Mr. Cowie pays attention to the quality of pressings, and within reason prefers for the bar’s collection either original pressings of an LP or vinyl reissues cut from original analog-tape masters, as opposed to vinyl records made from digital masters, which are essentially CDs on vinyl. This means that the inherent continuity in the analog process (as opposed to the chopped, discrete sound-wave in digital) travels all the way: from the original recording technology through the storage medium through the playback gear, and then even through the purposeful, undistracted way the record was put on by the bartender that Monday morning, whose name was Dane. (I asked, as one would ask a park ranger on top of a significant mountain.)

Before putting the record on, he cleaned it with a Hunt EDA record brush, then let it run for a full side, as per the practice at Lion, from beginning to end. That act could be described as analog, too — as is any conscious move toward continuity.

Mr. Cowie’s day job is as a music supervisor for films and TV shows, including “Master of None” and “Forever.” He has a vested interest in smuggling great music into people’s lives; he wants to surprise them and discreetly expand their frames of reference. I asked him to diagnose my experience with the City record.

Across a couple of days, we talked about unplugging, records as gateways, the possibility of a self-governing quiet place for listening, the depressingly appeasing quality of algorithmic choices, the stimulation of curiosity. And finally he told me: “That was your first time hearing a single-ended triode amplifier through a pair of very efficient loudspeakers.”

“Efficient” means the speakers don’t require a lot of power to be very loud. And his diagnosis may well be correct. But you don’t have to know any of that, really, and Mr. Cowie or Dane or whoever else won’t tell you unless you ask .

Vinyl records these days amount to one of two extremes: either dusty, embarrassing garbage or advanced-level consumables. If a record isn’t something so valueless you can’t give it away, it’s the signifier of taste and an ambitious, highly tailored social life. To turn that social life into a business, in a town like New York or Los Angeles, can easily result in a situation in which elite whiskey and Instagram moments are more important than communicative potential of the records themselves.