Got a vinyl Turntable

To be honest, I’ve never been into the nostalgic fashion of vinyl discs. I’ve used them during my youth playing my parents and grand parents collection, along with the audio tapes, then the audio CD, then the digital music (MP3, Flac, streaming…). In fact, I haven’t manipulated a vinyl disc since my teenage period, twenty years ago (Outch 🤕).

I’m not an audiophile, because its definition does not apply to me.

audiophile, n:

Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music.

– The fortune command

In 2020, Xenoblade Chronicles got remastered and its collector edition included a LP vinyl disc containing selected soundtracks. “Too bad, I have nothing for playing this”, said I to myself. During this time, and because of the possibility to work from my home (thanks to the world wild pandemic), I’ve enjoyed to work with background music (mainly with Spotify) without the requirement of an headset as required in the office.

Spotify is cool, but the problem with this kind of platform is that you have too much choice. Basically, I don’t know what I want and I feel lost in front of this enormous catalog. I admit their recommendations are quite good based on my tastes and I use a lot the suggested daily mixes that made me discovering a lot of good bands and artists, but sometimes I’m not in the mood and want something else without being able to explain what I want.

This is how I came up to a conclusion : I needed to rebuild a physical music collection to feel the item. I don’t know if I explain it correctly, but it’s not the specific vinyl technology that I’ve missed (it does have its flaws), but the physical item to play with. With digital music, I can spend time to search what I want, click in the middle of the track, selected another, etc, making being too much focus on it.

You may think :

Why don’t using audio CD ? It takes less space, it’s more reliable and that’s a physical item too.

And that’s a good question. To be honest, I haven’t used them as much as vinyl discs. When I get my first CD player in high school, I already had a computer and Internet, and I’ve discovered the firsts MP3s that I copied on audio tape (don’t judge me). So, basically, I’ve used the CD like I used tapes : to record from another source. Because of that I’ve been used to listen to music directly on my computer with its audio out plugged into my hi-fi system.

So, almost two years after, I’ve finally bought a turntable. And then, I’ve finally been able to play my Xenoblade soundtrack ! 😁

I’ve bought some of my favorite musics, and also new albums, and following that it became an habit. When coming back from work, I put a disc and put a good vibe to change my mind, especially after a difficult day. When working from home, that’s the same. Another nice thing I enjoy since, it’s the small breaks this medium requires because of the sides flip, or disc change. With the continuous run of online streaming music, you don’t stop. This limited support force me to put my head off the race and take a short break to flip the side and go back to work.

In fact, I’ve understood that the physical mediums are still sometimes good things compared to the digital ones. I’ve discovered it when I’ve bought an e-book reader, and the physical vinyl discs confirmed this feeling.