I sold my trusted Philips record player and my records somewhere in the mid-1990s, if I remember correctly. Not because it didn't work well anymore, but I was buying all my music on CDs and my record collection just sat there taking up valuable space. Or so I thought.

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A few years ago, audio designer Joachim Gerhard called me and said he would be passing through my town and offered to stop by to demo his latest phono preamp. When I told him that I didn't own a player or any records, he said, no problem, I'll bring those too! Long story short, we had a very pleasant evening listening to vinyl, having a few drinks and in general the sort of discussions audio geeks have when they have a chance.

I asked Joachim what he found so attractive in vinyl; I mean, it's a real hassle, first of all to get your arm and cartridge aligned and to maintain that alignment, then to clean the record every time before a play, and change the record every 10 to 20 minutes! How primitive compared to just queuing up your favorite playlist on the tablet and have music for the rest of the day. 

Boy, did I miss the point!

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With records, listening to music that moves you is important, but (as I found out) at least as important is the ritual of all those things you need to do to get it to play and play well. Reading those liner notes, admiring the album cover art, and maybe even the soothing effect of the rotating record plateau. In other words, I was sold. I now have a nice mid-class record payer that I chose (I admit it) as much for its design appearance as for its hard technical specs. Listening to records means you have to make a conscious decision to take out time from what you are doing and go through the ritual, relax, and really let the music get into you. Yes, there's pops and ticks, and yes, sometimes a record is so eccentric that you can even hear the wow, but so what? Listening to music this way is very rewarding and pure enjoyment.

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There is another perspective to this - ownership. When you listen to music from, say Spotify, you don't "own" the music in any sense. There's no downloading a "music piece" that you can put somewhere and take out when you feel like listening to it again. And that's a non-issue of course because when you want to listen to it again you just stream it from somewhere in the cloud. That is different from buying a physical medium such as a CD or a LP, and especially with vinyl, there is a largish "thing" that you can touch, turn over in your hands; in a sense an album is a piece of art containing another piece of art; not only that, it actually is a "possession." Just recently, several investigators have been finding out that these aspects are important factors in the revival of vinyl; and that there's more to it than just the music.

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It turns out I am not the only one wondering what it is that attracts people to vinyl. Gary Galo, a contributor to both audioXpress and Linear Audio, is reviewing a book for me written by two philosophers cum music lovers, who studied the cultural aspects of music on vinyl - a worthwhile read.

Mike Uwins, whom I met at a recent AES convention, approached the question from the typical audio engineer's perspective. He developed a test where he could decouple the ritual of playing vinyl from the actual sound reproduced, which could be either the sound off the record or a digital rendition. He devised an ingenious procedure to keep the test double blind. His findings: even when the test subjects heard a digital rendition of the LP contents when playing it, they still commented, "No doubt in my mind [vinyl] sounded better... It seemed to be softer in the uppermids, so less harsh, just more pleasing in that area but certainly more warmth in the bottom end. The way things sit in the mix seems to be more preferable on that kind of record."

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I can only conclude that vinyl as a music medium has a very special place, and plays an important role in many people's lives. And, as that place and role is not solely based on technical parameters as such, one can expect that vinyl is here to stay for a long time to come, independent of the technical progress and developments in things such as streaming music distribution and whatever else the Apples and Googles of this world will invent.

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Maybe it is a bit like cars. Classic vintage cars are no technical match for the movers that roll off today's assembly lines, and very few people would even think of doing the daily commute in a 30-plus year old vehicle. Yet, for pleasure, nothing beats digging that old vehicle out from under the tarpaulin and leisurely taking a swing through some quiet country roads. For that enjoyment, people are willing to pay much more than the cost of a new car -just as people are willing to pay top dollar for a restored Thorens or Garrard player.