Has the vinyl resurgence led to increased sales in the HiFi industry?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Brian Gupton, Aug 13, 2014.

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  1. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    kman wrote: "Twice I have offered my youngest child a stereo setup in her bedroom, the answer is always "why" ---- I have my headphones."

    I've experienced that exact same response from my two teens (14 and 16). I offered each of them a basic system, neither wants one. They have their MP3 players and computers and use earbuds. I suppose I ought to be grateful. My parents would have preferred a solution like that when I was a teen at home.
     
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  2. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Me too. I offered to buy at least a desktop rig for my 22 year old last year or even to give her some of my old gear. She only wanted a Bluetooth, battery-powered speaker she could stream music to from her Mac (I bought her one but it never worked right w/ the Mac BT and the amount of stuff she's always simultaneously running, when she moved to Austin she left it behind -- I stream music to it from my phone when I'm in the shower sometimes!). She wants absolutely nothing with wires, and while she loves all kinds of music -- she recently came home for a visit and we spent half a day spinning new music for one another, she telling me about all the indie band she's seen in Austin and us talking about pop stars like Jessie J and my playing her Sinatra -- we did the whole session sitting at the kitchen table just playing stuff back from our laptops (she turned me on to Aimee Mann and Ted Leo's duo The Both, which was great). She actually said to me the this winter before she left that she was mystified that anyone would sit down in a room with a stereo and do nothing else but sit alone and listen to music. Seems completely foreign to her. I may winde up buying her at least some AudioEngine speakers at some point.
     
  3. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    Speaking of Bluetooth, I was in an art gallery in Boise yesterday. It was quite a large gallery and as I walked around, I was listening to "Woke Up This Morning" (Soprano's) but couldn't place it. I went up to the gallery manager to ask and noticed he had an iPhone which was connected to a Bluetooth Bose speaker. It sounded OK for his use but we got into a bit of discussion about audio. He was a little older than me, in his late 60's, and was very pleased with this Bose Bluetooth speaker. He grabbed the remote and walked me across the gallery and showed me how loud it would play and fill the room. I must say, I was impressed with the volume of sound (more than the quality of it). Point being, he had this very large gallery (probably a couple thousand square feet with 15' ceilings) and he felt he was good with this thing and had a couple at home too.

    So in this case, no vinyl, no hi-fi. Instead, an old guy with Pandora, and iPhone, and a Bluetooth speaker. I fear that's the future of listening to music for most.
     
  4. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    My laptop speakers are horrible. They distort, clip, etc. at even pretty normal levels. They're pretty much useless for anything, including just voices/speeches/etc.
     
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  5. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Yup, sounds crappy, still commonly used by pretty much everybody frequently and most people don't much care that it sounds crappy. When I was 22 we had to spin records if we were gonna have a little session like that, not the way it's done anymore. Dedicated hifi is in danger of becoming like land line phones in a generation. We didn't do it that way because it sounded good, just because it was convenient, fast (with YouTube creeping toward becoming the celestial jukebox), we could do it in the common area of the house at the kitchen table, etc.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2014
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  6. Bill Hart

    Bill Hart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin
    At the end of the day, I'm not as pessimistic about the future of enthusiast hi-fi. Perhaps it won't take over the world, but it never would, even at the height of the 'home stereo' boom. At worst, people will still be fiddling with vinyl, tubes and 'archaic' technologies well into the future, in my estimation (then again, I've met guys who swear by the Stanley Steamer- the car, not the carpet cleaning company) :)
    At best, technology may deliver some whole new paradigm. In the meantime, a wealth of choices, analog, digital, expensive, cheap, new, used and rediscovered. (Witness all the folks here who liked direct drive- a technology that was given up in favor of belt drive decades ago, but has now resurged, not only among vintage and beer budget enthusiasts, but at the high-end).
    I'm not really going to worry about the plight of hi-fi in the future. I'm digging it now.
     
  7. utahusker

    utahusker Senior Member

    I've been following this thread since the beginning, and all I have say is,........... oh well, we all have different expectations of listening to music. It'll never be like it was, but there will always be options to fill everyones needs.
     
  8. tim185

    tim185 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Thats right. I dont give a brass razoo that anyone else wants to butcher their listening experience. Ill always be striving for better.
     
