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Has vinyl peaked?

ra7c7er said:
I agree with that. Here a thrift store in the span of just a few months went from records being $0.25 to $3 and now they are getting prices from eBay. So much for that being a nice place to find stuff. Another place used to sell records for $1 but now prices range from 3-10 bucks and they don't go by condition they go by artist.

About the only places I know that haven't had huge price adjustments are record stores.
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ra7c7er said:
A guy that shops at the local record store buys a couple hundred dollars worth of vinyl on fridays and transfers it to digital over the weekend then trades it back in and buys more on Monday and transfers it on Fridays and on and on. One of the workers there told me the guy has probably ripped a few thousand records.
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Of the thrifts that I go to they are anywhere from 50 cents to 75 cents for a record, and some will give me a great deal on large lots. But one thrift that I go to often just got a bunch of big cases in and they were only in the store for a little over a week. Today when I went to see what they had new all the cases were gone, so I ask the store clerk what happen to all the records. Seems they have a contract with a company every thrity days, the company comes and grabs all the records to recycle them. So that is where the companies that used non virgin records get their vinyl. I was a bit upset as they don't have a method of dating the records if a large batch comes in you better go thru them because they can be all scraped for melting.

As for buying records used and ripping them, do you not need to keep the orginals as would it not be illegal to own ripped copies without having the orginal? I know people think its a minor thing to rip an old record on to their PC, but they sure do advertise the offense as serious.
 
I would think you could make an argument that its not a perfect copy. And then bring up the case of the original CD recorders that, when dubbing, didn't actually do a bit for bit copy..they'd send the signal through an DA/AD conversion process so that it wasn't a perfect copy.
 
My take is this: without a DAC, a good one, your system today is doomed. I understand LP is a "longtime" standard, but digital is getting better all the time, and I cannot see how anyone can deny digital is equal, or superior, to vinyl. I use an iMac with Amarra and the sound on SIMPLE 16/44 is superb, by any measure. Far better than the reference CDP I have. In fact, every time I think I might get into LP, I find another reason NOT TO. My DAC has all the inputs I need, upsampling, and the analog output stage is pure and clean. No ticks/pops. I can get any song from my library at a touch... no searching. Even better than my CD collection.

I think the LP had a brief resurgence, but really, the standalone DAC, the good ones, killed it for good. Easy to use and access digital files needed the DAC to get "ahead" and once the DAC came of age, it was a no brainer. I would like to point out that the DAC portion of my 1990 Denon CDP and New Bryston DAC is identical, which is saying something. If only my CDP had inputs... but what were they thinking in 1990? The only reason for the Bryston was inputs, not sound. So don't think newer means better sound. I can agree with LP fans on that part, but technology is such that the EFFORT of LP is dated, and only for those who are really stuck in an era or have such an amount of music on LP that cannot ever be on CD/digital. I listen to the Doors "The End" as I write this and there is NO WAY the LP version could sound so clean, pop free/tick free as this. And the dynamic range.

Like I said; I find that every time I want to get into LP I keep finding reasons not to, not reasons to. And the fact most of my music is hard to find on CLEAN LP is another, or would cost a fortune. Try finding Judas Priest "British Steel" on Mint LP. Or what it would cost. Not viable when the digital version is cleaner, easier to find and sounds better. The only reason for any change in any event.
 
JohnVF said:
Now THIS is the conversation I had meant when I started this thread, as I've been seeing this same thing. Turntables are gathering dust in audio circles. This after seemingly 10 years of more interest every year.
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Then what explains the 52% increase in sales of vinyl last fiscal year alone? What explains places like Radio Shack, Target, Wal-Mart having at least one turntable (each) for sale, where they haven't for years? You can't judge strength of industry just by popularity in audio circles.

Also, what explains ON THIS FORUM, the TURNTABLES sub-forum consistently having the most viewers?
 
I think the fact that this thread is still going strong is proof in itself that vinyl is still alive and kicking. I feel like the digital crowd is trying to convince itself to get rid of vinyl for good. If you have an expensive DAC, you may in fact have digital reproduction that can compare to analog. However, if you think the record companies are somehow going to cater to the digital audiophiles and release everything in the optimal bit rate, file type, etc, I think you are mistaken. 25+ years of lousy digital reproduction has both lowered the expectations of the music consumer as regards sound quality and proven to the record industry that the vast majority of consumers don't care about sound quality in the first place. There is simply no profit motive for them to care about whether a file is lossy or lossless.
On a positive note, I just set up a vinyl rig for a girl in her early 20's and she was ecstatic about it. Like many of these youngsters, she has grown up on CD's and MP3's and had never even heard a record played on a decent system. I've never lived in a house/apartment without at least a turntable, so it's fun for me to see the reaction. I discussed this whole issue of the supposed decline of vinyl (and supposed supremacy of the high-end DAC) with her; she had never heard of DAC of course, but didn't think that hip or trend factor had anything to do with kids getting into vinyl. She just was tired of digital and had been told that vinyl was better. Now she knows for sure.
 
