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Help for an Old School Audiophile

I'm 56 and I've been in this hobby since the early 80's and have a modest system and have amassed a collection of about 1500 LPs, 500 cds, and 400 cassettes.  Between two different older hard drive tower cases I have probably about 10,000+ songs on iTunes and I keep those tower cases around thinking one day I'd like to put those songs on a cloud - although I totally don't know what that entails.  I have the free Pandora on my iPhone and still regularly listen to FM radio and have an aversion to paying for satellite radio when there are good stations in the Philadelphia market that I listen to.

Last week, I went into a local hifi shop and listened to a bookshelf pair of powered Dynaudio speakers that you could hook a laptop up to but also had RCA outputs to hook up a phono preamp to and the salesman was playing music thru his phone.  He had Tidal and also mentioned other names that I forgot the name of.  When I saw what he could do thru his phone, it kind of made me feel a little foolish for having all of these albums, tapes, and cds.

I don't watch a lot of tv these days except for sports and I'm amazed at how my 24 year old daughter can watch all this stuff with Netflix and by streaming stuff and I'm still paying lots more each month for cable.

I'm not gonna go out and change it all tomorrow or the next day but I guess my questions are this:

1.  What's the best way to get educated about all of the different options that I have?
2.  With regard to all the music on iTunes that I have, is it better and more cost effective to put that music on a cloud or should I just subscribe to Spotify, Tidal or some other music format and just throw out the old tower cases?
3.  Can I assume that most people who have music servers are using that for music in lieu of actual music collections?  Or do most people have both?  
4.  If I were going to one day purge my collections but still wanted access to all the music I have now, what would be a good - modest - step by step game plan?  
5.  Is it better to get a USB turntable or analog to digital converter and start converting my LPs to computer files or is that a waste of time?

The actual collections and all the gear can take up a little room, but they are cool to look at too.... on the other hand, having the extra space and being a minimalist has it's own merits.  I'll never own a kindle either :)

BTW:  (My current system consists of:  Tandberg 3012 int amp, Thorens TD125 mk II turntable, Kyocera D-811 cassette deck, Harman Kardon TD302 cassette deck, Creek CAS3140 tuner, Oppo DV970 cd/dvd player, Fostex B-100 BH speakers, custom 45 SET tube int amp)

Thank you in advance for all of your kind comments and suggestions, 
Lou


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2psyop
1,600 posts
 
Yes I agee with the suggestions here, good ones. To add to what has been mentioned if you get a Bluesound Node 2 and a Roon subscription you are well on your way to awesome sound for really budget prices. You will have all of your own files to choose from, many streaming options like Tidal or Spotify etc which will provide more music, and a great way to organize it. The sound quality should be great, not cutting edge, but enjoyable. Since I have a preamp (and optical switches) to link everything and choose  sources maybe someone here could help with advice on if your integrated(s) could do that. BTW the Bluesound iphone app allows you access to all your music as your phone becomes your controller!

lou_setriodes's avatar
lou_setriodes OP
687 posts
 
First off, I want to thank everyone for all of their comments and advice. 

After seeing the powered DynAudio speakers played thru the salesman's phone, I was more curious than anything else and also knew that I knew very little about this kind of stuff.  My post was therefore more of a fact finding mission as the future is inevitable and I wanted to see what others were doing with their systems.  Truth be told, it doesn't sound as fun as watching the record spin or my cassette rewind.  So whatever I do, I'm going to take it in a slow progression.  The other thought in writing the post was that if, one day, I scrap it all for convenience and minimalism, or moved abroad but wanted to have lots of music, how would I go about doing that and the answers provided give me a very good starting point.

I do not have a desktop system and do enjoy my home system and listening to FM radio.  As a Lyft & Uber driver, I listen a lot more to Pandora in the car than I do at home.  When I want to listen to Pandora at home, I just run an RCA to mini plug into my phone and listen thru my system; however, at home, I usually find myself either listening to FM radio or one of my other sources (LP, cassette, or CD). 

Sound quality over convenience is a lot more important to me and at this time, I don't mind taking the time to change albums, cds, etc; however, I guess its all what you are used to.  For those used to the convenience of a music server and Tidal or Roon, you probably wouldn't want to take the time to change records, etc when you can instantly push a button and have music play instantaneously.

I'll re-read the entire thread as it's a lot for me to understand and digest and I thank you for your ideas, thoughts, and opinions.



lou_setriodes's avatar
lou_setriodes OP
687 posts
 
Update - my nephew recently set up Spotify Premium on my phone so I got rid of the free Pandora.  This is a huge upgrade from the Pandora and I'm enjoying making playlists for my car. 

My daughter has told me that it's time to just get rid of the 2 tower cases that hold those 10,000+ songs on Itunes because I can now get all of that music on Spotify.  

Baby steps, I get it, but that's how it's gonna go.  I also just got a new cartridge for my Thorens TT too.
zarathu
19 posts
 
You haven’t made it clear why you want to digitize.  I am 70.  I have about 500 CDs of classical, and about the same in rock, blues, folk.  

I thought about digitizing and opened another thread on it.  But in the end, with the quality of my speakers where a cheap CD or an MP3 is clearly audible, I decided to stay with the CD’s.  Another member talked about 2 friends who digitized all their CDs and now wishes they still had them because of the sterile sound that the digital music from the computer had.  Perhaps they should have used a $2000 DAC(digital to analog converter).  We surmised that jitter is a pretty serious problem when you have too many digitals in the pipeline.  
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pastorbob
78 posts
 
Well, CD's are digital, sampled at 44.1 Khz.
But listening straight from a PC sound card has limitations in sound quality.
It is really pretty simple to begin, but you can get as complex as you need.
First, download a media software program like J River (others may have different program recommendations). 
You can burn all of your CD's directly through J River into a file folder of your choice.
After that all that music is available on your PC or Hard drive when you open J River.
The music is shown as a file complete with the cover art.
Just click on the file and you can play the complete CD or any song on it.
Now regarding sound quality, you will want to obtain a good DAC (digital / analogue converter). The DAC is what will give you the quality of sound from the PC. There are some very good DAC's that sound close to analogue (nothing will replace pure analogue audio). I happen to like the R2R ladder Dacs that have become popular and no, you won't have to spend 2000.00 unless you choose to do so. After that the RCA outputs on the DAC can run into a pre amp, integrated, or headphone amp depending on your system. Pretty straight forward and you're off to the races. Never have to open another flimsy CD case again. 
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