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Has vinyl peaked?

jeremyjustic said:
I think sometimes all the effort, cleaning, set up etc makes it more rewarding when you sit down and listen a record, like all the work is done you now you get to sit down and listen to a click and pop free, quiet as a mouse awesome sounding record. :thmbsp:
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I tend to go the other way. I'd rather just sit down and get to the music. I guess I don't value my sweat equity. :)

for_p1 said:
Vinyl is the only mass market media whch cannot be converted to digital files without loss of quality (tape too, but it was never exclusive commercial product).
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Why can't it be converted without a loss of quality?
 
for_p1 said:
Vinyl is the only mass market media whch cannot be converted to digital files without loss of quality
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Agree, and this is why I don't think it will go away as a commercial product and why I still enjoy it on a regular basis - I wouldn't be without it as an option.

Yes, digital has gotten incredibly good, there is much I love about it now and feel the future is bright with things like streaming DSD but physical media; vinyl might just be the last man standing and for good reason - it can sound fantastic and can't be copied without loosing some of what's good about it.
 
slow_jazz said:
I recently upgraded my Windows operating system to version 8 over the internet.

I downloaded the file - paid with paypal - they emailed me the key to use.

No physical product involved. Way of the future.
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Perhaps, but I'm old enough and cautious enough that I still 'want' the media in my hands, and I don't want to have to produce it myself (by burning a backup).

SteveH
 
I'm surprised by the 1997 figure. I'd have thought the low point would have been earlier. My memory of 1997 was that nobody was buying or carrying new vinyl. It certainly was much more rare then in the stores I go to.

I'm guessing but I'd bet it was fewer titles with more sales per title back then. As what I find remarkable about the current vinyl wave is the sheer variety of what you can get. A whole lot of titles that probably aren't selling a lot individually, but adding up as a whole.
 
I missed this thread a few days ago, probably because I was busy organizing my duplicate LPs to sell at the local record show. I'm not a regular dealer kind of guy, I just find records I like for cheap and redistribute them for just slightly-more-than cheap and keep whichever is the best sounding copy for my collection.

If this last show was any indication, vinyl hasn't peaked yet. I sold a ton of records and gave out a bunch of cards for turntable repairs. What is encouraging to me is that most of my customers were in their 20s or younger. And I don't think they were hipsters, and they certainly weren't audiophiles (note -- audiophiles are just hipsters with different sets of rules). They seemed to me to be people who get really passionate about the music they like and really enjoy owning the artifact. Nothing will ever replace an album cover for tactile experience, and even a cheap turntable and a cheap stereo is going to sound better than laptop speakers or consumer-grade earbuds, and that's what the younger crowd grew up on.

It amuses me to hear reports that the people with higher-end gear are having more trouble enjoying vinyl. Good gear should make your music sound better, not worse!
My guess is lots of them dipped their toes with entry level Music Halls or Pro-Jects and got turned off because those just don't sound that great, and then had to spend gobs of money to get something better. And it was still an "inconvenient" format. Oh well.

The current vinyl wave will peak eventually, I'm guessing in the next five years. But a decent chunk of the people just getting into it now will remain into it. I also think people will still be pressing records for the foreseeable future because the LP issue will be the "collector's edition" of a piece of music. People like music and they like collecting things. That's human nature regardless of trends.
 
bangsezmax said:
I missed this thread a few days ago, probably because I was busy organizing my duplicate LPs to sell at the local record show. I'm not a regular dealer kind of guy, I just find records I like for cheap and redistribute them for just slightly-more-than cheap and keep whichever is the best sounding copy for my collection.

If this last show was any indication, vinyl hasn't peaked yet. I sold a ton of records and gave out a bunch of cards for turntable repairs. What is encouraging to me is that most of my customers were in their 20s or younger. And I don't think they were hipsters, and they certainly weren't audiophiles (note -- audiophiles are just hipsters with different sets of rules). They seemed to me to be people who get really passionate about the music they like and really enjoy owning the artifact. Nothing will ever replace an album cover for tactile experience, and even a cheap turntable and a cheap stereo is going to sound better than laptop speakers or consumer-grade earbuds, and that's what the younger crowd grew up on.

