What's Worth More on the Open Market - Your Records or Your Audio Gear

ct0517,

There are those "disillusionment" words again.

Maybe instead of "disillusionment" it could be called "reality check" or something along those lines.

I have some records and a working turntable, connected, oiled regularly, and all that.

I used to pick which cassettes to take for a trip. How many could I take not to become too bulky, what my mood might be, etc. You might have had similar experience in the past.

Now I have a Walkman, digital one, and all the music I have, minus some records that I simply outgrew so to say, is on it. Hundreds of CDs, many records (tens? a hundred? I am not really sure). I think total is in 1500-2000 album range. Records are now in DSD format, and that one is a space hog, and all the rest is in 16/44.1 FLAC or whatever was the highest available resolution. Two or three songs are in mp3. It all fits on one microSD card. I do keep absolutely every record and CD I have ever had, but what is the point of it, I truly do not know.

One may argue that records sound better, but what good is that when they are stuck in some place far away and can be used only on special occassions requiring more time than the length of that record? And that at the cost of storage space and possible clutter.

Younger heirs, mentioned earlier in the thread, have, for last ten years, had everything in the palm of their hands. Not many will cherish inconvenience of the record collection they inherit.

Going back to lighter topics, the original topic, I think my equipment would fetch more than my music collection but not much more. iPhone 11 would be much easier sell.

Interesting question. My collection would fetch a good buck If the full extent of it could be catalogued and advertised. My issue is that I have what must be one of the most unique collections around. I've gone to unusual lengths in the past 50 years in pursuit of an obsession that I'm not sure I'm over. Much of what I have are one of a kind open reel studio tapes as well as cassette tapes from our local coffee house and other sources. I always involved myself where I could in lending a hand in things like archiving and preserving recordings. I've spent an obscene amount of money in the past running down leads to more music. I've been warned by the owners of the intellectual property NOT to distribute it.I'm looking forward to the day when I can transfer much of it to CDR to preserve for all time. But sell it one day? Probably not. Joe 

jnovak,

"...transfer much of it to CDR to preserve for all time."

If CDR is CR-Recordable, be quick and remember that those discs are prone to failure.

Some years ago, I wanted to transfer a reel-to-reel tape of some privately-made demo music onto a digital medium (CD, at that time). The tape had been recorded in a legitimate recording studio associated with a radio station. Not knowing anyone with a reel-to-reel machine, I found a friend of a friend of a friend that worked in that same radio station. He told me I got lucky to come then and not the year that would follow. They still had one functioning machine to play my tape and they were using it to digitize their collection. Once that one broke, he said, I would be out of luck. All the other machines had broken down over time and they had no interest in repairing them. Who knows if the format we are preserving things "for all time" will be viable in fifteen years.

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. 

I've been liquidating my high res discs, mostly multichannel sacd which I've already ripped. 

I'm still finding solid resale value, typically at or over what I paid, but I do notice more copies available than previously.

But to the OP's question, between my 5.1 and 2.1 systems I have invested more in gear, but that includes a few streamers now as well. Maybe $5K in discs, $3K for the 5.1 setup, and now 5K for the 2.1