  9. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Probably, and we're living in a time of great cottage industry type companies serving enthusiasts of all kinds, and something of a rebirth of DIY -- when I was really young kit building -- like sewing dresses at home from patterns and fabrics that were sold at stores in pretty much every little town across America -- was common. Now electronics, like clothes, are for most people cheap disposable items manufactured in factories under borderline sweatshop conditions.

    But when it comes to this question of the future of hifi and attracting the next generation into the hobby, most of the behavior I see of 18-24 year olds suggests that in another decade when they're into hardcore household formation, there are media behaviors once taken for granted -- having a TV (and a cable subscription), having a landline phone, having a stereo system -- that are going to become increasingly uncommon.
     
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  10. Deryl Johnson

    Deryl Johnson Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Western New York
    I made the decision to get back into vinyl about three months ago. Between a new turntable,Speed Box for my new turntable, new speakers, rebuilding the drivers on my old Boston Acoustics, Spin-Clean set, MoFi Record Sleeves, a nice cross section of the great vinyl available these days, a few cables, New stereo cabinet to keep my wife's cat off of my new turntable, and a few assorted odds and ends for a grand total of just over three grand. If there are a few thousand poor guys like me getting back into the vinyl game every month, and few hundred rich guys setting themselves up with the fantastic high end stuff available these days......I'd say the answer is Yes. At least quite a bit more than, say, ten years ago.
    I don't think that my CD collection is lacking in quality sound, Vinyl is better to my ears though, and it is not only a fun hobby, but it's nostalgic to lower the needle on a beautifully mastered piece of vinyl again. I really wish that I'd never sold my JBL L300's though. But when times are tough, the luxury items are the easiest to sell and the first to go. I have to say, it's great to be back in the vinyl game. And there is LOT of money being pumped into the industry. I just hope that the musicians are getting a fair cut of it again like in the good ol' days.
     
  11. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    I'm sure it's true in your case. But it's not showing up in retailers anecdotes or even vinyl sales (yeah, vinyl sales are up but only 6 million vinyl albums were sold in the US last year vs. 117.6 million digital download albums sold, and 165.4 million CD albums sold, so vinyl's not driving the market).

    And the one retailer who chimed in on this thread had this to say:

     
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  12. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    I don't recall getting that order... The only retailers who are making much of anything are the warehouse / catalog places, the usual suspects who have contributed to putting most all of the local hi-fi shops out of business. It's not those companies single handed though, it's also the behavior of the local audiophiles who get all manner of advice and service locally when they can get it for free and then pay these large, out of state vendors rather than supporting the local businesses. Then they get on forums and lament about the "good old days" and why there are no local hi-fi shops. :rolleyes:
    -Bill
     
  13. Deryl Johnson

    Deryl Johnson Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Western New York
    In my case, I bought my Pro-Ject Debut Carbon through Amazon. The company that handled the order is a group of five high end stores called Listen Up. I was very happy with their service, and personal attention to detail. I now have a personal relationship with Listen Up's Denver store, and everything that I buy will be from them. Their price wasn't any lower than anyone else, but they contacted me to make certain that I was happy with my purchase.
    I think that even a smaller shop should sign on with Amazon. Titus is a real gateway to customers all over the world who otherwise would never even know that Your business existed. Price doesn't matter as much to buyers of audio equipment as personal service does.
    Also, I think that a store could pick up some extra customers by stocking a good selection of MoFi releases. You don't have to be a record store per se, but if people can pick up the MFSL titles that they want without going through the mail and waiting for it to travel across the country. In the 80's my Hi-Fi shop carried the MFSL titles in a few racks in the store. They didn't sell any records except for MFSL. I upgraded my entire system just by popping into the shop to see if there were any new titles. I think that especially in the computer age there are ways for an audio store to pump up their sales.
     
  14. gregr

    gregr Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    It seems there's agreement that sales are down. For those who have been in hifi retail for a while, would you say that a greater percentage of the people who actually enter the store buy something? Were there more people "kicking the tires" in the past? It just seems like marketing is more specific now and I wonder if it's pre-selecting customers....
     
  15. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I've been thinking about this thread, particularly on my commute and here and there throughout the day. I work at one of the most popular tourist attractions in London, and, as a result, I see thousands of members of the public every day on the tube, in the city, and when I walk about the public areas of my workplace.

    One electronic item that has become ubiquitous in London, especially amongst commuters, is the headphone. Be it a cheap and popular Sony or Skullcandy pair, a fancier Sennheiser, B&W, AKG, all the way up (price wise) to Beats. All ages, all genders, listening to portable music (as we have done for years) but they've upgraded from the apple earbuds (I'm seeing less and less of these) to a pair of headphones.

