Comment by stego-tech

Guilty party, here. I feel I can explain myself though, or at least offer context about why I own about a dozen records and no way whatsoever to play them.

I’m a recovering audiophile. I got into the hobby because I enjoy technology in its myriad aspects, and had discovered that good speakers can make things sound better. As I began accruing CDs and re-ripping into lossless audio, I also began collecting vinyls via Record Store Day events of bands or artists I found interesting at the time, or the odd Collector’s Edition bundles of albums or games. The thinking was that when I finally settled into my own place, I could invest into some Hi-Fi kit to play them back.

Well, I fell out of the audiophile sphere when I got into data analysis, physics, human biology, and psychology: I had become inoculated against the bullshit that permeates the space, but still recognized the value of my album collection. I’d also pivoted into preservation, and so I began accepting relatives’ collections of older formats, like 78s. I still lacked playback mechanisms, though I now had the space and budget - just more pressing projects than a record playback setup.

And so here I am in 2025, in an apartment that transmits energy between units, with an upstairs neighbor that does somersaults and tumbles all day (thus shaking the space slightly). The cost of everything has skyrocketed, but it’s no longer a matter of a turntable and a phono stage to get going (need isolation as well, and that ain’t cheap). I’ve also - shockingly - got other, more pressing projects in front of me, one of which is a bedroom Hi-Fi setup that has physical controls for music streaming instead of smartphone apps - again, not remotely cheap.

Right now, my meager collection sits in a crate under the sofa, languishing. One day I’ll get to enjoy them, but today is sadly not that day.