Weeks back in vinyl and already overspending

I came back to vinyl after more than a decade away, and within weeks I was spending way too much. Reference albums, classic pressings, one after another. I was not collecting, I was buying blindly.

Even the turntable was a leap. I bought the McIntosh MT5 for its looks and its reviews without overthinking it; if it sucked, at least it would look good on a shelf. It didn't suck, it was incredible, and that only made the shopping worse.

Let me be clear, I love vinyl. The ritual of choosing a record, cleaning it, placing it on the platter and dropping the needle: streaming will never replicate that for me. But that love is exactly what the industry is selling to. A sealed premium record at a premium price guarantees nothing.

So I changed how I buy. I research the pressing before I pay for it, and I read the dead wax for the plant and the mastering engineer. When a record is defective, I return it instead of blaming my cleaning. The excitement is the same; the shopping is not.

Enthusiasm is not a buying strategy. Research is.