One thing I noticed via my digs at GW. I find bunches of albums that are torn to hell, major scratches, but from the 50's and 60's. I do mean bunches because in some cases peeps place initials, names tags etc. on albums to mark them as theirs. These were prized possessions since then. Enough to pigeon hole them for so many years. Meaning.... peeps will tear albums up and still like them this is why a Crosley will survive...and last but not least economics and portable. Just something to think about we all perceive care differently. I think that's why there are sooooo many debates here.
Very good point.
Also, then as in now, a lot of folks back in the day had/have no idea how to take care of records. My parents certainly never did. My Dad never fully got rid of his albums, but we didn't have a turntable through most of the 90s. Then, around 2002, he bought an AIWA stereo system that had a turntable on top, a Sony one that was very similar to the AT-LP60.
He began playing his records more, and I did sometimes, too. I'd played a few when I was very very young, but most of my formative years had been spent with cassettes and CDs. So this was kind of a novelty thing, really. Besides, I thought, records were dead. Long gone!
Then I noticed that they weren't really gone, not totally. I've recounted elsewhere that I got back into vinyl by buying a Joan Jett record on a whim and that leading to me having a small album set without a player. Then I bought a Crosley.
Now, slightly less than a decade later, I'm using great vintage gear and taking exceptional care of my albums. Did some of them get played on the Crosley? Sure. But most still sound great. I didn't have it long enough to do any serious damage and I know better now. So from my own perspective, Crosley's are helping revive the love of music more than they're hurting, because a lot of these old LPs being bought now would have just been thrown away if the market Crosley's helped revive hadn't given kids like me an inexpensive way in. I wouldn't have dropped even $150 on my first player, I was poor and in college and I wasn't sure how far the hobby would really grow on me.
And my Dad...when I talked to him about turntables I mentioned changing the stylus on my turntable and he said the following, "I never tried changing needles on any of my turntables."
NEVER! AHHHHH!
My parents didn't know a lot about the technology, they just wanted to use it to hear music. There are a HUGE number of folks from that generation like that. Those folks mostly migrated away from records. My mom says to me frequently, "I don't know why you like records, they were a huge pain. I like CDs better." But she was and is listening to music for different reasons and that's ok. I like the sound of vinyl, I like the album art, and I like the mechanics of it and the "magic" of plastic and diamond making beautiful music that others described earlier.
So, I think Crosley's not doing any harm really. Users not interested in how anything worked have been ruining records since records were being sold, it's just now it's been somewhat unified under a brand name. But some of these kids will change like I did as they learn more about it. They'll treasure and preserve records that right now are moldering in attics and would otherwise be thrown away (and a lot of folks are still just throwing records out).
Anyway, that's my own thoughts about it. YMMV.
Happy New Year, everybody!
