CNet has an article up about LPs.
The continuing audiophile fascination with LPs is a mystery, LPs are ancient tech, records can be noisy, they’re fragile, expensive and they take up a lot of space. The best turntables, high quality phono cartridges, and preamps can cost a fortune. Even so, a lot of audiophiles still favor LPs, I know I do.
I know I still have a bunch of LPs, but do not have any space for them (they are in storage). Why do I have so many LPs? Because, before about 2003 or so it was cheaper to spend $20 and go get a bunch of used LPs of music rather than buying a CD. Digital music was just starting to come out more mainstream. Yes, the late 90s saw Napster. And of course I partook in Napster. Quite honestly, the quality and quantity of music I like was not really good on Napster “back in the day”. And stuff was horribly mislabeled and the encoding was all over the place (anyone remember OGG audio format? Anyone?)