This is true for so many things - music, audio gear, guitars, etc…basically many of my “toys.”
I hope I have another +/- 20 years (keeping in mind I am not guaranteed 20 more minutes), but I think of my wife trying to liquidate all this stuff after I am gone (she is 12 years my junior) and I realize it would be the right thing to start offloading at least some of it now, both because she won’t know how to do it and I can get better value for it than she could.
Yes, I want to do the same, and she absolutely will not need a complex, expensive system, so I have given serious thought to going to a much less costly and more straightforward setup. A separate streamer, a decent integrated amp (possibly with a phono stage, like the SN3), and smaller speakers.
Vinyl has always been my main thing although I’ve been streaming more and more for the last ten or so years purely for convenience. Serious listening has go to be the old black stuff though!
The thought of a relative or worse some house clearance specialist getting a hold of my records and selling them for a fraction of their value is horrific.
I’m just 53 now so hopefully will have time to enjoy them a little while longer but at the end of the day I bought them to listen to not make money on so perhaps leaving them to a charity would be better.
My fist contact with music was on vinyl in the late seventies beginning of the eighties, and when I started to work my fist system was already with a CD player, I think it was a marantz cd 52.
In the last 10 years I was thinking going into the vinyl in a nostalgic memory, but the price of admission with a good turntable, price of media and more boxes for someone who has no vinyl at all has always stopped me from making this jump.
Today I mostly stream from my library, tidal or qobuz, my system or systems where built with streaming as a priority, for me and the family I feel the practicability of streaming and easy access to music has become part of our life’s.
I still purchase cd’s and like to have my music, but more and more the digital purchases are taking the place of the physical media and are faster and more comfortable to acquire, also require less space to archive. There is no broken case, no damaged media and most of the time you can listen to a sample before committing on the purchase.
I still have the desire from time to time of having a turntable, but also think if I acquired one after the novelty of a new thing, it will ended collecting dust like my last year acquired cd/sacd player.
For the people that have a lot of vinyl or are deep into it, vinyl is a great format, for people like me makes no sense to get into it.
I would always keep playing vinyl. I own the hard copy of the music. I would not want to be connected to a PC, always having to spend money on the next new windows programme. Sometime in the future I may not have the money to spend on subscriptions for the ISP or the streaming platform. Keeping vinyl is a good safety net.
Not necessary when streaming own stored music files with either a NAS (network attached file store) nor a Core/innuos/Melco type of player or even others - I use a 2012 Mac Mini, yet not updated OS or Audirvana now for several years: absolutely no need to. One day it will die and have to be replaced with something …just as cartridges/styli (but much less frequently), or CD mechanism (likely a lot less frequently). And of course I keep backups of my files - in a way more necessary, however the files on the on my server, let alone the backups, are not subject to wear unlike vinyl nor at as great a risk of accodental damage, and in the event of, say, a fire, keeping backups in multiple locations means highly unlikely to lose my collection.
Indeed, and there are other reasons some of us don”t rely on streaming from an online provider, instead mainly or only playing our own locally stored music collections.
If you don’t or won’t have the money for subscriptions etc you’ll still need to replace your stylus and other accessories to play vinyl. None of those are cheap and that doesn’t include maintenance of your turntable.
There are perfectly respectable Moving Magnet cartridges these day for just over £100 that will keep you going for 1200 LP’s or more.
I know it’s a bit cliche but it will be so very nice to climb off the treadmill one day or the greasy pole as my old man used to call it and take the time to listen to some of the wonderful music I’ve been lucky enough to collect in my case that will played on a record player but I’m sure those of you with your iPad or Laptop will enjoy it in much the same way.
Since no one has replied so far, I guess could mention that although I have not been through the upgrade process so can’t talk about the improvement, I recently bought a KDS1 alongside paying for the Organik upgrade. This replaced an Auralic Vega G2, which is turn replaced a Naim 272/XPSDR.
I mostly listen to acoustic music, including a lot of classical, and at times I’m taken aback by the realism of the system. What’s even better is how it manages to do this without sounding overly anaytical – highly involving is how I would describe it. I very much doubt you’d be disappointed with the upgrade.