    I don't think the vinyl resurgence has led to increased sales in the hi-fi industry, but you only have to look around to see that the headphone sector (part of the hi-fi industry) is booming! I think it's true that a lot of people have chosen to wear headphones because they are fashionable, but it's not as if people are only focussing on one fashionable brand (not like how the iPod was completely ubiquitous five or ten years ago) - people want headphones, they're maybe not too fussed over the brand. Even the cheapest HD-201's sound better than earbuds. Even someone who isn't into "hi-fi" is going to notice the improved sound quality through headphones. The headphone craze has been with us for about two years now, and it isn't showing any sign of stopping. I think, if it were purely a fashion statement, it would have waned by now. Yet, more and more, I'm seeing people wearing the most ridiculous looking - huge in size and huge in price - headphones that probably give very good sound and would satisfy most of us here. I've listened to the £300 Beats headphones and they do sound good, maybe not £300 worth of good but there's some quality engineering going on there.

    The British consumer has this obsession with the cost-quality ratio. If it's (subjectively, perhaps) expensive, it must be good. A lot of people are spending a lot of money on quality headphones, who are we to say that they're not sound enthusiasts? If it's pleasing for them - and it presumably is, as the popularity of headphones remains - then why are we ignoring them? Someone upthread made a great point about longer working hours and less leisure time, a quality pair of headphones enable to me to start listening to my hi-fi a whole hour before I get home. For a lot of people, their listening time takes place on the commute or on their lunch break. They're listening on quality headphones. That's good, right?
     
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  16. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    Don't know if this post means anything or not. a couple of 19-21 year olds were listening to their "phones" at brak, without ear buds. Two different songs playing and they would switch before a song was complete. so I just asked them if they purchased any physical music or just downloaded/streamed. both stated they downloaded/streamed their music. One stated that he did not think anybody really bought CD's anymore. o_O Another stated that her mother still does. When asked, I stated that I use CD's in the auto and vinyl records mostly at home. The gut stated "that's cool, my uncle has some of those". He also said he had never heard one though. I also discovered they do not listen to full albums, mostly download songs. Different world.....of course that's just two people.
     
  17. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    Slick, that's my personal experience with my two kids - 14 and 16. They download songs, not albums. My youngest has told me I'm nuts to copy a full CD into my Nano instead of just my favorite songs.

    Oh, and there was an article out yesterday that said album sales hit a 25 year low. Not specifically about vinyl, just recorded music in general:

    http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6236365/album-sales-hit-a-new-low-2014
     
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  18. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    Old geezer post alert!:cop: There was a time when we sat around in groups listening to sides of an album, discuss, then flip. we played them through thingies called speakers - everyone could hear the same thing at once! I had another "young-un'" play me a Floyd tune on his i phone, asked ME if I had heard it before. Then stated that he was a big PF fan. I asked what was his favorite album - he looked puzzled! I said - you have not heard a Floyd album, have you? He stated no. Different world now...........
     
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  19. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    I was in college in the early 70's and had 4 roommates. We all shared a house with one stereo. The house rule was everyone got to play a side, then it was the next guy's turn. It was definitely a group/communal experience listening to music and passing the bong around. :D
     
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  20. The Good Guy

    The Good Guy Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    The answer is no. Its all moved on to headphones & wireless wife friendly systems . Separates is now a specialist thing.
     
  21. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    Modern world trends are seriously depressing. :(
     
  22. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Completely understand her point of view. The days of listening to Dark Side of the Moon, nodding sagely while stroking the beard is thankfully a thing of the past.

    Headphones offer a much better image, even relatively low cost earbuds can leave a modest stereo standing.

    I haven't listened to an album and not done anything else for decades really. I always have something else on the go. Either on my laptop or sitting with my girl and chatting. Far more rewarding for me.
     
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  23. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    I understand, listening to a whole album can get in the way of chatting with your girl, don't want any distractions there!o_O Well that and texting, surfing, facebooking and such while you're chatting!:righton:
     
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  24. Summerisle

    Summerisle Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    Headphones offer a much better image, even relatively low cost earbuds can leave a modest stereo standing.

    Um excuse me, no.
     
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  25. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    Hmmm. Headphones/buds are just a different experience, more personal. I feel like they and speakers are/need to be in different categories altogether.
     
    Summerisle likes this.
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