After having been a vivid collector of CDs back in the days (I sold all of them some 15 years ago…), I started collecting vinyl and depend on streaming services ever since. Currently, I make use of a Quobuz subscription and Roon to manage my library which also includes various high-res downloads stored locally (with backups in the cloud).
But I miss physical media, and vinyl doesn’t cut it for me. Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats listening to a good record with a dram of Scotch, but quality wise, it’s nowhere near digital sources, at least not within any reasonable price point.
Where to go from here? Paying for high-res downloads I often can stream at the same time feels strangely unsatisfying, while falling back to CDs might be an option, but leaves out higher quality tiers. Physical alternatives such as HDCD, SACD or DVD-Audio seem more or less a niche for enthusiasts of classical music (if not dead), with a very limited catalogue.
Can some of you share my feelings? How do you deal with it?
New record releases are just compressed, equalized noisy copies of digital recordings so they are indeed lower quality. Perhaps playing pure analog records on a better record player and phono amp might sound better to you, but maybe not. I like the album covers too. There’s always the silly case that if electricity ever becomes unavailable, an old victrola could still play your music.
I had a pretty complete collection of classic rock SACD, DVD-A and Pure Audio Blu-Rays that I ripped and sold off. I miss having them though. Not because I played the discs. But I enjoyed having them. The only CDs I miss are Radiohead, since the master isn’t analog or high sample rate so they are the best sound and my MoFi A Day at the Races because I like that mix.