Why the Vinyl Boom is Over - WSJ

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by seaisletim, Jul 22, 2017.

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  1. Galactus2

    Galactus2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    Actually, 'The Something Something Hipsters' would make a pretty good, tongue-in-cheek band name when you think about it.
     
  2. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Not strange at all. CD was The New Hotness so they charged a premium for it. When a format's on the way down in popularity, that's when you find out how little they're prepared to sell it for.
     
    Aftermath likes this.
  3. markedasred

    markedasred Forum Resident

    Location:
    Worcester UK
    My stepfather said "talk to the hand, the face ain't listening" to me in about 2010. Never spoke a word to him since, the prat.
     
    Veni Vidi Vici, tin ears and forthlin like this.
  4. bibijeebies

    bibijeebies vinyl hairline spotter

    Location:
    Amstelveen (NL)
    This part of the story is inaccurate as they do not master from CD. If the local company supplied them with 16/44.1 khz files and they never bothered to check they - MOV - are to blame nevertheless.
     
    murphywmm likes this.
  5. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I can't see post numbers, but just counting to post #12 didn't get it for me. Oh well, I'll live. I kept buying vinyl in the 90's and 00's, even when the only available pressing of an album had to be imported from the EU, so I'll probably continue when the current boom ends as well.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2017
  6. markedasred

    markedasred Forum Resident

    Location:
    Worcester UK
    I fear I may be repeating myself, but I suspect that used records account for 99% of record sales in the Uk from shops & fairs, with a big chunk also selling at car boots and charity shops or house clearances etc. Online I would say about 80% is used (looking at ebay uk figures of current vinyl listings), because it is a cheap outlet for new sales. Briefly, record sellers either seek collections or are offered them, which means they can buy at between 1/20th and a third of the value of the selling price. By comparison, fashionable bands vinyl is invariably high unit priced from wholesalers, 60 to 80% of the retail cost. Think how much outlay it is to fill racks with that. A crate of 160 lps could cost you £2,400 in the blink of an eye. The nearest independent large record retailer to me has about 300 new lps, and 150, 000 second hand ones, so new accounts for 0.2% of their stock!. There is a flood of Scorpio and DOL type bootleg facsimile pressings of back catalogue out there, but even if they were £1 each, they are rubbish, direct from cd pressings that are pointless and stealing from the bands and labels. The first time a record buyer gets to compare most original pressings with one of these, they start buying used.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2017
    MisterBritt likes this.
  7. jon9091

    jon9091 Master Of Reality

    Location:
    Midwest
    I think it's been removed since then. I'm assuming because somebody copy/pasted the entire article here in spite of the WSJ having a paywall.
    Same here. I do think it's funny that we have some forum members who still refuse to recognize this vital part of the industry. It's been building and building again for well over a decade, and now it's $1 billion of business....and that's not counting the used market! It literally keeps numerous brick and mortars in business....giving people jobs. And yet, some people just seem to hoping for a great thing to end. Baffling.
     
    s m @, abor1g, Dr. Funk and 1 other person like this.
  8. snorker

    snorker Big Daddy

    The headline is a bit misleading. The "boom" has slowed, with what they're saying is only 2% growth in the first half of 2018, compared to 38% in the same period in 2015 and 12% last year.

    But the article is actually more about the use of inferior digital sources to cut vinyl on-the-cheap, and quotes Michael Fremer on the matter. The author focuses on folk duo Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who bought their own lathe to cut lacquers from their analog tapes at their Nashville studio, rather than relying on another facility to cut from digital. Though the implication is this practice of cutting from inferior sources like CDs and lossy files is killing the vinyl business because people have caught on that it's just a lossy file cut to a record.

    I'm not sure I agree. I think other than us "audiophiles" I'm not so sure the general public has any idea about such things.
     
    eddiel likes this.
  9. abor1g

    abor1g Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gwada
    Strange ... here in France, Fnac, Cultura and some others are expanding LPs shelves since one year or two ...
    Vinyle is back here ...
    Went to Toulouse last week ( over 1 million ppl live there ) The record shops spreads and specialists sell in the same time 10 euros records
    and 25 euros reissues like Sonic Youth, or gems from the 60' ... from the series Back to Black popular around here ...
    and that's ok for me : i wont buy cds as i get the music in flac files ... i prefer to get vinyles
     
    jon9091 likes this.
  10. Gramps Tom

    Gramps Tom Forum Resident

    Looks like vinyl mfg is still booming.....


