Vinyl has that warmth and crackle and exists as a nice object to own. Streaming is instant and cheap and convenient. CDs feel a little cold and have all the inconvenience of vinyl in plastic cases that cost as much as a month of Spotify. So what's the point?
I have dug my CD player out, and before even playing anything it looks good sitting under the amplifier. I sold nearly 2,000 CDs when I left London in 2011. The benefit of working for HMV for nearly 9 years with generous discount and first-dibs on sale items. I kept a select few and have purchased some others from eBay since. Albums of note, albums that aren't on streaming services, hip-hop albums that had to change some samples because of legal issues but the CD remains a time capsule, albums that have had shitty remasters and sound all wrong (I probably have a whole post on this because why change the way a 30 year-old album sounds?).
Lossless on Apple Music and Tidal sounds pretty good, right? It's only by playing some CDs today that I realise how compressed even the best streaming music is. Every CS I have listened to sounds rich, deep, detailed, and flawless.
I am not going to give up Spotify, but I just might make a point of buying some albums of note on at least one physical format for when it's listening time and not just fill-the-silence time.
Speaking of which, covid has left me with tinnitus in my left ear so silence is out forever. Might as well fill the silence with the best quality music-snob-approved music and old-man-who-can't-accept-the-present formats.