Ok, first: You do you. Second: I’m not in possession of absolute truth.

But if I may, I’d like to share some of my experientially acquired knowledge.

On sound; I stand by my words. Why accept worse quality sound because the medium is inferior? Do whatever you want to post process, but having control. Want permanent “warmth”? Buy, or even better, build a tube amp. Pretty easy BTW. Want some sound characteristics? Get a proper equalizer and learn to use it. Want crackle? Well, really, that is something to discuss with your therapist… BTW, what all people call warmth is just a slight bump in the 60-80 Khz range. I like many old amps, and speakers. I’ve actually designed and sold a few bespoke speaker systems. Some vintage Klipsch sets, with a refoaming are still astounding, but sources have gotten way better.

Regarding photography; I bought my first SLR, a Vivitar XV1 ( A Pentax K1000 copy) in the 80’s. All manual, but with a built in light meter. From there I went on to a Pentax , then another, then Pentax’s first autofocus, and the worlds first SLR with a pop-up flash, often derided as a gimmick, but amazingly useful, the mighty SF1, I also had a Nikon F601 with a couple of lenses and a Old school 6x6 Bellows Zeiss. I’ve developed quite a bit. I kind of know my stuff.

Analog photography is not superior, but different. It’s absolutely true that the limited amount of film, and the cost of developing, promotes thoughtful composition, framing, and anticipation. Selecting the right film, understanding your lenses, and, crucially, undesrtanding that the most important piece of kit is the lens, 2nd the tripod, and then the body,
helps a lot in getting superior photographs. If you know what you want, understand your film, your camera, your kit, you can get results unmatchable by digital, no matter how much post-processing. What, why, how, are necessary ingredients in film photography.

That said, I would think, compose, etc the photo in my mind, and then shoot bursts, the ask for a contact sheet, and choose what I wanted for prints. No need to gamble all on the speed of your index finger. Film was the cheapest variable in the equation, except for Kodachrome, the GOAT of films. Fuji makes some very good film, but Kodachrome was beyond anything.

Kodachrome 64, and occasionally 25, how I miss you! those films demanded discipline, but the rewards were astounding.

Yes, in some respects, film is still superior to digital, ***IF ***you understand the medium, kit, process, and thinking.

A digital compact? Fine, but get one of the later ones. Advice from someone who bought and used an Olympus 1.2 Mpx fixed lens in 1999. There is NOOOO redeeming value in an early digital, except… Yeah, NONE.

Anecdote: I recently saw a kid, floating around his friends, taking pics with an old point-and-shoot. The cringe was strong. I was thinking, "Jeez, kid! I’m all for film, but buy an actual reflex with a proper lens, they are cheap as fuck in second hand marketplaces!!

You may agree that “cost, quality, and convenience” are pretty damn desirable.

I do agree, and kind of miss, the anticipation for a record release, the listening to the radio (in my case the quality non-commercial programs, think BBC, NPR, and their equivalents) with the finger on the record button, the wonder of buying a new LP, and poring over the jacket, and the occasional included booklet, flipping through records at the store,and many other cool aspects, but I stand by the vastly increased quality and durability.

If you want the rituals (save the fucking chore and expense of cleaning records), CDs are a pretty nice compromise. Tactile, mainly manual, choice of playing linearly, as many artists intended, possibility of programming or shuffling, high quality, and many other choices. With records and even worse, cassettes, you are stuck with the artifacts introduced by a bad medium and bad equipment. Want “warmth”? get a decent tube amp. Better yet, build from as kit. Great experience, and if you want control over sound, buy and learn to use a proper equalizer.

I may have been one of the lucky. With all it’s warts, the 80’s, for many young people, were a banger. Sort of the final bang of the 60’s and 70’s. Perfect? Nowhere near, but the music, social, artistic, and so many other aspects, were pretty damn cool, and for the young crowd it was mainly what mattered. Things like the fall of the Berlin wall, the perceived end of the end of the cold war and the nuclear Armageddon threat gave us a sense of optimism. Looking back there are things, like the Reagan/Thatcher tandem, that were setting the stage to the neo-liberal clusterfuck we live in, but our focus was elsewhere.

Temu bridge

Older dude here:

There is no advantage to listening to something on a cassette, except for the vintage brownie points.

I did the analog to digital transition, and miss nothing. There was an intermediate time, when mp3s came along, and people were lowering bitrates to absurd levels, but digital is simply better.

All the people talking wonders about the “warmth”, “tone”, and other supposedly desirable qualities are very mistaken. What they are fawning over is noise, feedback, muddiness, lack of range, lack of definition, and so on. Vinyl records are shit. They make sound by literally scratching something.

The only advantage of tape was, at the time, it’s smaller size and portability, but sound was worse than records. I still have the last deck I owned, a marvel of technology of the time, a double auto-reverse TEAC deck with Dolby and Dbx noise reduction, auto azimuth, programmable, etc, which is objectively shit compared to a decent mp3 player, provided that the music is encoded in lossless, or large enough bitrate.

CDs were a massive improvement, and the pinnacle were DDD CDs, which were Digital recording, Digital mixing, and Digital mastering, meaning very little analog garbage was introduced in the process.

The objective for audio equipment is to be transparent, to not add or detract anything from the original performance.