[Jodo Kast]

Earlier this year I purchased the Astell & Kern AK300, which is a mid-grade* portable music player. It has 64 GB of internal storage and is compatible with micro SD cards. Since I've purchased this device, I haven't used my CD player to listen to music, and I have rarely used my PC.

This has caused a sea change in what I think of "my collection". On one had, I have a lot of physical discs which are in plastic slipcases and are never opened or played. Since I never listen to those discs, they are in some respects not a part of my collection - they are never used. I have some of them on display, artwork facing out, which takes up a lot of space, but they are awesome to look at.

I really have three collections:

1. Physical discs (display purposes only)
2. Hard drive content (back-up only)
3. AK300 content (this is what I listen to)

So my collection is *really* what I have taken the time to rip to FLAC and transfer to my AK300, because that is what I listen to.

So if you go and look at my collection here on vgmdb, that doesn't help you understand what I listen to, or what I really care about. I'm tempted to do away with all the yearly organized folders and make just two folders - 1. physical display discs and 2. what's on the AK300.

I'll never forget, way back in 1999, dreaming of a device that could hold all of my favorite game music in very high quality in the palm of my hand. It didn't take long at all for that to become reality.

*mid-grade due to the price of $900. They offer models which are much more expensive. Even Sony has one that exceeds the $1000 mark. I want to mention that the $900 price was worth it, due to the device having the best sound quality of any music playing device I have ever heard, easily outclassing even my Marantz CD player. I feel like all of my music is "brand new", because of all the new detail I can hear.