Bought a used CD player from 1999 and now I remember why I miss physical media
Got tired of streaming and started buying CDs again at thrift stores for like a dollar each. But I didn't have anything to play them on. Found an old Sony CDP-XE330 at a garage sale for fifteen bucks. Cleaned it up, plugged it into my amp, and put on a 90s pressing of Dark Side of the Moon. I don't know if it's placebo or real but it sounded warmer and more present than the Tidal stream I've been using. No skips, no buffering, just a disc spinning and music playing.
The weird part is how it changes the way I listen. With streaming I skip songs constantly. With a CD I just let the album play. I sat through the whole thing without touching my phone and realized I haven't done that in years. The player has a 5 disc changer which feels ridiculously luxurious for no reason. My girlfriend asked why I needed to load five CDs at once and I didn't have a good answer.
Now I'm looking at older players online and falling into a rabbit hole of DACs and transports. I told myself this was supposed to be cheap.
For anyone else who went back to CDs, what player are you using? And do you actually hear a difference or am I just convincing myself because I want to?