Playing audio files on a hi-fi

I swore I’d written about this before, but I can’t find it in the archives. If I’m rehashing here, let’s pretend this is (1) a novel post, or (b) a substantive update on what I’ve mentioned before. Brilliant! Let’s jump in. Clara and I love playing music on our hi-fi setup. We have a Kenwood cassette tape deck (nothing special, only 2 heads), a Sony DVD changer we use for CDs, and a Technics linear tracking, quartz locked, direct drive, track selecting turntable which may be one of the single most wonderful pieces of electronics I’ve ever had the joy and privilege to own. The “tea ceremony” involved in selecting an album, then putting it on the platter, or the cassette mech, or CD drawer, feels deliberate and fun. Of course, there’s always just one problem with setups like this, and our just one problem here is how to plumb our burgeoning collection of ripped FLAC and MP3 files into it while maintaining that deliberate, tactile experience we have with these other formats. Now some of…