This is me as well and is the primary reason I still buy albums on vinyl. I'm not an audiophile snob or anything, I just think that listening to music on vinyl is deliberate enough to overcome the "disposable" issue that you're describing. If I want to listen to an album, I have to go to the room in my house with the turntable, open the album, put it on, set the tone arm, etc. It's very deliberate and it helps me appreciate and dedicate time to music.
I forget where I was reading/listening to it (may well have been a podcast), but I recall someone talking about printing out tiny artwork for NFC tags and configuring them in such a way that scanning them played the one album printed on it. I thought that was super neat—still got the convenience of digital music, but it is still a deliberate action as you describe.
I've also turned to vinyl for this, and while I love it, I will say I yearn for something that doesn't involve the dreaded 'flip' especially on modern double albums. 3 songs per side goes by so fast. Maybe this is why people still use cassettes?
Not cassettes but a dedicated CD player is what I use for this stuff.
I have certain custom mixtape style mood music CDs depending on how the scene in my novel is supposed to feel tonally, for example.
Yes I could make those into YouTube playlists, but the ritual of putting in the right CD has something to say for it, and also my CDs never have advertisements that manage to sneak past all of my layers of adblock, nor do they suddenly decide to be unavailable on one particular day or another.
I remember when I added a CD player to my audio setup a couple of years ago—which previously just had a radio tuner, vinyl turntable and a cassette deck. I kept my old CDs and my partner has even more. I had gotten used to the OK sound quality of vinyl, cassette and FM radio (or youtube on my computer speakers). So when I put the CD in and played it I was amazed how good it sounds, I simply had forgotten how good CD can sound with a good audio setup.
I still play records though, simply because it is more fun, but if I want quality I play CDs.
I bought a Vinyl player (AT-LP60XBT) but rarely use it because I feel like I can't tell a difference between it and Spotify through my speakers (Edifier S350DB). Only difference seems to be it's more inconvenient.
It feels like the inconvenience is what people _like_ about vinyl? But maybe my setup just isn't good enough to tell a difference?
Kinda. It's not that we like the inconvenience. We like that it's something that you have to commit to doing. You can't really go for a run or a drive or work on things. You're sitting down just to listen to music and, while you can do that with digital media too, it's much more deliberate with physical media.
>>> Only difference seems to be it's more inconvenient.
This is where we differ. For me that is not an inconvenience but part of the experience. I enjoy picking a record to play, removing it from the cover, checking it for dust or dirt, and putting it on the turntable. Probably mostly for nostalgic reasons.
My thoughts exactly. That's one of the big advantages that vinyl comes with, for me personally.
This and that I'm very deliberate about keeping track of new music I want to listen to (my queue). EDIT: There was a tool posted here on Show HN a few days ago that seemed interesting for this sort of stuff but I can't seem to find it now.
