Is it all worth it?


Do you ever get the feeling when you start to question whether playing records is really worth it all?
You know with everything involved with great record playback.
The setup, the cleaning regime, the $1000 plus cartridges that start their finite lifespan as soon as stylus first touches vinyl and spirals into less and less value with every play.
All the tweaks involved, cables, mats, isolation etc.
Then the media itself with it's inevitable disapointments.

Don't you just like to push a couple buttons on your phone app and be listening to great sound with a worldwide catalogue at your fingertips.

Or is it that when all of it lines up and the sounds are just sublime, then yes you sit back with a wry smile and say...

Yep, it's all worth it!
128x128uberwaltz
But, also I consider the walk from the chair to the TT to flip the record part of my exercise regimen. Am I the only one?
Sure do.... Unless I fall asleep and then awaken to the sounds of a stylus butting its head at the end of the run out groove.......

Now where was that Little Fwend again...
The evening goes like this.
Starts of well with couple albums, getting up every 20 to 25 minutes.
Then moved to couple CDs, getting up every 45 to 60 minutes.
Finally streaming, getting up...well when I need to pee.
And working on that one😉😉
When I sit back and listen to something from my babied selection of LP's, especially when it is not available on CD's, I am happy.  Since I spent half a century perfecting my system with multiple, switchable, sub crossovers form matched amps and preamps to my main speakers, and the mechanical, not electronic  tone controls for both pairs of speakers, that help all sources sound better, I thank my lucky life that my Dad was an electrical engineer, as well as a small town movie theater and juke box company owner.  With both movie sound (A skinny, three foot tall, GE tube amp), and his Seeburgs, Wurtlizers, and RockOla's, I most certainly was exposed to horrible sound at an early age.    
Last night was one of those nights... I bought a used cartridge for the SL 1200 MKII.  Mounted it, no sound out of the left channel.  WTF!  Put a different cartridge on that headshell, sound out of both channels.  OK, it's not the headshell.  Put the "new" cartridge back on, double checked to make sure all connections were good.  Still no sound out of the left channel.  Frustrating!

I decided to put the recently new Denon DL 301 MK2 on and pulled out some E.L.O. and Santana and... bliss!  Abraxas in particular sounded sooooo good. Â