Hello audiophiles! All I’m looking for in this post is to say Hello to other music fans who engage with collecting like I do, because sometimes I feel lonely in the age of streaming.

I started collecting music in college (mid 2000’s) when I got a pair of turntables and learned how to mix house and techno. I found it enjoyable to visit record stores and dig around crates looking for gems. After college I kept one turntable and got into audiophile collecting, like original pressings and Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs pressings of classic albums.

Fast forward a few years and I discover that some vinyl collectors rip their super-rare records with super-expense gear and share with people like me. I got into that and started collecting FLAC files of rare records and audiophile gold CDs. This is around when Spotify got big but I was so engaged with collecting vinyl & digital downloads I didn’t really get into it.

Finally, a few years after that I discover Bandcamp and fell in love with the service. It gave me the feel of a record store but online. Plus the majority of my money goes to the artist which is great to know. I spend much more each month buying and downloading FLAC files from Bandcamp compared to streaming but I couldn’t be happier. Around this time I bought an ADC and ripped my own vinyl collection then sold my turntable and records. I’m now all FLAC.

At one point I tired Tidal and Qobuz but wasn’t impressed. The sound quality of classic albums ranged from either “really good but not quite as good as my flac files” to completely awful. I always dropped the service after a month and went back to my FLAC files.

I now have about 11,000 songs, all lossless, all sourced from vinyl, gold CDs from MFSL and DCC, plus loads of Bandcamp downloads. It’s really enjoyable to curate a collection, I feel like it’s a great way to engage with this hobby but I don’t see many audiophile take this path.

Just wondering who else loves collecting instead of streaming?