Vinyl vs Streaming

@pprocter No need to be sorry. It’s perfectly ok for us to see things differently. It’d be a boring world if we were all the same as each other.

I like it when music comes in bite size chunks. For me, one of the downsides of CD was that they sometimes seemed to go for too long. Changing sides and cleaning routines are just part the sacred ritual of vinyl for mindful listening that we discussed in another thread last year.

I totally get that this can all be too much of a distraction for many people. Nevertheless, it’s comforting for me. In any case, the sound makes it all worthwhile. I hope I’m not coming over as dogmatic about vinyl because I am enjoying streaming music too. As I am now discovering, both have their sonic benefits.

I stopped spinning vinyl and now only stream or spin CDs/blurays.  I miss the album packaging and experience of reading the covers and any gatefold content while listening but digital sounds better IMO on my systems, is easier to access and the amount of content online is staggering. 

I only stream and listen to a lot of ECM jazz recordings. Recently I thought about buying a TT just for the sake of owning a cool piece of hardware but suddenly realized that almost everything I listen to isn't available on vinyl.  So I will continue building on the digital front end - better streamer and better DAC. Right now my Innuos Pulsar and Accuphase DC-37 DAC give me everything I need and like. 

Hello fellow Audiophiles,

Here is my vinyl rig and my digital rig.

Vinyl: Triangle Art signature(older much more massive) turntable, Tri-Planar 12" tonearm, Dynavector XV-1t cartridge, silver stepup transformers, Modwright phono pre with silver output transformers.

Digital: Taiko Extreme server, Audio Mirror WAVE DAC.

I find digital to be much more revealing, detailed, better dynamics and soundstage, refined, tonally balanced and  makes you sucked in to the music.

I pay $16-18 for Qobuz. I have access to tens of thousands albums, some of which has never been released in vinyl format.

Also someone said in this forum "pay once and listen many times". While is thrue,

You never know how vinyl you buy will sound until you buy and put it on your turntable. I have been disappointed many time by the sound quality of the vinyl album, not to mention that many of the albums claiming are made "direct from analog master" are actually made from a digital master, not analog. Example - MoFi. On top of that my yearly subscription to Qobuz is sometimes less that the price of high quality vinyl record.

@fire_water ECM puts every release out on vinyl. Their record quality is renowned and quite reliable. I just ordered Jarrett - Deer Head box set 4LPs this morning on sale at Music Direct. While I also stream many ECM titles and they do sound great, some of their LPs are truly gobsmackingly amazing. Cheers,

Spencer