Will Vinyl Ever Get Cheap Again?

Can't say I disagree with you, but the problem unfortunately is the mastering more times than not.

Probably nine out of ten new CD's I buy I have to clipfix and re-EQ to get them to be less of an ear-bleeder.

 

I bought a couple of vinyl records last week for prices around $13 - $14. I noticed that both didn’t include download cards. Would this be the new trend to keep prices down?

 

I get the impression that Download Cards have a similar 'Hit' rate to Rebates.

I know I have only ever used 2 of the things.

 

The Mods here...they make no sense.

 

I haven't seen a drop (yet). Usually the more independent labels still offer a download, sometimes even a lossless option. Major labels not as often.

 

I have never used a download card ever as I bought the vinyl LP because I did not want a digital issue. I am curious if sometime in the future selling an LP with an unused download will increase it's value unless there is an expiration date for downloading.

 

When I look at the cost of everything else, I don't get so hung up on the prices of records. I have most of the records I want anyway.
Got most of them for $10 or less, over the years...

 

I had to do that to the new 2x45 of Leppard's Hysteria as well

 

They expire eventually. I usually pass my code off to a relative if it's lossy

 

Yeah, if I don’t need the download I usually take a picture of the card and text it to a friend.

 

And yet every new indie release comes out on vinyl, usually for under $20. I know, because I usually buy between 1 and 4 of them a week. So...yeah.

 

Yea, just pre-ordered the upcoming Anna Von Hausswolff Dead Magic yesterday for $19.99, looking forward to it. Pretty much the normal price of things I buy, some a little cheaper, some a little more. And I see now that Bull Moose has it for a couple bucks cheaper, oh well, I got free shipping ... Anna Von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

 

IF YOU BUY CRAPPY VINYL, MAYBE. ONLY NM FOR ME.

 

What it seems like a lot of collectors, especially younger ones, don't fully understand is that cheap used vinyl was a bubble with an obvious starting point, and it's a bubble that will never ever ever be repeated.

Like everyone else, I bought a CD player in the 80s. What I did not do was get rid of my turntable and sell all the LPs I had begun collecting in 1974. An astonishing number of people did this.

So along with all the CDs I bought in the 90s, I also began buying used vinyl. Gobs of used vinyl, in fact, often things that were barely available on CD if at all. For several years between 1996 and 2002, I would walk into the record store nearest my house, and I'd pull out a stack of LPs, mostly vintage discs from between about 1962 and 1985, in a wide variety of genres, until it was about a foot high. The counter guy would go through them, pull out a small handful that were particularly rare or desirable, and sell me the rest for $20.

That kind of cheap vinyl? Yeah, that's not coming back, because it's all in the collections of people like me. Sorry.

But vinyl in general, especially used? Cheap as chips. Now, minty original pressings of the same 100 albums that everyone else is looking for and moaning that they can't find? No, the rest of us already bought those. Expand your musical parameters even slightly beyond the confines of the average classic rock radio station, though, and man, you can still find the most amazing stuff for short money, assuming you live in a city with more than one used record store and therefore decent competition.

 

I got laughed at for buying vinyl and having a turntable during the bubble, especially single 45s. But I had so many things like The Bus Boys and Greg Kihn which I liked, not to mention singles from not even one-hitters and local artists, that didn't seem was ever going to be on CD anyway. Maybe what you do now is sell the vinyl for a profit and buy the marked down clearance CDs people are tossing out? Heck, I still have a lot of cassettes, but once in awhile they would have something that wasn't on the vinyl. I'm not about the format, I'm about the music, and tend to settle on whichever medium is at hand (then often make a CD-R anyway if it's on vinyl or tape).

 

M- only for me too, with a 'few' exceptions - but very few. If it has one scratch, & you can hear the scratch, I donate it back to GW. I only have two LPs with a scratch you can hear, both double albums and one Rare.

Will Vinyl Ever Get Cheap Again?
Been scoring M- LPs, good titles, at GW/SA lately. Just got 3 'like brand new (covers too)' 1960(s) Virgil Fox LPs yesterday - $1 each, & one was his "Living Stereo" album. A week ago I found the same "Living Stereo" in M- CD too ($2). Guess no one knows who Virgil Fox is.

While not a 'cornucopia bonanza' anymore... I did score 150(+/-) M- good title LPs at the GW/SA last year. It's pretty good down here.

 

Will Vinyl Ever Get Cheap Again? - NO

 

I like seeing these record haul videos. Like this one...



...where he thinks he may have a good collection.
I like the 'thrift store's dumpster' comment.

Darryl

 

Here's another one. Records are in better shape in this one.



Darryl

 

Local guy accepts anything. Last year,a collection of lots of doo-wop,rockabilly, 50's r&b,Ace comps came in. A couple was cleaning out Dad's stuff and their last resort was to the dumpster. I scored lots of titles I didn't even think I needed. Crest Records? Oh, Eddie Cochran,Jimmy Bowen,Glen Campbell -three bucks? OK! The store eventually puts the dregs to a buck,then to fifty cents and then an online guy buys what is left for pennies per disc.

 

No, but I wish to myself and to everyone in this forum to get richer and richer! Cheers!

 

Here's my off-the-cuff calculation:

By 1990, newly-issued LPs had pretty much disappeared from record stores. Odds are that people born after (say) 1975 didn't grow up buying and playing LPs; if you wanted to buy new music in the 90s, CDs were really the only option. In other words, if you're under 45 or so, you probably had little to no experience with LPs, but if you're in your 50s or 60s or later, you remember them well.

I really don't see LPs catching on in big way with younger people; streaming, like it or not, is probably the wave of the future for them. But people in their 50s or older, who probably have as much disposable income now as they've ever had in their lives, might fuel the resurgence for a while. So it seems to me there's a good chance that the "vinyl revival" (for lack of a better term) might have a few more years to run, maybe even 10 years, but after that . . .

So, my incredibly bold prediction is that prices will stay relatively high for at least a few more years.

 

Imperfect? Yes.

Ridiculously fragile? You bought records for long enough to know this is complete hyperbole.

 

This is absolutely correct. Vinyl LP's were not cheap in the 1970's relative to ones income at the time. It costs money to produce records(not just the cost of pressing vinyl) and that is reflected in the price.Records cost relatively the same based on inflation costs. It seems to me that some folk just want to buy music as cheap as they can find it and will never be satisfied with the retail price of music. To me, that is part of the problem. You get what you pay for.

For the most part, I think the records pressed today are better quality than those mass produced in the 1970's(although some may gripe about the digital file vs analog). I haven't been disappointed with any of the new records I have received in the past couple of years. Vinyl always has the potential for more defects just based on the manufacturing process.

 

If you really could use the inflation calculator in that way, CDs, which sold for about $18 in 1985, would go for . . . $42 today. Clearly, it just doesn't work this way. Barring regulation or some other form of outside intervention, prices are determined by the interaction of the supply and demand curves. That's the whole story. Inflation has nothing to do with it.