It amuses me to hear reports that the people with higher-end gear are having more trouble enjoying vinyl. Good gear should make your music sound better, not worse!
My guess is lots of them dipped their toes with entry level Music Halls or Pro-Jects and got turned off because those just don't sound that great, and then had to spend gobs of money to get something better. And it was still an "inconvenient" format. Oh well.

The current vinyl wave will peak eventually, I'm guessing in the next five years. But a decent chunk of the people just getting into it now will remain into it. I also think people will still be pressing records for the foreseeable future because the LP issue will be the "collector's edition" of a piece of music. People like music and they like collecting things. That's human nature regardless of trends.
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Its not that the high-end crowd isn't getting better sound than the entry level/hipster crowd. Its that there's a certain amount of over-think and OCD involved in that level of playback that isn't necessarily as compatible with the record format, given how much over-think you can sink into it. On the contrary, they're getting MUCH better sound than probably 99% of the kids I know who play vinyl. The difference is, most of those kids don't care about some of the absurdities involved in playing back records that we get into at length here. They'd walk into something like the current discussion on anti-skating and just shake their heads and wonder what we're all really into it for..the music, or to piss away any amount of fun that could be had on trivial (to them) OCD details that haven't a lick of anything to do with enjoying music.

Which is me saying that if you want to stop enjoying records, start discussing turntables on online forums. You will soon discover any number of ways to suck all the enjoyment out of it.
 
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JohnVF said:
Its not that the high-end crowd isn't getting better sound than the entry level/hipster crowd. Its that there's a certain amount of over-think and OCD involved in that level of playback that isn't necessarily as compatible with the record format, given how much over-think you can sink into it. On the contrary, they're getting MUCH better sound than probably 99% of the kids I know who play vinyl. The difference is, most of those kids don't care about some of the absurdities involved in playing back records that we get into at length here. They'd walk into something like the current discussion on anti-skating and just shake their heads and wonder what we're all really into it for..the music, or to piss away any amount of fun that could be had on trivial (to them) OCD details that haven't a lick of anything to do with enjoying music.

Which is me saying that if you want to stop enjoying records, start discussing turntables on online forums. You will soon discover any number of ways to suck all the enjoyment out of it.
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Excellent points all, and explains at least half of the arguments I get into on the turntable forum.

I sell a bunch of turntables to young kids just getting into it and need a fair bit of guidance ("You're going to need to buy a little preamp box on Amazon.") I also sell to some older types who think they know more than they do ("Tracking your records at half a gram VTF is harder on them than tracking them at 2 grams. Trust me.")

Guess which ones I'd rather deal with?
 
JohnVF said:
I'm surprised by the 1997 figure. I'd have thought the low point would have been earlier. My memory of 1997 was that nobody was buying or carrying new vinyl. It certainly was much more rare then in the stores I go to.

I'm guessing but I'd bet it was fewer titles with more sales per title back then. As what I find remarkable about the current vinyl wave is the sheer variety of what you can get. A whole lot of titles that probably aren't selling a lot individually, but adding up as a whole.
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I think you are right-on about this. On the basis of purely casual observation, my impression is that most new vinyl pressings are in limited runs/limited editions. I'm not talking about limited like only 100 or something, thought that kind of thing still happens. But rather a quantity that will ensure that the title stays in print for, say, anywhere from six months to two years, and then they'll gauge whether or not it's worth re-pressing a new batch. Whereas that was probably less the case in the old days. Though I guess indie pressings have usually always been lower in quantity.

What is kind of interesting nowadays is that it is actually cheaper to press CDs than vinyl. When I was younger and buying a lot of punk and indie titles that were only pressed on vinyl, some bands would only press vinyl because it was cheaper to do so. This was before the dawn of CD-Rs and CD burners being mass-market items. The tables have turned, though.
 
bangsezmax said:
Excellent points all, and explains at least half of the arguments I get into on the turntable forum.

I sell a bunch of turntables to young kids just getting into it and need a fair bit of guidance ("You're going to need to buy a little preamp box on Amazon.") I also sell to some older types who think they know more than they do ("Tracking your records at half a gram VTF is harder on them than tracking them at 2 grams. Trust me.")

Guess which ones I'd rather deal with?
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Probably who ever has the cash :yes:
 
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