Help for an Old School Audiophile


I'm 56 and I've been in this hobby since the early 80's and have a modest system and have amassed a collection of about 1500 LPs, 500 cds, and 400 cassettes.  Between two different older hard drive tower cases I have probably about 10,000+ songs on iTunes and I keep those tower cases around thinking one day I'd like to put those songs on a cloud - although I totally don't know what that entails.  I have the free Pandora on my iPhone and still regularly listen to FM radio and have an aversion to paying for satellite radio when there are good stations in the Philadelphia market that I listen to.

Last week, I went into a local hifi shop and listened to a bookshelf pair of powered Dynaudio speakers that you could hook a laptop up to but also had RCA outputs to hook up a phono preamp to and the salesman was playing music thru his phone.  He had Tidal and also mentioned other names that I forgot the name of.  When I saw what he could do thru his phone, it kind of made me feel a little foolish for having all of these albums, tapes, and cds.

I don't watch a lot of tv these days except for sports and I'm amazed at how my 24 year old daughter can watch all this stuff with Netflix and by streaming stuff and I'm still paying lots more each month for cable.

I'm not gonna go out and change it all tomorrow or the next day but I guess my questions are this:

1.  What's the best way to get educated about all of the different options that I have?
2.  With regard to all the music on iTunes that I have, is it better and more cost effective to put that music on a cloud or should I just subscribe to Spotify, Tidal or some other music format and just throw out the old tower cases?
3.  Can I assume that most people who have music servers are using that for music in lieu of actual music collections?  Or do most people have both?  
4.  If I were going to one day purge my collections but still wanted access to all the music I have now, what would be a good - modest - step by step game plan?  
5.  Is it better to get a USB turntable or analog to digital converter and start converting my LPs to computer files or is that a waste of time?

The actual collections and all the gear can take up a little room, but they are cool to look at too.... on the other hand, having the extra space and being a minimalist has it's own merits.  I'll never own a kindle either :)

BTW:  (My current system consists of:  Tandberg 3012 int amp, Thorens TD125 mk II turntable, Kyocera D-811 cassette deck, Harman Kardon TD302 cassette deck, Creek CAS3140 tuner, Oppo DV970 cd/dvd player, Fostex B-100 BH speakers, custom 45 SET tube int amp)

Thank you in advance for all of your kind comments and suggestions, 
Lou


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Word of advice; Keep your original media. As the digital world changes, you’ll still have your master media. I still have my 60s LPs, you can never tell what is going to be preserved for the future or not. 
It is a time capsule, for sure. Russ, thanks for the advice, I’m getting that inclination as well as I just acquired a rare Ariston RD80SL turntable and have been enjoying spinning records again.
Just my advice, but I believe Spotify or similar streaming service is very good for starting out. They have everything. Every song, album, and concert. Everything you’ve ever heard about or read a review about. Every genre. You can explore the albums of your favorite artists that you don’t own because you couldn’t afford them when you were in college.   Then you might want to look for higher resolution recordings. Spotify is somewhat compressed (lossy) and there are better quality streaming services but they cost a little more and Spotify has millions of tracks so it’s something of a quality vs. quantity decision. Likely what music you currently own isn’t compressed, so there’s that and the fact that you already paid for it.   I’m 68 and my hearing isn’t what it was. So I’m not going to spend thousands to achieve someone else’s idea of perfection. A well set up system can cost $1000. Even less if you use your current equipment to build up. I’ve noticed that software can solve problems very inexpensively. JRIVER is such a wonderful place to start. The web blog is chock full of free information.   In summary, keep what you have but explore to your hearts content using streaming. Maybe your current music catalog will come in handy if broadband gets interrupted or throttled back. That happened here during the early days of the pandemic. Remember, it’s not the equipment, it’s the music that matters.                                                                                  HVAC
PS: Give “ Lost Voices “ from Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople a listen if you want to really explore just how far recorded music has come in the last thousand years. It’s available on Spotify, and others. 
Respectfully, I would sell everything as is or donate it to the local library. I'm sure they'll let you borrow whatever you want to listen to later. The media you have will never exist again in it's original format and this should be preserved as is for the future.
Being from a military background, I had a legacy Samurai sword of great value, and since I wasn't qualified to maintain this treasure I donated it to a local museum. The past should be experienced in it's true form, not a digital copy. Just like reading a book on a Kindle feels somehow less involving.
I'm 67 and I only have about 30 records I bought after Sandy destroyed the house. I don't miss any of my old music, it's all available on line and the quality has come a long way. Even YouTube is OK these days.
I live in silence much of the time. I used to run nightclubs and I love the quiet around my present apartment.