I don’t agree here—a collection is something you curate and care for over time. You may or may not “need” it but one doesn’t really need anything except food, water, sleep, shelter and oxygen.
Maybe not, if you don't have two Love Guns, one to keep and one to shoot... then you might still not have enough.
I'd say around 1000 for me. I like to cycle stuff in and out of my collection so I don't accumulate too much. Part of this is that I just hate it when I own things and don't use them. So the idea of an LP sitting there for years not being played drives me nuts. You can reasonably listen to 3 different albums a day for a year and play your whole collection with a 1000 albums. I currently have a few hundred LPs and I am still adding (and subtracting) from my collection. This approach works for me and it helps that I supplement with streaming to fill the gaps for those songs and albums that I like but don't love.
Good point! I think at last count I have about 8... - Three original 1977 pressings. - The UMe Vinyl Reissue - The original CD - The 1997 Remasters CD - A sealed 8 track tape - A 1980's cassette tape issue.
I have about 1300 and buy maybe ten new or used LP's a year. I was listening to a Donovan LP (A Gift From A Flower...), an original 1967 release, and it just sounds so good. I do not have CD's that sound like this, and I'm not saying that LP's sound better, but the separation and the immediacy of the recording is just so wonderful. I'm sure I'll keep buying until I can't or until I decide to pare everything down and just travel - who knows. But I have never pared down, still have every purchase I have ever made going back to the early seventies. It gets sentimental. I remember when I started buying used records about fifteen years ago and initially I kept them separate from my 'original' collection, then one day I just realized that it was all one thing, one collection and the used records finally had a real home, so I merged them.
Once this vinyl addiction starts it's very hard to stop. You never have enough lps, I swear it's a sickness indeed.
At $25 to $40 per LP what I have is enough. I'll not pay greedy prices for vinyl. For less than $10/month for my Deezer HiFi subscription I can stream thousands of albums. That, and buying used CD which for the most part sound better than new LP pressings anyway.
I have 1000+ CDs boxed up in the garage, which will probably never get played again since I ripped them to flac files. I’ve a slightly more modest record collection of about 800 albums. Probably an insignificant amount compared to many on here. But I sold off most of my original collection years ago, when I needed the money, and only bought slowly throughout the 1990s and 2000s. That’s been escalating a lot recently, so I have concerns about storage and managing the collection now. And about focusing on the stuff I really love. I’ve started putting some of the lesser played records in the garage alongside the CDs. I should probably consider selling them eventually, but I’m not sure yet, so the garage is kind of becoming my archive for less-loved artefacts!
Way back when I first started, I would grab almost everything I could find at the thrift store. Had a lot of stuff I never even bothered to listen to. That collection was lost in a move. Like you, now I dislike having things I don’t use, especially living in an apartment. I try to purchase quality, records for sure I’m going spin, rather than just buying on a whim.
I thought about that and I thought surely folks with thousands of records have found their limit. I guess not.
The number is irrelevant. I don't really have a problem figuring out what to play. I just think of something I want to hear and go get the album. I know what I have. I listen to all my records. No I don't have time to listen all of them even in a years time. But I've been buying records for over 40 years. They all get played over the years. The way it goes, I have a set of records that are played regularly. Mostly these are newly acquired, but a few of the older ones stay with them depending on my mood. I'll pull record for one off plays because I'm in that mood. After I've had my fill of more often playing out of the regularly played ones, I swap them for something else. It could be more newly acquired one or it could be stuff I pull from the larger library. It's usually about 100 record that I play regularly. On the weekends I play records all day. So 20 or so get played each weekend. I play them less during the week while I'm working.
Your thread is less than two hours old. Give it time. 40-something votes for 1,000+ LPs is a low number around here.
There is no such thing as “enough” LPs as long as there is music I want to own and do not yet own. Since artists keep releasing music I like, there keep being more LPs to buy. I voted 1000+, but I don’t even think it is quantifiable like that. For clarity: I do not think I even own close to 1000 LPs as of now (haven’t counted in some time, though). I just couldn’t see limiting this for myself.
I suspect for many here it’s not so much about “listening to music” as it simply a huge part of our lives. I collect vinyl because it’s a comfort and something I’ve loved since I was a kid (I’m 52). I can stream almost every album ever made in lossless quality with two clicks of a button but nothing will ever beat putting a record on and dropping that needle. It’s a lifestyle to me and something I love with all my heart. So the answer is there is never too many records because the love for them outweighs any impracticalities.
According to discogs I have 10,250 items and I’d say that’s 85% cds and 15% lps and I’m still buying more and not selling (although I have some stacks of each to eventually sell). I’m only 32 and hope to have another 50 years to enjoy them and many more.
This question seems to be like asking my wife - How many purses and pairs of shoes do you really need? in other words, a question best not asked....