It's not about that. The merits of the technology--the fact that even shitty 128kbps MP3 sound better than vinyl--is irrelevant. I don't care that vinyl sounds

It's not about that. The merits of the technology--the fact that even shitty 128kbps MP3 sound better than vinyl--is irrelevant. I don't care that vinyl sounds worse. I digitized my entire CD collection in the late '90s. I had an argument with one of my high school teachers in the '90s who was operating under the delusion that vinyl sounds better than digital because digital 'steps' up/down and vinyl (being analog) perfectly smoothly--you know the BS argument. I upgraded my car's CD player to one that could play data CDs filled with MP3s in the early 2000s. I had an MP3 player before the iPod made it cool. But I found that I drifted away from music. I got in my car and it would play random songs. I put my headset on at work and hit play and it would play random songs. I never really thought about the music and one day at work I just didn't put my headphones on. I was driving and traffic was being quite peculiar, so I turned the music off to concentrate on what the fuck was happening on the road. And I never turned it back on. I stopped listening to music for probably 5 years. At some point my parents moved and something got fucked up in the shuffle. I ended up with a box full of my dad's old records. I bought a record player for shits and giggles and to appease my inner hipster. And you know what, I like it. I like the mandate that I choose what to listen to next. I like the ritual, the physical process of removing a record from its sleeve, putting it on the turntable, picking up the arm thing and putting it on the record. I like the fact that it makes me stand my fat ass up every 20 minutes and walk over and flip the record or pick a new one to listen to. You talk about the convenience of digital, and you're right. Digital is a lot more convenient than vinyl. But that's a bug, not a feature. Music isn't just about audio. There's a whole lot of the human experience wrapped up in it, and for me personally, the ... cumbersomeness of vinyl keeps me connected to it in a way that I lost with digital music.