I want to love vinyl, but...

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Noel Patterson, Sep 2, 2020.

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  1. Oelewapper

    Oelewapper Plays vinyl instead of installing it on the floor.

    Physical media is an investment.
    To make a somewhat fair comparison to a music service, you need to substract the 2nd hand value from those spendings.
    Now that most 2nd hand records are increasing in value because of the vinyl revival, it’s not even that expensive as it seems at first glance.
    Like many DJ records I’ve bought about 10 years ago and sold recently for the same price if not more, simply because I took care of them.
     
  2. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I think physical media enhances the experience for those of us who grew up with it and retain it as a way of life. I don't stream music habitually, I just cancelled Tidal because I didn't use it enough to justify the cost - but I disagree with this common notion that streaming is some kind of "ripoff" because you don't own all the music and some artist might pull some or all of their material at any time. For the next generation of people who will grow up with streaming, they aren't going to miss the physical experience and they will still love music.
     
  3. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    There are much sounder forms of investment. Plus, it's not much of an investment if you never plan to sell it. I don't plan to sell the really good stuff in my collection, so it'll either get inherited or sold or given away when I'm gone. But I very, very much doubt it's going to make anybody wealthy.
     
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  4. Mike70

    Mike70 Forum Resident

    Well, technology goes forward not only for digital. You now have really excepcional cartridges under 70 bucks, good phono preamp on 150 bucks, decent turntable under 300 ...

    I agree that 10 years ago was almost impossible to have a brand new good analog system with 500 usd ... but today it's totally possible.

    Things changes ... quickly.
     
  5. peskypesky

    peskypesky Forum Resident

    Location:
    Satantonio, Texas
    I grew up on vinyl in the 70s and continued buying it through the 80s.

    These days, I can't be bothered. But to each his own. Everyone can choose the format that works best for them. For me, it's high bitrate mp3 or aac.

    To me, it's just mind-boggling that one could put over 6000 albums in high-bitrate mp3 or aac onto a 1tb flash drive that hangs on your keychain and costs $33.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
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  6. CDV

    CDV Forum Resident

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2020 are 19.20% higher than average prices since 2010. If you bought a record for $10 in 2010 and sold it for less than $11.92, you lost money.
     
  7. peskypesky

    peskypesky Forum Resident

    Location:
    Satantonio, Texas
    Nowadays CD's are often cheaper than digital downloads of albums. Even mp3 downloads (which is insane).

    Streaming is great...no doubt....lots of advantages. But there are a few disadvantages. It requires an internet connection and you don't own your own physical or digital copy of the music.

    I think a combination of streaming, CD's, and digital downloads is the way to go in 2020. But I'm a music-lover, not an audiophile.
     
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  8. coolhandjjl

    coolhandjjl Embiggened Pompatus

    Location:
    Appleton
    I’ve set up my vintage 70’s rig in one room. Marantz power, JBL speakers, and Pickering cart. I also have a Marantz tuner and am in the process of picking up a Channel Master FM antenna to hang in the attic. With that system, my goal is for special music. I plan to buy new vinyl like Neil Young, CS&N, Joni Mitchell. Folk, roots, bluegrass, singer/songwriter Americana stuff. And some vocal heavy harmonizing stuff like the tracks from ‘Brother Where Art Thou’. I want it to be a fun experience.

    In the rec room which has become my home office now with Covid, I have my Leviathon. It’s a tri-amp rig I dreamt up in the 8th grade and finally built when I hit 50. Horn loaded bass bins, tractrix geometry horn mids, and Linaeum tweets. It’s mp3’s all the way on that rig, I’ve over 6000 tracks I’ve collected over the last 20 years.

    I like both.
     
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  9. Cyclone Ranger

    Cyclone Ranger New old stock

    Location:
    Best Coast USA
    Anyone else continue to be AMAZED by this? :eek:

    I mean, what format or tech have you ever heard of that gets left for dead or nearly-dead, then comes back, DECADES later, to outsell the tech that was supposed to replace it??

    Electric cars are the only other example I can think of. Had a good run in the early 20th century, got replaced by gasoline cars... and now, a century later, are back.

    (The ‘outsell’ thing hasn’t happened there yet, but will in time.)
    .
     
  10. coolhandjjl

    coolhandjjl Embiggened Pompatus

    Location:
    Appleton
    In the case of electric cars, it was Rockefeller who demanded Henry Ford bury as many electric car companies as he could otherwise he (Rockefeller) would not take on the risk of outfitting the nation with gas stations. Ford’s wife drove a vehicle made by Detroit Electric of which initially called Rockefeller’s attention to them.
     
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  11. MattHooper

    MattHooper Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    It is amazing.

    When I started buying several years ago I became fascinated with the vinyl revival and have followed it closely. It sure goes way beyond nostalgia and hipsterism. You can find countless examples of vinyl newbies thrilled having gotten in to vinyl - all over youtube, or if you follow the reddit vinyl forums it's filled with constantly new people getting in to vinyl and loving having a music collection.

