Outside of the standard nerd fare that most members already mentioned, I like collecting vinyl records. OwO It hasn't even been a full year since I first started, but I currently have 28 LP's (those big discs that contain an entire album) and 12 45's (the smaller ones that only have one song on each side). And there are so many reasons why I love it. Firstly there's the obvious bit about the audio quality. Digital music is made out of zeroes and ones -- just pieces of the original sound. Hundreds of pieces per second, sure, but mere pieces nonetheless. Analog recordings capture the whole sound, so, if you have a nice disc that's in really good shape... oh, I can't even describe it. The sound is really something else. I admit that a lot of the discs I have are a bit old and worn-out and don't produce the most high-quality sound anymore, but, even some of the fuzzier ones still have that... something that you can only get from vinyl. It's... hard to explain.
But, if I'm being honest, the sound thing is just one of the reasons why I love vinyl. A lot of it comes from the fact that it just feels so much more personal and intimate than digital recordings. Vinyl's fairly delicate compared to something like a CD: it'll bend and scratch easily, you have to keep dust off of it in order for it to sound right, the grooves get worn out over time, etc... but, in a weird way, I feel like that just makes you value it so much more. There's effort that goes into keeping these things in good shape, and that effort pays off. And then, even when the discs have imperfections (like a lot of mine do, as they're old and I bought them used), that just makes them so much more... yours. That is your copy of that particular album and you know it because of all the flaws that wouldn't sound quite the same on someone else's copy. It's weird but it's just... so much more personal. Even when a disc has imperfections, there's just so much more of a connection there than if it were an item on a digital playlist. I think that's why buying vinyl is so much fun, too. You're not just looking up a song online or whatever -- you're browsing through a whole bunch of records to see what sort of treasures you can take home.
And then, of course, it's just so much more atmospheric to have a record player in your room than to play music off your computer... Oh! And then there are the gorgeous sleeves that some of these come in -- and all the other fun little details that you can find in all that packaging. Admittedly some of them don't have a ton to offer, but others... man, there's an art to it.
I probably talked for a lot longer than you wanted but man I just love talking about this stuff. I wish I'd discovered it sooner. OwO"
