Why vinyl

@gjfalls I am in the same age category like you, got my first LP in 1962 and kept collecting until a few years ago. Moved from rock, soul, pop, to jazz and classical. I have 1000s of LPs (and also many CDs). What helped was when everybody dumped their records I could buy classical and jazz records for ridiculous low prices. Always considered LP sounding better than CD or streaming. But since a little more than a year I invested in a great streamer and DAC (Metronome DSS end Le DAC 2), I am not so sure anymore. Just like you, I cannot say one is better than the other. This Sunday morning I listened to a Fauré violin sonata by Arthur Grumiaux (excellent Philips pressing, like all Philips pressings of that period). It sounded great and warm. After that I listened to the Qobuz version. Also great, maybe less warm but definitely more detailed. But I need to hear LP and streaming side-by-side to hear the differences. Both are perfect to listen to, and no need to choose.

But getting older, I tend to listen primarily to Qobuz, and only occasionally to LPs. For me, convenience has become more important than good, better, best. I assume that will the case for many of us at that age.

@gjfalls thank you for the kind words! 

Why vinyl?

I’ve spent plenty of time with great digital—streaming, files, DACs that measure and sound superb. Convenience, silence, precision. All real advantages.

And yet… vinyl keeps pulling me back.

For me, it isn’t nostalgia or surface noise romanticism. It’s about engagement. Vinyl demands participation: choosing a record, cleaning it, cueing the arm, sitting down with intention. That ritual slows me down—and in doing so, changes how I listen.

Sonically, what keeps me is not “warmth” in the caricature sense. It’s scale, texture, and flow. Properly set up, vinyl presents instruments with body and continuity that feels less segmented, less processed. Timing feels human. Dynamics breathe. The music unfolds rather than being “delivered”.

I also find vinyl more forgiving without being dull. Poor recordings can still be enjoyable; great recordings can be transcendent. There’s a coherence to the presentation that makes me listen to albums—whole sides—rather than tracks.

Is vinyl perfect? Of course not. It’s fussy, expensive, and occasionally maddening. But the payoff is that it turns listening into an experience rather than a background activity. When I play records, I’m present in a way I’m often not with digital.

Digital is astonishing. Vinyl is involving.

I’m grateful we don’t have to choose just one.

Experience has a sound.

Two reasons:

1) vinyl masters are actually pretty frequently superior to digital masters (though the opposite can be true as well, obviously);

2) I’m just a sucker or second harmonic distortion!

I have no idea why, but when I put the same album on my turntable, streamer and CD player and switch between them the vinyl always sounds better to me.

I'm 66 and I've been listening to and collecting vinyl since I was 9. My uncle gave me the first two Beatles LP's in 1967 and I never stopped listening or collecting.

When the CD craze hit in the 80's I amassed a collection of around 1500 because I believed they were better at the time and vinyl all but disappeared for some time.

I will never try and say vinyl is "better", but I enjoy listening to it more than any other format.