An audiophile HATES to see me coming.

My record player is a Crosley C62. I won it at work. It's their step up from the suitcase record players which are largely regarded to be trash because they have attached speakers, among other issues. Don't worry, I have mitigated this upgrade by placing the speakers on the same surface as the turntable.

My speakers are..whatever my husband had downstairs with the TV that were compatible with my Fosi Audio BT20A Pro bluetooth amp. I think I stole that from our TV setup, too.

I use a Big Fudge cleaning kit, which I really like. I intend to store my vinyl in the Big Fudge inner and outer sleeves eventually. People are sending their music out in absolute dog shit inner sleeves. I'll mount my speakers to the wall when I stop having to peel new albums out of glossy printer paper.

An audiophile is still distressed.

I recently purchased a Snowsky Echo Mini in my great journey to be free of streaming and my phone. It has BUTTONS and no touch screen! It doesn't run Android so I can't put Spotify on this bad boy even if I tried. I did briefly wonder what I was going to do without all of the world's music streaming available to me, but it has been a non-issue. I have my bandcamp files, old ripped CDs, and with some effort can get podcasts on it.

My only complaint thus far is that the Bluetooth doesn't automatically connect, and sometimes even after it says it has connected you have to reboot the device to be able to hear anything. It's definitely a budget player. I did it for the whimsy so I'm pleased with my choices. Maybe there's even a firmware update to fix it! I haven't been bothered enough to check.

I mostly listen to this when I'm walking to the gym, so I've been using Anker soundcore C30i open earbuds. They're cheap and let me hear if I am about to be run over.

This is my mom's old record player that she kept in her shed for thirty years. It powers on but does nothing else. I bet I can fix it.

The vintage audio subreddit has very helpfully told me that this is something her ex boyfriend threw together himself, so none of the different components are necessarily the same brand or year. I think I'm smarter than my mom's ex who was so unnotable that she can't remember his name.

Why put forth the effort to restore this system, you ask?
1. I think being able to play eight-tracks would be funny.
2. I have inherited my grandmother-in-law's jazz collection that plays at 78 rpm. My current machine can't play them.
3. ADHD project brain go brrr.

I have a huge list of musicians that I'm working through right now, which is referenced on my music page. I do use Spotify for that, but I'm at a point now where I'm only using Spotify for full album playthroughs.

Any time that would have previously called for a lackluster shuffled Spotify mix has been replaced with Henry Rollins' KCRW radio show. Henry Rollins doesn't miss, ok.

I log my Spotify and vinyl listening on last.fm, if you want to follow along.