I have a system in which I listen to both digital sources and vinyl.
Both sound glorious.
But I'm really enjoying the various aspects of vinyl these days.
I totally understand someone looking at vinyl and thinking "why bother? My digital sources are so much more convenient."
Vinyl doesn't of course suit everyone.
On the other hand, the inconvenience factor of vinyl can be over-sold.
Yes, like anything in the audiophile world there is a continuum of tweaking that will reach to an extreme. But no one has to place themselves toward the extreme end.
At a minimum, you just have to buy a decent turntable (and if you are dipping your toes in, you can get one that doesn't require heroic set up), and perhaps acquire a phono stage if you don't have one. I mean...kids, teenagers, millennials, old folks, are all managing to do this every day.
If that's too much work, then there was never any motivation to begin with, which would make the question of getting in to vinyl moot anyway.
You have to have some motivation to do anything.
As to the other physical aspects: once you find you enjoy records, the physical aspect is actually part of the enjoyment. Buying, holding physical records is a pleasure in itself. Firing up the turntable and putting a record on is a pleasure in itself, because turntables are really cool devices - much more interesting than pushing a CD player button, or tapping some pixels on a phone.
If you care about not having dusty records, a single pass with a record brush is hardly a massive chore.
So when people wonder "why bother?" the first answer is "it's not that much of a bother, or doesn't have to be" and the second is "because to the degree it's more physical effort than digital, those aspects are actually part of the appeal. If owning physical music with nice artwork doesn't appeal, or turntables don't appeal to you....then of course there's little motivation to bother with it in the fist place.
Both sound glorious.
But I'm really enjoying the various aspects of vinyl these days.
I totally understand someone looking at vinyl and thinking "why bother? My digital sources are so much more convenient."
Vinyl doesn't of course suit everyone.
On the other hand, the inconvenience factor of vinyl can be over-sold.
Yes, like anything in the audiophile world there is a continuum of tweaking that will reach to an extreme. But no one has to place themselves toward the extreme end.
At a minimum, you just have to buy a decent turntable (and if you are dipping your toes in, you can get one that doesn't require heroic set up), and perhaps acquire a phono stage if you don't have one. I mean...kids, teenagers, millennials, old folks, are all managing to do this every day.
If that's too much work, then there was never any motivation to begin with, which would make the question of getting in to vinyl moot anyway.
You have to have some motivation to do anything.
As to the other physical aspects: once you find you enjoy records, the physical aspect is actually part of the enjoyment. Buying, holding physical records is a pleasure in itself. Firing up the turntable and putting a record on is a pleasure in itself, because turntables are really cool devices - much more interesting than pushing a CD player button, or tapping some pixels on a phone.
If you care about not having dusty records, a single pass with a record brush is hardly a massive chore.
So when people wonder "why bother?" the first answer is "it's not that much of a bother, or doesn't have to be" and the second is "because to the degree it's more physical effort than digital, those aspects are actually part of the appeal. If owning physical music with nice artwork doesn't appeal, or turntables don't appeal to you....then of course there's little motivation to bother with it in the fist place.
