Is it all worth it?

my reel to reel player/tapes are my best source. tape has never gone silent for so long as during my TT upgrade project. Finished. Until something breaks I'm done, listening to LP's more than ever. 

New to me: Large Plinth Dual Arm JVC-Victor TT81; 9" acos lustre 801 arm in rear for Grado ME+ mono cartridge; 12.5" russian blackbird arm at side for Shure V15/Jico SAS tip; audio technica auto safety lift; ortofon phono cable; many miscellaneous tools and small parts to move my setup skills up a notch; manual record cleaning/drying rack.

Cost recap today: $4,270 complete.

Into tube tuner/preamp McIntosh mx110z and tube integrated amp, Cayin A88T, bought last year (sold SS preamp and amp). 

Now, re-discover around 2,500 lp's, washing in batches of 10, may take a while, I'm retired. I said I was done buying lp's at around 2,000 and put them in alphabetical order for the first time (categories before). Alas, kept buying, people give you lps, so around 500 wanting to get squished in alphabetical order, don't fit so weeding must occur.

I've also been cleaning lps to sell on eBay after a farewell listen, not gonna be much free money for people to buy for quite a while now. I'll start em low, see if I can make some room which is my main need.

CD's, got over 5K, alphabetically in special oversized binders (left lots of blank spaces, add new pages if needed (jewel cases tossed) they are aging silently now. R2R, I had about 500 pre-recorded tapes, sold over 100 on eBay, gotta play some, keep the two active machine's parts loose, sell some more R2R tapes, need room for more lp's!

With my setup I really like to listen to the relatively few albums I have. But, in terms of sheer time listening, digital definitely wins the day. I’ve got some huge, very eclectic playlists and it is nice to just put one on, hit random, and go. As mentioned, with albums you get the hits plus all the fill. Some fill is better than others. These days, I’m only buying albums that I know I will like, and will want to fully listen to. Otherwise, a one hit wonder album is just not worth it.

Yup, totally worth it to me. Always has been. I prefer how vinyl sounds, and if people think it’s all in my head, that’s fine with me. 

doubtless it has been said, or soon will be, there is a mystical attachment to the orig standard of LP playback.

Its pure old school. Ritualistic. For some even comforting and nostalgifc.

For others its the ‘only pure way to audio nirvana’, despite the myriad of tributaries so rigidly afixed to excellent big disc spinning.

IMO, its merely another source. No better or worse than some others given the current SOTA in digital.

That said, the argument for big black disc rotation, as the ‘go to’ devotion, is getting less and less attractive and especially if AND OR WHEN one considers the overall costs for a plug and play premium digital source, streamer and its associated setup.

if one travels the ones and zeros highway, there are no stylus to wear out. no beckoning cartridges to rush out and audition, no $5K CD washers to be added on. no multi thousand dollar arms to add on. no mechanical geometric orientation of the cartridge, no need for a seprate pre amp makes etc. which in all a very inviting argument for lavishing funds into the digital camp to begin or steadfastly remain.

Of late I’ve heard some mighty lofty costing analog setups that hold no edge on similarly or even lesser priced digital outfits what so ever!

With careful matching and setup and of course depending on the pockets and ears of the bit rate enthusiast, some exceptional performing converters are about for well within the means of many.

The caveat in digital as with analog, is ’what price performance’? The stellar digital front ends whose performance have turned my head as hair raising are damn expensive. Ch Precision, EMM labs and Lampy’s top tier offerings to name but a few, DA are just remarkable but run north of $25K retail routinely.

Let’s not stop there, for those whose devotion and pockets run deep, dCS and MSB have other ideas which will drain bank accounts of close to the $100K market for a complete arrangement of their devices running in concert!

But to think digital is the path of least resistance is quite naive. its roots are nearly as deep as those of the 10 inch platters past time. Recordings or pressing quality in both arenas is anyone’s guess prior to its sampling or playback.

Least one voting for pure bit renderings gets away scott free thinking they have found the spiritrual path to audacious audio, there remains the eventual fallout or acquisition of ‘digitalis nervosa’ ordinarily known as ‘click-itis’, an ADD like syndrome one soon attains as playback no longer is festooned with that long walk to and from the album rack to the phono. No more cleaning the vyinyl and squaring up the needle drop, only to repeat the process a few minutes later.

In the digital, cloud HDD storage or streaming service 978 skidillion tracks are begging and shouting for your attention and its soon a clickity click affair and songs become truncated by whim and lust for more content and the thirst soon turns into a ravenous rapacious morass of ceasless taps swipes, or clicks, as one seeks more variety or merely better quality cuts from what ever catalog or storage inventory is on tap.

FMM, its all digital, al the time.

regardless the regimin, One simply gets in where one wishes, shiny disc or dark, and hopefully strives towards contentment, when ever or where ever that location lays.