VINYL RECORD COLLECTING: Intro and My Record Collecting Music Habits Over the Years

This is my first in a series of articles related to Vinyl Record Collecting that I wanted to share my thoughts on with others who also love digging in crates and listening and collecting vinyl records.

Like many of you probably reading this, I am an avid record collector. Ever since my childhood, I have been collecting and listening to music with a passion. I am a Gen X music lover. So, I started listening to music on my parents turntable with their records, graduated to cassette tapes in my youth on my Sony Walkman, then in high school I abandoned cassettes and made the switch to Compact Discs (CDs) when that became all the rage. In the late 1980’s, while collecting and listening to CDs was my primary “go to” medium, I still collected vinyl records – usually albums that I couldn’t find on CD or if I just wanted to buy some “cheap” music since CDs were so expensive. In addition, some bootlegs were still vinyl only.

During my senior year of high school and for a few years on my college breaks, I worked in Springfield at White Oaks Mall in various record stores. I loved this job so much working around music. I watched LPs and cassettes dwindle as CDs took off during this short time period. One of the fringe benefits of working at the record store was that I took home free promo vinyl records and CDs after they had expired with their promotional marketing timeframes.

As I moved into the 1990’s and towards the 21^st Century, I still bought CDs and the occasional vinyl record, but I embraced the Napster era moving and listened to MP3s on my Apple iPod in the early 2000’s. For many years, my record collection sat in storage and I didn’t listen to them. I did sell some of my vinyl records when money was tight. Somewhere around 2006, I bought a Sony USB turntable with a USB plug where I could “rip” my vinyl records to make digital copies of my music to turn into MP3 files for my iPod and listen to in iTunes. I dusted off my records and began listening to them.

In 2008, the Annual Record Store Day launched here in America after it had successfully started a year earlier in the UK. I mentioned that I had broken out my old vinyl record collection in their crates and had begun listening to them on my new turntable. With the resurgence in vinyl moving into the 2010 decade, I began purchasing new albums on vinyl as well as the same copy on CD. I was feeling nostalgic for collecting and listening to vinyl records again.

(I digress for a moment… I never used to call it “vinyl” in my younger days. I just collected and listened to “records”. However, I have adapted over the past few decades to using the term “vinyl” together with “records” to call them “vinyl records”. I know the younger folks today just use the term “vinyl”, though I cringe when they use the incorrect plural form “vinyls” which I do not recognize as a proper term, I guess I am an old Gen X fogey.)

Somewhere around 2012 to 2016, life threw me some curveballs and I went through a difficult divorce and a job loss when the college that I worked at had closed. I had to sell some of my records to help pay the bills. Mainly some expensive bootleg records. Most of the music I was listening to at the time was digital as I had to put my record collection and my CDs back into storage during the separation and divorce. “Streaming” music had become popular with Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime, iTunes, SiriusXM, and YouTube Music. I was getting my music fix that way, but was missing listening to records most of all. I began playing around with listening to FLAC audio files instead of lesser quality sounding MP3s.

Life settled down for me with purchasing a new home and I was able to set up my stereo system and get my records and CDs again. I began collecting some records again and went to some more Record Store Day events with my pal Ron Rice. The Beatles had re-released and remastered their British discography in 2009 on CD and on vinyl records in 2014. Picking up those Beatles records on vinyl was invigorating for this record collector and I realized that I preferred to listen to the music on a turntable.

In 2016, in my post-divorce years and still single, I bought a new home to live in by myself. I sat up my stereo equipment and the Sony USB turntable. I got out my CDs and records to listen to once again.  I still had my original vintage Cerwin Vega 200 SE speakers from high school. When I played my music, everything sound horrible and then upon investigation, I realized that that after several decades, the foam cones in the speakers had corroded and fallen apart. Watching some YouTube videos, I learned how to “re-cone” my vintage speakers and restore them. It was cheaper than buying new speakers, plus I loved those vintage speakers (they still serve me well).

It was then, almost exactly nine years ago, I decided it was ridiculous to buy “new” albums in both vinyl and CD formats. Sure, some of The Beatles re-released had CD-only tracks, but for the most part, unless it was The Beatles or Sting/The Police, I decided I was going to stick solely to buying and collecting vinyl records and ditch buying new CDs. I had gone full circle.

Over the 2010 decade, I slowly began to “replace” my CDs with vinyl record copies, as I preferred to listen to my music on analog vinyl records. I began reselling some of my old CDs. Some I would keep no matter what, but I realized I was rarely listening to CDs at all.

Do I still buy CDs? Yes, on rare occasion if the album is either not available on vinyl or if the CD has extra tracks not available on vinyl. Again, especially if it is Beatles or Sting related.

In 2023, I upgraded my stereo equipment with a new Dual CD 429 turntable using and Ortofon 2m Blue moving magnet cartridge. I was running it through a Pro-Ject Tube Box S2 Phono Preamplifier using tubes into my brand-new Yamaha R-N602 Digital Stereo Receiver with Bluetooth. I still had my original restore vintage Cerwin Vega 200 SE speakers, but I added on to them with a pair of Cerwin-Vega SL-5M bookshelf speakers and a Cerwin Vega LW-10 Subwoofer for some extra bass to help fill the sound of the acoustics in the big room. I still have my Pioneer PD-M403 6CD multiplayer compact disc player that I got in college. It still does the trick.

Now, in the 2020s and moving in the future…. I will just purchase and listen to vinyl records at home and keep up this collection. I intend to let go of as many CDs as I replace though I will keep some sentimental CDs that mean something personally to me. I still will keep all my Beatles and Sting/The Police related CDs as those artists have always been my favorites.

Soon, I will write on more topics regarding record collecting. I will share what I am listening to as well as offer my thoughts on the hobby and vinyl community.

Until next time, keep digging in those record bins!