    [​IMG]
     
    Dave, Blank Slate, Stuart S and 4 others like this.
  11. forthlin

    forthlin Member Chris & Vickie Cyber Support Team

    The third lady from the front is smiling cos she's slipping loud cuts into her batch.;)
     
  12. DeRosa

    DeRosa Vinyl Forever

    Almost every on-line shipment i've ordered in the last 10 years is for 3 or more records, and i've never found that all records are warped.
    If one out of a shipment with multiple pieces of vinyl is warped, it was that way from the factory. I've never had a two LP set have both
    records warped, i've had many sets where 1 of the discs is warped or dished, they come that way from the factory. I hate to say it,
    but one thing that i find these days is people don't know, or seem to understand that "correlation is not causation".
    But glad to hear your luck is getting better.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    It's cassettes that are booming. And supplying a 16/44.1 master is better than not supplying any master at all, because the original has disintegrated.
     
  14. HarvG

    HarvG Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago Suburbs
  15. Aftermath

    Aftermath Senior Member

    I follow what you're saying and agree that warping can occur at the pressing plant. However, the decrease in percentage of warped copies I received seemed too great after switching sources be due solely to chance. Some online retailers may quality check the vinyl they receive whereas others don't.

    I live in South Florida and you live in British Columbia, so the chances of vinyl being exposed to higher temps (whether in temporary storage or in transit) after leaving the pressing plant would likely be greater en route to my place relative to yours. Not saying this is the reason why we've had different experiences, but I don't see how it could be ruled out.
     
  16. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
    You might want to look into Non Fill

    A major problem with thicker 180-200 gm vinyl
     
  17. Johan1880

    Johan1880 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    I'd like to ask you: what is MOV supposed to do when the client provides a cd as the master like Leonard Cohen Live 1972 (I know because I attended the mastering session) ? Do they have to turn down Sony - possibly their biggest client and licencee ? Or do they have to tell them to search for the tapes in Iron Mountain or ask LC management? And who's going to pay for this extra effort: MOV?
     
  18. abor1g

    abor1g Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gwada
  19. rene smalldridge

    rene smalldridge Senior Member

    Location:
    manhattan,kansas
    Call it what you want.
    It's all good.
     
  20. Sick Sick Phil

    Sick Sick Phil Forum Resident

    Last year the biggest selling vinyl was 54k. And that was an album with great packaging and the singer dying. Odds are there are more people buying Pokemon cards.
     
  21. MisterBritt

    MisterBritt Senior Member

    Location:
    Santa Fe, NM, USA
    Pardon me if I'm confused in this process. It is my thinking that the process begins with MOV wanting to do the issue -- this, as opposed to Sony necessarily wanting to do the project. I am thinking that the business proposition emanates from MOV. It is the brainchild of MOV. If we're so far, so good and on the same page I don't see Sony as being the client. I see MOV as being the client.

    I should think MOV would request analogue tapes from Sony. MOV would be clear that their interest is in doing an analogue project. If Sony cannot provide those, the prospective project moves no further. Again, I am viewing MOV as the client -- not Sony. Am I mistaken?
     
  22. hominy

    hominy Digital Drifter

    Location:
    Seattle-ish
    I don't know about new records, but used records are still getting more expensive by the month. It's still booming.
     
  23. Stone Turntable

    Stone Turntable Independent Head

    Location:
    New Mexico USA
    Sorry Dennis, that’s a CD thing.

    :wave:

    [​IMG]
     
  24. DeRosa

    DeRosa Vinyl Forever

    Actually, I have a lot of vinyl shipped to Naples. I'm not really following your logic, don't the same delivery trucks bring your vinyl
    to your location whether they're coming from Amazon or anywhere else?
    I'm unaware that any seller opens all the records and puts them on a flat surface, and takes
    out the warped ones. What would they do with those? No need to answer, i'm just happy you're getting
    fewer warped records. I see a pretty consistent defect rate regardless of where i order from. It would be a good statistics class project
    if someone wants to take it on. The sample size would need to be larger than 1 person to go beyond anecdotes, which are not science.
     
  25. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    You know what our host would say! They aren't going to lose all their work from Sony because some one stands up to them and points out a CD is not adequate to master vinyl. Probably an error by some lazy minion. If I was running the label that title just would not go out unless at least a hi-res copy was found. I do wonder if MOV care enough as they hardly get master tapes (probably because they are happy with quantity over quality of sound).
     
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