Is it all worth it?

It is all good.......and not so good at times. But I enjoy it the same.

Funny about a year ago my partner built a reference level phono stage.  He brought it over to my house to have a listen.  The funny part is that neither of us owned a turntable to test the thing out.  I then borrow a TT from a friend of mine who buys old vintage equipment at estate sales.  He gave me a basic TT and off we went.  We had on e record to play and it was fantastic.  Out of curiosity my partner looked at the TT to see who manufactured it.  Turns out it says JC Penny on it.  I called my friend and he told me that CEC make them for various companies back in the day.  But it sounded fantastic.  We took the phono stage to VPI a few months back and they loved the sound also.  I still only own two or three records to play but the sound is fantastic.

Happy Listening

Yup.

Worth it!

As the world is going through a crazy difficult time, with so much sadness, hardship and loss, listening to records and all the process that comes with that, gets me moving.

I could easily slip into a major depressive episode, and staying active - mentally and physically - is really important right now.

Are records important in the big picture right now?

No, but simple pleasures can be of some help.

Any little thing that can bring people joy, is important at times like this.

And hopefully, anyone who has some joy, shares that happiness with others so it can spread :)

$10k spent on a digital front end will yield better sound than $10k spent on an analog bundle that includes a phono preamp, turntable, arm & cartridge.

You'll also have more time to listen to more music ....than spending time to find the lp, remove it from its jacket, make sure there's no dust or static...then play the l.p. that you only like one or two cuts on.  Remove the lp, put it back in its jacket and put the l.p. back in its proper place.

With excellent digital available, analog is more trouble than it's worth.

I still own two turntables and a few thousand lp's...and nope, I'll never get rid of my analog setup.

Ditch the phone and buy a good streamer/server. You won't regret it!
I have an Antipodes and have FLAC ripped all of my CDs into the onboard HDD.
With an iPad as a remote, I use Roon to listen to them (server) and access Tidal via Roon for streaming via the Antipodes and a Denafrips Pontus DAC. Sublime imho.