Why do you listen to records?

I bought 4 boxes of classical records from the J. Robert Oppenheimer house. The records came from the estate of the couple who bought the home from Oppenheimer. They both lived to be over 100 years old and had recently passed away. The records were part of a fundraising event to turn the house into a museum. It is pretty cool to play records that were once played in the house of Oppenheimer and by this amazing physicist couple.

These records deserved an upgrade to my system, so I bought a Miyajima mono cartridge, upgraded another cartridge with VAS, got better cables, and found a deal on a KL Audio record cleaner. All game changers, but the KL Audio cleaner was the coup d’etat. It is so quick and easy to use and only requires distilled water. Now, my analog front end sounds better than my digital front end. There is a purity to the sound that is hard for me to describe, so that is what I mainly listen to nowadays.

I like turtles.

Bill

@kerrybh  If you want lower profile starving artists to have a living wage (be able to pursue their art), you need to buy the hard media (cd or vinyl), or the digital album (bandcamp, qobuz, etc) for permanent ownership. They are unable to get a living wage from the qobuz, tidal, spotify, whatever music rental/music discovery services.

If you like the album you discovered, buy it (not required for taylor swift or pink floyd of course, they are already rich).

I stream using Qobuz and Tidal, with Roon. The variety and convenience is incredible. Anything you want at your fingertips for a few bucks a month. I’ve discovered dozens of musicians that I love through Roon. This would not happen with vinyl-I’m not buying records of artists I’ve never heard. So the ability to discover new music is, for me, a huge advantage.

@moonwatcher  +100

Look at it this way:  For the last 40 years recording studios have invested heavily in PCM digital. The guys who understood how to master well for vinyl are long retired or dead. 

@deep_333 You make a good point and in many cases I have bought albums of artists I've discovered through streaming if they publish on vinyl. I've also bought show tickets when a few of these artists have been in my area. I agree that what they get from streaming services is too little. Personally, I'd be happy to pay another five or ten bucks a month if it all went to the artists. These artists do get a benefit, however, from appearing on streaming platforms-I own several albums I'd never have bought without discovering the artists by streaming-not saying its enough, but its a benefit.