For people who stream music and don’t understand all the hoopla and money spent on collecting records, few things can make you sound like a bigger douchebag faster than saying “jazz on vinyl.” It’s not a new trope. Jerry Maguire (1996) nailed it with that jazz keener babysitter character, and the phrase “hipster doofus” goes back to the days of Charlie Parker.

The way I see it, anything cool gets mocked if it’s too cool, and sometimes people lay cool things on a little heavy. I get that the trappings of a record collection are ripe for mockery, but put on a great copy of a killer album on a system with good speakers, and tell me you’re having a bad time!

If there’s one key way music sounds better on vinyl than on digital formats, it’s that the high and the low ends have more room to breathe. Those sounds are clearer. When you hear it, you notice, even if you didn’t think you would. I suspect if you were to do a test, most people would hear the difference. That’s how palpably different it is. The audio quality depends on a few things, like your speakers, the receiver or pre-amp, the album pressing, and the way the album was engineered. When all these things align, the results are magic.

I’m not sure I’d recommend anybody to start a record collection today. Records are prohibitively expensive. When I started years ago, I worked at a music store that sold used records. They were inexpensive to start with and I got 50% off.

Even a few years ago, a new reissue of an old album might cost $20-25 or so. Today, it’s more common to find them at $35-40 or more. Some brand new albums are $50. Meanwhile, vintage jazz records can be very expensive. You’re lucky to find an old Blue Note album for $80, depending on the condition.

A few years ago when I was really buying albums, I didn’t much care for whether it was an original from the period or a reissue. I didn’t have a streaming platform and the only way I could hear the album was on record, or with commercials on YouTube.

I maintain that records do sound better, but that’s not the only reason they’re worthwhile. Holding such a large thing in your hands, looking at the album cover, makes it an artifact. The tangible experience of playing the record, even flipping it half way through, adds to the ritual enjoyment. Some records really are one of a kind. Sun Ra Saturn records were individually painted by band members around their kitchen table, so if you have one of these records, it’s not just that the physical record itself is like an artifact or a part of a ritual; it very much is a piece of history.

The point isn’t to be a snob about collecting records and look down on anybody for however they listen to music, it’s just to spread some joy and maybe musical understanding.

Personally, bass was the thing I heard least in music growing up. McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and of course John Coltrane were recorded very prominently, but Jimmy Garrison was lower in the mix. I don’t know if this was just my ear, if I honed in on what I wanted to hear most, or if the technology itself was slanted this way.

Imagine watching a movie without seeing 20% of what should be on the screen, but without knowing you’re missing anything. This might be an oversimplification, but what digital music does is compress the high and low sounds: the less music there is, the more it can store on a file. MP4s, the common music file, are different this way than FLAC files, which are larger and truer but therefore a larger storage burden. The point isn’t that digital music can’t also be great, just that the way almost everybody listens to it isn’t.

Listen to Art Blakey on record! I really can’t emphasize how different it can be. When the different factors align, it feels like the musicians are in your living room.

Where does this leave us? If money is no issue, collect away. If you really love music, and you can’t stop yourself from getting the best version of the music you love most, do that.

It’s difficult to express how important and unimportant this conversation is! A few records I have are cherished, treasured belongings, sacred relics for a part of my life so spiritually important that owning a portion of the divine feels like a heretical lapse into idolatry. At the same time, just loving music is enough, and the difference between having an album on vinyl and streaming it is isn’t worth the money.

I don’t have all my favourite albums on vinyl (Discipline 27-ii is very rare and costs $1,200), I just stream them and don’t love that music any less. There isn’t a hobby on Earth that’s immune to being misunderstood, with people laughing at what they think it’s all about. Books aren’t for reading, they’re just rarified status symbols! Sports are just braindead macho crap for bros! Stuff in this vein.

I know the stereotypes surrounding record collecting, especially jazz. It’s funny, but now that records are popular again and sold in places like Indigo, we’re developing new stereotypes, like the vinyl nube paying $40 for a 2025 reissue of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

There’s nothing wrong with jazz and there’s nothing wrong with Fleetwood Mac! I don’t want to be a gatekeeper: come on in, everybody! Chill, listen to some music. Just cost it out before buying a system is all.