Vinyl officially outsold CDs (units shipped) in 2021...

T

Taketheflame

Super Member
Wow. Here we are! 2020 was the year LPs surpassed CDs in sales revenue - now it's both revenue and actual units moved for 2021.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...d-2021-surpasses-cds-first-time-1666483?amp=1

- 41.7 million new LPs sold in 2021 (up from 27.5 million in 2020).
- 40.6 million CDs sold in 2021 (up from 40.2 million in 2020).

Granted, these figures are for the US, and a drop in the bucket compared to streaming. But still...

Makes me wonder if the writing is on the wall for the beloved silver discs? Of if we are seeing a new equilibrium of sorts in the physical music market?

The fact CDs went up modestly is a bit of a surprise to me, as CD sales were in free-fall until the pandemic hit, and how much vinyl sales grew in one year.

Personally, I hope both formats continue to stick around.
 
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I don't think CD's will be gone any time soon but the good numbers for vinyl mean they won't either....:cool:
 
I collect LPs and prefer them over CDs, which I collect as well. Still, by any practical measure, CDs are what I still consider to be the best physical media that we have right now. They're cheaper and a better impulse by as merch at a show (better for the band as production costs are less, easier to transport, harder to damage, and more consistent quality - and for the buyer they can play the thing on the ride home). Still, admittedly, at least for a lot of us they lack something that LPs have... I wouldn't really be surprised if we're seeing the last years of physical media all together though...
 
RunOutGroove said:
Still, admittedly, at least for a lot of us they lack something that LPs have... I wouldn't really be surprised if we're seeing the last years of physical media all together though...
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Which is why many of us transitioned to 24 bit content many years ago. As in how most modern recordings are captured.

Redbook was designed around 1970s media. We've long gone beyond that arbitrary limitation.
 
E-Stat said:
Which is why many of us transitioned to 24 bit content many years ago. As in how most modern recordings are captured.

Redbook was designed around 1970s media. We've long gone beyond that arbitrary limitation.
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Well, I wasn't thinking of pure resolution when I said that, but other "x-factors." In terms of resolution, I think that old school CDs are still very good. my friend who has easily the best system that I've heard is a CD guy and it would be hard to imagine anything better than CDs on his system (It's that good). I have a player that works with SACDs player and though I don't even own any SACDs, I've borrowed a few that do indeed sound very good, though only subtly better than what I heard with regular old CDs and then I have to wonder about how much the improvement is really in the higher resolution or in the remastering process that the SACD reissues tend to go through...

As for the sonic of LPs, I definitely feel like there are some limitations with that as well... I feel that at least for a lot of us that preferences come down to things that aren't purely SQ based...
 
E-Stat said:
Which is why many of us transitioned to 24 bit content many years ago. As in how most modern recordings are captured.

Redbook was designed around 1970s media. We've long gone beyond that arbitrary limitation.
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24-bit (or even 32-bit) digital audio is great for studio use, because it allows many layers of editing and processing effects to be used without any chance of cumulative quantization noise ever becoming audible. But for delivering the final, finished product, 16-bit digital audio is still capable of delivering greater dynamic range than any recording can possibly take advantage of without damaging either your speakers or your hearing. Especially with modern pop music which has very limited dynamic range, all 24-bit audio would do is waste storage space and streaming bandwidth.
 
RunOutGroove said:
and it would be hard to imagine anything better than CDs on his system (It's that good).
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Then something is most certainly missing. Have you never heard better?

RunOutGroove said:
and then I have to wonder about how much the improvement is really in the higher resolution or in the remastering process that the SACD reissues tend to go through...
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Right. Studios only use morons for CD mastering while they use their "A" team for SACD and original 24 bit recordings.
 
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New Turntables are much easier to find these days, compared to CD players..
Maybe in a year or 10, it'll turn back around.. :dunno:
People are listening to, and enjoying music.. when they put the phone down and hear it thru a system, they become overwhelmed, and a new demand crops up.. :music:
 
the skipper said:
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Yeah, this is really how a lot of folks seem to think. I have a friend who's actually not an idiot and very good musician, who apparently spent a bit of time working in a recording studio... and he is of the opinion that the LP format is clearly technically better than CD. I've debated this with the guy and he just throws up some technical sounding stuff about sample rates and such, but he doesn't seem to want to approach the subject of the playback gear, which unless you've got a lot of money to throw at it and some know how to set everything up just right seems to really fall in favor of CD/digital. I would say that digital isn't necessarily a clear winner over CDs but that for most budgets it's better sound for the money... and even if money isn't an issue, that there are some pretty obvious limitations that the LP format has. Analog might be the clear winner if you're using reel to reel tape as a comparison... but who has that stuff?
 
E-Stat said:
Then something is most certainly missing. Have you never heard better?


Right. Studios only use morons for CD mastering while they use their "A" team for SACD and original 24 bit recordings.
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No, I haven't heard better, which is the point that I was trying to make.

I wouldn't say that mastering is always done poorly until a SACD is made, but there are all kinds of cases where some kind of new remastered version of something, on any format, SACD included, ends up squeezing a little more fidelity out of a recording. When something can be marketed as a remaster, the thing goes under a kind of microscope and the mastering gets done much more carefully that second (or third, fifth, whatever) time around.
 
E-Stat said:
Sorry to hear that.
Well, I probably don't know what I'm missing, but my friend's system sounds pretty amazing to me. I guess though that it really doesn't matter as I'll never be able to afford anything close to it, let alone better. He's got some big $$ invested in that system.

As for me, I'll take the original 24 bit master that hasn't been neutered.
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Whether the SACDs that I heard on my system were unmolested 24 bit masters or something that was remastered somehow, I don't know, but the differences between that and regular old CD quality were there for sure, but just not dramatic. Not nearly as dramatic, I would imagine as upgrading some other part of the chain.. DAC, amp, speakers...
 
E-Stat said:
I would agree if your musical tastes are limited to such.
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I don't think it's humanly possible to make a real music recording using microphones that would exceed CD's 96 dB dynamic range. Even Telarc's famous speaker-destroying 1812 Overture only has about 45 dB of dynamic range.
 
vwestlife said:
I don't think it's humanly possible to make a real music recording using microphones that would exceed CD's 96 dB dynamic range. Even Telarc's famous speaker-destroying 1812 Overture only has about 45 dB of dynamic range.
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In reality, however, none come even close to delivering that. Theory works great except when it doesn't.

There are many good reasons why no recordings made today use the ancient 44/16 standard.
 
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