My girlfriend loves her vinyl and while at hers recently I was allowed to select, touch and actually play a couple of albums. I was really disappointed with the experience.
As a 54 yr old male I grew up with records but used mainly tapes as a kid (recorded mix tapes and purchased) then quickly moved to CD’s. Based on this recent experience I think CDs are a way better media for a music experience. Excellent audio quality and an albums worth of tracks playing off one ‘side’
A lot of her newer discs seem to be on these heavy weight ‘audiophile quality’ discs and a common trend seems to be to split an album across a couple of discs. Having to flip sides/discs constantly really ruined the listening experience for me. I found it really jarring.
Many of the proponents of vinyl sing the praises of the whole experience and the process of playing a vinyl disc. My experience was pretty negative especially these new multi disc albums.
I completely understand your point if I understand it correctly. But it sounds to me like what you hate about how involved you need to be with vinyl is the reason why I love it. Why I am so much more connected to the music compared to when I play a digital format. For me, that is streaming Qubuz or Tidal. No CDs. I don’t jump tracks and I enjoy really listening and picking out things that I don’t hear when I listen to the digital formats. I listen more intently compared to digital which tends to become background music for me. I’m not going to get into the argument about what sounds better, but I will say that vinyl has a warmer sound and possibly an imperfection in its reproduction that some people may prefer the sound of. Sort of how people prefer r to r DACs. They tend to be a warmer sounding, less critically defined in its reproduction of music. I find good recorded vinyl typically has better dynamic range then CD recordings that tend to be fairly compressed. I think CDs came out early in the loudness wars. I also have sunk a lot of $$$ into my turntable, cart, phono amp, etc, so when I play good vinyl, it sounds as good to me as I can afford it too. Saying that, finding good vinyl actually requires a little bit of research. I’ve owned vinyl that sounds absolutely horrible then purchased a different pressing of the same album and It is fantastic! Vinyl is a hobby in itself so I totally get it when people don’t find it enjoyable like I do.