Phototone said:
Also, what explains ON THIS FORUM, the TURNTABLES sub-forum consistently having the most viewers?
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Many record player people are Zealots.

The people here on AK are the most screwball group of audiophiles I've encountered. I wouldn't draw any lessons that apply to the rest of society (or even the rest of the audiophile world) from AK.

I know lots of dedicated audiophiles and none prefer records to digital, records are one source among others to them. Very few rooms at the recent hi-fi show here used record players and the worst sound I heard was in a room dedicated to record playing gear. These audiophiles enjoying digital, even to the exclusion of records are not full of ****.
 
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Phototone said:
Then what explains the 52% increase in sales of vinyl last fiscal year alone? What explains places like Radio Shack, Target, Wal-Mart having at least one turntable (each) for sale, where they haven't for years? You can't judge strength of industry just by popularity in audio circles.

Also, what explains ON THIS FORUM, the TURNTABLES sub-forum consistently having the most viewers?
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Calm down, I'm not attacking your little baby I'm just trying to have a discussion around what I have noticed out in the world and not just online. You cannot judge the popularity of anything when viewed through an information silo, and that is what online forums are. You get a lot of one viewpoint, because that viewpoint seeks out others like itself and shuns any contrary information it doesn't want to hear. Such as what you're doing in the post I quoted.

My first post was about vinyl peaking in audio circles. Its something I've noticed in the past year, and its been getting more and more apparent. I haven't noticed a decline in record buying in record stores. I have noticed a change in the crowd but there are plenty of people buying records and that is not what the first post was about.

It could be a blip or it could be the canary in the coal mine for the bursting of a bubble. And bubbles are always biggest right before they pop.
 
Tom Brennan said:
The people here on AK are the most screwball group of audiophiles I've encountered. I wouldn't draw any lessons that apply to the rest of society (or even the rest of the audiophile world) from AK.
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I love AK and my friends here, but at times it's a place where the application of reason and common sense is actively discouraged.
 
Vinyl is what it is..a potentially GREAT sounding medium for recorded music. So are other mediums. If you don't like vinyl, OK, but it ain't going away.
 
Phototone said:
Vinyl is what it is..a potentially GREAT sounding medium for recorded music. So are other mediums. If you don't like vinyl, OK, but it ain't going away.
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This is wrong. Vinyl is a potentially decent sounding analog media which can be manufactured relatively cheaply in large volumes.
 
Wrong? I guess you mean in your opinion.

I feel it is a potentially great sounding medium, and don't think it's going away anytime soon.
 
Argue? Not a chance - I have heard lots of live music, and I feel vinyl is a potentially great sounding medium - that's all.

And I won't decree you are 'wrong' either. :)
 
well I have read in more then one magazine that last years electronic sales reports said that DAC's and headphones were by far the top sellers of the year. I guess that is why ever magazine is full of dac's and even this months stereophile has headphones on the cover. It would also explain why you are seeing more digital set ups at shows, if that is what is selling then that is what manufactures are going to bring to shows.
 
Frank Sol said:
Vinyl been dead & buried before... Right !?
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It is still dead and buried for anyone other than collectors. We just had surge in number of "collectors" recently, as being a vinyl colector became trendy. As every hipe, it passed away now too. So we are returning back to core collector state of things.
 
I would NOT label the newer (last 5-6 yrs) vinyl buyers "collectors" -- They , the younger crowd , bought for the SQ although there was the 'hip' value too
 
for_p1 said:
It is still dead and buried for anyone other than collectors. We just had surge in number of "collectors" recently, as being a vinyl colector became trendy. As every hipe, it passed away now too. So we are returning back to core collector state of things.
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During discussion over coffee at church, someone mentioned hearing an NPR program (we are Episcopalian) talking about how LP's are trendy again.

I fear media attention is going to seriously hurt my chances of picking up nice records for a reasonable price. Oh well. I did pick up some LPs and 78s at an estate sale over the weekend. They were $1 each. They weren't anything special, but all were in excellent condition.
 
for_p1 said:
It is still dead and buried for anyone other than collectors. We just had surge in number of "collectors" recently, as being a vinyl colector became trendy. As every hipe, it passed away now too. So we are returning back to core collector state of things.
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The only decline in interest is what I've seen and heard in high-end audio circles. If anything, record buying among other groups is as strong as I've seen it in 20 years. I'm just curious if what I see in one city and in a few audio magazines and from a few audio show reports is any indication of a pending turnaround in a larger market. I just don't know if the niche-audio market is any indication of a trend in anything but itself.
 
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