    And the fact vinyl has increased in sales over 14 years is wild. It's funny that until recently you could still see people calling vinyl's resurgence a "fad." CDs peaked around in around the year 2000, so it had 17 years of rising sales figures before it declined. The vinyl revival has seen rising sales figures for almost as long as CD's own climb!
     
  12. coolhandjjl

    coolhandjjl Embiggened Pompatus

    Location:
    Appleton
    Vinyl’s competition is not CD’s or downloads. It’s streaming services.
     
  13. It is really not surprising that sales of records is about 4% of the market (probably less than 2% based on units).

    The decline in CD sales would appear dramatic, however many are downloading instead or streaming at Red Book quality (or better) and there are also sales of SACD/DVD Audio/BluRay Audio.

    When I was buying records they were 95% of the market or more.
     
  14. Big Blue

    Big Blue Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    In that example, you ultimately paid $1.92 to have the record for 10 years. That’s a pretty good deal.
     
  15. Big Blue

    Big Blue Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    The difference is I only want to watch most things from TV one time, whereas I want to hear most music many times.
     
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  16. Big Blue

    Big Blue Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    The reason I sometimes pay for streaming is to have near-instant access to stuff I don’t own and may not like enough to own. It’s really not that expensive, so I’ll activate a subscription occasionally. I’ll usually then cancel it at some point, when I realize I’m not using it, but I’m not averse to the idea of sometimes paying for that kind of access.
     
  17. Cyclone Ranger

    Cyclone Ranger New old stock

    Location:
    Best Coast USA
    You must've been buying records a REALLY long time ago... even back in the '70s and '80s, it didn't have 95% market share.

    'Cuz, ppl forget about cassette and 8-track (yes, 8-track: it actually had significant market share in the '70s).

    Check out the nifty animated chart here:
    Animated chart of the day: Recorded music sales by format share, 1973 to 2019 | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
    .
     
  18. Try 1967.
     
  19. Cyclone Ranger

    Cyclone Ranger New old stock

    Location:
    Best Coast USA
    Ah. Before the wheel and fire. :)
    .
     
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  20. When Radio Luxembourg was Fab 208, when Radio 1 was launched on the BBC.

    When The Beatles (December 66 - April 67) and Pink Floyd (February 67 - May 67) were recording their albums at Abbey Road at the same time, with some of the same engineers.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
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  21. psulioninks

    psulioninks Forum Resident

    Location:
    KC Chiefs Kingdom
    My guess is...those that have always been into vinyl continue to support it for whatever reason they may have (and there are many) - plus add in a small percentage of younger people who are buying it as it is a trendy fad. I'd say most of the people who used to purchase CDs are now streaming their music...they simply shifted formats...and I think a good number of them are female music lovers.
     
  22. Cyclone Ranger

    Cyclone Ranger New old stock

    Location:
    Best Coast USA
    Hmm, doesn't seem to square with the data.

    Vinyl dropped to almost NOTHING in the 'oughts... as low as 0.2% marketshare around 2006 or so, aka only a fraction of what it is now.

    So, contrary to popular belief, even most of 'those who were always into vinyl' abandoned it during the dark days (myths die hard). Though, perhaps they did jump back in quickly once it started to recover.


    [​IMG]
    .
     
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  23. Big Blue

    Big Blue Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    Maybe, but what you lay out does not describe me or my millennial friends who buy vinyl records. We are all people who used to purchase CDs (though I still do, sometimes). We don’t buy vinyl because it is a “trendy fad”.
     
  24. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I have to say that the resurgence of vinyl at all was the biggest suprise to me, after CD's and digital had completely taken over.

    I listened to records because that was the major medium, not because I had any particular attraction to records. They were nice and all that but they were a 100-yesr old technology.

    Vinyl was finished by the popularity of cassettes before CD's were introduced. CD's were first in the homes but after CD's were available in cars and portable players like cassettes were, they had the audio market locked up.

    In the 90's and beyond, home stereo gave way to home theater and the AV receiver. Not only had turntables vanished but the newer AV receivers no longer bothered to have a dedicated phono input.

    Vinal was as much as a dead medium as you could get.

    On top of that, digital downloads and streaming come on and take over the scene.

    To me, the chance of vinyl becoming a medium again was exactly zero.

    Well, maybe not zero, the audiophile community was sure to have those few holdouts. The ones willing to invest thousands of dollars on phono equipment.

    This is something the general public is just never going to do. Digital streaming has made playing a CD seem like a chore.

    Although lesser expensive turntables might not sound like crap, it still required ecpensive gear to be on equal footing with a CD.

    Were a increasingly mobile society. The key forces that drive modern audio are cost, portability and ease of use.

    Vinyl records don't check any of these boxes. Not only that, they don't even come close.

    Cracker Barrel restaurants now sell vinyl...
     
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  25. psulioninks

    psulioninks Forum Resident

    Location:
    KC Chiefs Kingdom
    I am sure there are outliers in any set of data. Most of the people I know who purchase vinyl are not new to vinyl and did not come from another format like you - then again, we are not millennials either. We were around buying music when vinyl was at its peak.

    The other issue you have with this data, is you can't purchase what is not there. So if the supply of CDs are less than in previous years, that would also go to support lower sales for the format.
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
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