Glupson
I do keep absolutely every record and CD I have ever had, but what is the point of it, I truly do not know.
Glupson
To understand me, is to understand that if I own something and "I know for sure" I will not use it again - it gets culled. It's gone. The problem is..... how long does it take to come to this personal realization. But once there ...the realization.....the material item is disposed of.
For me, my gear is but a means to get to the record's contents. I am emotional about the record. I have no emotion for the gear. Although I admit on these forums we (I) can get emotional about good gear that extracts record information well for us.
I also have three other serious "hobbies" pulling at my now deflated purse, (thank you kids) and there is just too much stuff. As an IT guy with a background in disaster recovery - I am very leery about the "the Cloud" do not trust it. So if one has transitioned to full online streaming and disposed of their records and cd's..........
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Now reality check vs disillusionment.
Reality check wise. I think there is a short road left for old school audiophiles. I refer to the serious 2 channel audiophile. Being in my late 50's now I represent IMO the tail end of old school audiophiles - meaning - I am old enough to have seen it all unfold in front of me be part of it; but young enough to be experiencing first hand what my - fraternal 25 year old twins - experience. My IT background helps me with all the new technologies. I am seeing what the future holds.
Disillusionment in regards to records.
True story - bear with me.
Years ago I had this spare Technics SL1200 turntable with a basic Grado cart on it, in a spare system upstairs. One day I lent it out to a friend to try out vinyl. That Technics ended up going to multiple families within a 15 year ? time span. When the Technics SL1200 came back and stayed with me, a couple years later I sold it on local market to a young lady - she came over with her dad to buy it. I played an album for them and then went home happy.
Now - If I played an Album on that Technics/Grado TT, and CD in that spare system which I categorize as a good vintage system. One could say the LP sounded ok. About the same as the CD. Pros and Cons for each, but I could see how people would just use the CD over time. The record comes with more overhead. But put that same LP in my main rig, people back then could not believe what they were hearing. Is that the same LP? Better than the CD in the same rig. The possibilities with LP - I know I have not reached. But I am content where I stopped.
Disillusionment
a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.
I feel most regular people (non-audiophiles), based on my own experiences just do not know how good vinyl can be. For now it floats my boat.