired it into my JVC receiver, then inserted one of my first CDs - Crowded House, Temple of Low Men - it was like a junkie's first taste of heroin: Hooked. It was miraculous.

When I moved, I gave almost all of my vinyl (saving LPs that hadn't been released on CD yet) to my best friend. When he put it all in the trunk, his rear end dropped about a foot. He was happy as hell. So was I, not having to cart all that weight 900 miles west.

Also like a junkie, I couldn't buy enough CDs, so strong was the addiction. But unlike heroin, this was a great jones to have.

There are a lot articles like the one posted, and to me they're all yadda-yadda. Noise. Very happy for them, yadda-yadda, glad you're enjoying it. But give me the hard stuff any day - I'll be mainlining digital till the day I die.

 

[rman9]

Yeah that's one of the issues with video, they've carved up the market into small chunks. Other one is that streaming quality for video is lower quality than blu ray, even more so during the start of the pandemic when the streaming companies were limiting bandwidth unsure if they've stopped doing that tbh.

Now with ultra-hd movie disks, bluray seems obsolete.. Not sure when my 4k collection is going to become obsolete

 

[ThatM1key]

Now with ultra-hd movie disks, bluray seems obsolete.. Not sure when my 4k collection is going to become obsolete

Blu-rays will last longer than hard drives. Blu-rays are not obsolete. Many people still buy them because the streaming services don't offer what the Blu-ray itself can, better video and audio quality.

 

[rwortman]

Everyone I knew that instantly switched from vinyl to CD had a crap turntable with a $10 cartridge, and trashed records. The bottom sonic quality for vinyl was and is a lot lower than digital. I remember the first time I heard a CD player when someone I knew paid and obscene amount of money for one of the first ones released. I thought it sounded awful. It wasn’t until the mid 90’s that CD’s started sounding better than clean records on a good turntable. Today a good clean old pressing of music recorded in the 50’s or 60’s can sound better than a digital transfer made from old faded and hissy tapes. The noise reduction they use kills some of the music.

 

[Old Listener]

Hi.

Hope this is not construed as crapping on a thread but rather of a , very , contrarian view:

Interesting experiences. Very , very personal. I understand the singing paeans to Vinyl and the ritual associated with playing it ... These however don't, can't reflect the view of the majority, I would guess 99.999999%, of the world population. This is not because of the lack of fidelity of the medium. No! It is because it no longer accomplishes itself as well of its primary function, as the now commonly available digital alternatives: Music is an art form enjoyed by the world population, for so many societal and human functions. Vinyl was an intermediary steps into bringing Music to the people. We are past it/them/LP... just like we are past mechanical watches... I for one, love my mechanical, inaccurate watches and have a few, whose value for me, is certainly not into what should have been their primary function, which is to tell the time. Same with Vinyl.
If it floats someone's boat.. then fine, but it doesn't do much for music reproduction or in bringing it to most.
Since making of Spotify my primary music source, I have never enjoyed so much music (and enjoyed music so much) in my 5 decades of very passionate music listening .
Sorry.

peace.

I lived with LPs for most of two decades and was glad to put them behind me.

Practical reasons why 99.999999%, of the world population aren't interested in LPs even if you call them vinyl:

You can't play them in a car.
You can play them as you walk around or exercise.
An LP that you spent good money on might have a noisy surface, scratches, a warp that launches the stylus or every revolution, an off center hole or a locked groove
A decent turntable and cartridge costs real money.

I'll stop.

 

[DanielT]

It's not about changing. There is nothing to worry about, test both streaming and turntable.

Test turntables again if it was many years since you had one. You may or may not think it's fun. You may want to play more vinyl (maybe in the beginning, the pleasure of the news) or not. Buy a used turntable and test. If you like it, keep it, if you do not like it, sell the turntable. Not harder or more complicated than that.

For example (just because it's my model of turntable):

Thorens TD 166

Used Thorens TD 166 Turntables for Sale | HifiShark.com

Used Thorens TD 166 Turntables for sale on 400+ second hand hifi sites & shops. Use Hifi Shark to monitor pricing and global availability

www.hifishark.com

Nothing special about it. It does its job, works as it should. Not "high end" but absolutely ok. Regular model. Used prices quite stable. A safe card to test. Does not cost much.Just to test on.

Edit:
It was just an example of a turntable. There are of course lots of other brands and models in about the same price range. Test one.

Edit 2:
You do what you feel for and what you think is fun. In addition, a turntable I think belongs with other vintage by the way. Vintage amp / receiver and, or vintage speakers. To get a complete solution, maximize the feeling with the vinyl. Maybe as a secondary solution? But again, you do what you want and feel for.

 

[ThatM1key]

I lived with LPs for most of two decades and was glad to put them behind me.

Practical reasons why 99.999999%, of the world population aren't interested in LPs even if you call them vinyl:

You can't play them in a car.
You can play them as you walk around or exercise.
An LP that you spent good money on might have a noisy surface, scratches, a warp that launches the stylus or every revolution, an off center hole or a locked groove
A decent turntable and cartridge costs real money.

I'll stop.

 

[DanielT]

.... , with a level of convenience unmatched in human history.....

That's how it is. Now I do not know how long it took to fix that playlist but one thing I'm sure of. If I were to put those songs together using vinyl records then .... then I'm talking pretty much $ and it would take time ... a lot of time ... to buy all of them.

Songs that depict real events...Now also, playlist on Spotify

What tips do you have to give? It can be any type of event. I myself discovered this live version from the thread about Live Albums. Undoubtedly, it also fits into this thread: https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/live-albums.42/page-12 Edit: I'm creating a list now. Have...

audiosciencereview.com

By the way, just one of several playlists I have. In the same way as probably many others who stream have.

OT
Edit:
Speaking of new times. To take part in lots of music in a smooth way:

CD Quality Internet Radio

How to listen to CD Quality Internet Radio in lossless FLAC with browsers and apps plus a list of CD Quality Internet Radio stations.

www.hiresaudio.online

 

[Old Listener]

Did promise but you had to pull me back...
Not being pedantic but...
Convenience is not a function, it is an attribute. Streaming' function is to deliver music (and some other media), and it acquits itself of such, with a level of convenience unmatched in human history.

Really out this time...

Peace.

Recorded music in any form is a convenience (and one that I am most grateful for). I can listen to performances by musicians long dead in places I've never been to.

Sometimes audiophiles seem blind to what's most important.

 

[Frgirard]

Recorded music in any form is a convenience (and one that I am most grateful for). I can listen to performances by musicians long dead in places I've never been to.

Sometimes audiophiles seem blind to what's most important.

Hello, are you Indiana Jones?

 

[DanielT]

Hello, are you Indiana Jones?

He he,

... as mentioned earlier. New times now, smoothly: