Listening habits.

I don't always have an amp, but when I do, I listen to vinyl.

Exclusively LP?  Hardly.  I started out with vinyl in the late 60's, ended up with quite a collection.  Moved to CD's and am still purchasing them, new and used.  I prefer to "own" my music.  All CD's and some digitized vinyl are on a NAS for easy access.  I mostly listen to my own music, however I do stream to discover new music and artists, especially when in my vehicles.  Then once I find an artist worth further listening I purchase CD's.  I've given my LP's to my son who is now collecting vinyl.

Still buying vinyl, sacd and CDs.

Listen 80% vinyl, 10% silver disc and 5% tuner/streamer.

 Every month, dozens of CDs are released—many in classical, but not only. New CD player models have been coming to market over the past few years. The idea that vinyl sounds better has already been disputed. CDs sit in the middle ground between streaming and physical records.

I have often thought it would be nice to add a CD transport to my system. I traded in my beloved Linn CD12 player nearly twenty years ago when I started ripping. However, there are always other priorities for upgrading my system.

Also, the advantage of ripping is that I can also handle HDCD, SACD, DVDA and Blu-ray Audio formats. Once ripped the source is irrelevant. It’s so tidy. Add to that needle drops and downloads and the case for having a local library for FLAC and DSD files is overwhelming for me.

Then Roon came along and seamlessly integrated online albums from Qobuz. It also allowed me to go multi-room and dabble in surround music for a while.

I have enjoyed meeting the software challenges of all of this. Nevertheless, I can see that other people may prefer the simplicity of dropping a disc into the CD player. Plus there’s the appeal of physical media, although I have vinyl for that.

It’s great that we have so many choices. Yet curiously, the journey has led me back to vinyl.

Vinyl > Cassette > CD > Ripping > Downloads > Other Discs > Streaming > Vinyl