If you want the cassette experience without the massive downsides of cassettes, pick up an old Minidisc recorder. Physical media that are nearly infinitely re-recordable (unused ones are expensive but used ones from Japan are not) and nearly indestructible. The NetMD ones have been bid up in price because of transfer speed but older ones that only do real-time transfers are not hideously expensive.

Owning bit-perfect rips of your favourite music is a sweet spot. I have no interest in tape - of any kind - or vinyl.

The one frustration is that continuous FLAC playback appears to be an arcane programming challenge that only a select few developers have mastered. Especially on mobile.

And unless you set up a server the business of getting files onto and off devices is insanely perverse.

But in terms of sound quality and convenience, lossless rips win over anything else.

Going back to physical seems almost pointlessly decadent.

Cassettes were always a pain, but LPs are an awesome medium even today.

While it's convenient to just listen to anything with a click, the joy of the experience is gone. Purposefully pulling out an LP and setting it on the turntable, sitting on the couch to meaningfully listen while reading the album cover is a much more engaging musical experience.

Yes, I don't have time to do that much anymore either. But when possible, it is much more enjoyable.

I would especially not go back to tape. sssssssssssssssssssssss

Not trying to correct you, just looking for the right word. Digital isn't the right term here, because CDs are also digital. I'm trying to come up with the word for the opposite of physical media, but strangely I can't. Maybe streaming, but how would MP3s on a USB drive fit in?

Same here. And I've been old-guy grumbling for years now about kids-these-days getting into vinyl and other retro technology that I was happy to be rid of.