So just how much vinyl do YOU own?

I only started getting back in to vinyl in a big way around two years ago, with it really ramping up this year (once I discovered discogs).

I'm using discogs to organize my collection.  Says I have 423 in there, but I haven't finished cataloguing some of my old records.

My attitude is that I do not want to end up being a hoarder, where I'm just overrun with records that I'll never listen to.  I don't "collect" in the sense of buying records only for some other sense of "value" (e.g. this one was released with a wonky label, only a few made!), or rarity, or just for completion sake.  I'm looking to have a managable number of well curated records, buying only the records I will listen to (and not for just a song or two, but most of the record has to appeal).

That's why I don't do much crate-digging at all. I don't like hauling vinyl home just to take a chance on it, and then ending up with records I don't listen to.  Discogs...and youtube...allow me to listen to lots of tracks from an album before I buy.

But...I have to say I went vinyl crazy for a while, started buying too much, and have nipped it back to a sane number of records...for now...I hope...

@uberwaltz

I know what you mean about trying to get around to cataloguing in discogs. I’m lazy about that stuff, so being a real record collector would never work for me.

The easy part was that I was buying from discogs! So every time an album showed up all I had to do is click a button on discogs and it was added to my collection. So the initial cataloguing was super fast and easy.

The only bummer is all the old non-discog vinyl I have around, which does take looking up the info on discogs, so more work per album.I’m still getting through that because once I have it done, the vast majority of any new vinyl I buy will be easy to add.

I’ve learned from my movie collection. When I started with DVDs and later Blu-Rays, I bought tons of movies...both movies I knew I loved and marginal ones I thought "nice to have on hand if I ever get the urge."As I was really bad at returning movies on time to rental stores, it worked better for me to essentially build a large selection of movies at home so any likely urge for a movie could be satisfied by having it at my finger tips. That felt cool for a while.

But now...I just have tons of movies that I’ve watched once, or haven’t watched, and will likely not watch again. In a way it feels less "wow" to have more movies than I’ll ever watch and bit more "depressing" that I have so many movies taking up space that I’ll never watch.

Again, if someone is strictly in to the collecting aspect, then the sheer ownership itself satisfies to some degree. But if one is more centered on owning movies/music to actually use it, then the urge to curate and cull the collection kicks in.

uberwaltz


Well, since I, like many here, actually have access to both "lifestyles" - I have a convenient digital streaming set up and a vinyl set up - I already know the result of the experiment.   I am getting much more pleasure out of my vinyl these days than my digital. 



As physical artifacts, few of my DVDs or Blu-Rays ever gave much satisfaction.  Like CDs they were mostly carriers for the content and that was it.  So long as CDs and DVDs/Blu-Rays were carriers for the best quality content, they were necessary.


But as soon as full CD-quality ripping/streaming became available, the rational for the physical copies mostly disappeared for me.  Similarly, the quality of streaming movies has become really excellent and offers "the world of movies at my fingertips" just as I was trying to create at home.  So I don't need those physical copies so much anymore.


Vinyl is a physical object that I enjoy holding and owning.  It also means I get to use a turntable, and I LOVE nice turntable - my turntable is a pleasing combination of aesthetically and conceptually satisfying.It's just cool to look at and use.   Then there is the fact that vinyl just sounds different, and often to me preferable, to digital. 



So for my vinyl offers something that CDs and DVDs/Blu-Rays and digital streaming don't offer.  They are features I actually enjoy and MISS from those formats, so I don't really pine for a scenario in which I only use streaming.