Vinyl outsells digital downloads

[BigRedX]

As someone whose band has been releasing vinyl there are pros and cons...

Pros:

It looks and feels great. An album on 12" vinyl is big serious statement of intent. Even a 7" single looks more impressive than a CD, and with my graphic designer's hat on, you really can't beat the enlarged canvas that vinyl packaging allows you.

It's popular. I'll be the first to admit, that one of the main reasons we've been releasing our music on vinyl is because we sell more copies and make more profit per copy sold, than if it was released just on CD.

Cons:

It doesn't really sound very good. Admittedly the quality of vinyl these days is substantially better than it was back in the 70s and 80s when I was last buying it. I dug out some albums and 12" singles from the early 80s in order to play them the other day, and compared with even a modern "low quality" 120g pressing they felt flimsy and insubstantial. However a well produced and mastered 16Bit 441.1kHz digital file will always out-perform even the best vinyl from a sonic PoV. The CD version of the Terrortones album sounds better than the vinyl version when played back to back. Each version was specifically mastered for the intended delivery medium, but unfortunately vinyl simply can't compete sonically.

There are all sorts of technical limitations to what can be reproduced on vinyl when it comes to bass, stereo imaging and phase effects. None of these affect digital files.

You need decent (and expensive) playback equipment to get the best out of it. A digital file just needs a good quality DAC, and these days the gap in quality between consumer grade and professional DACs is not very big and it's getting smaller all the time. While it's perfectly possible to enjoy your vinyl on a junk-shop Dansette (although these are by no means cheap any more), to get the best out of it you need to invest in a good quality turntable, tone arm, cartridge etc. and get them set up properly and keep them maintained. Even then, every time you play your vinyl you are damaging it. A good deck and careful handling of the medium will minimise this, but ultimately every play wears the record slightly. A properly backed-up digital file will last forever and sound exactly the same as the day it was digitised.

It is expensive to produce and therefore expensive for consumers to buy. 500 copies of the Terrortones album cost £4000 to make including the recording. We could have had 1000 CDs for around half of that. On top the increased production costs of the actual vinyl over CD, there was the increased printing and production costs for the larger 12" packaging, and finally there was the cost of the extra mastering optimised for vinyl cutting, as well as the standard digital master for downloads.

It's heavy and bulky to store and easy to damage. Both for the producer and consumer. My large collection of CDs occupies the wall one side of the chimney breast in my lounge, and if I really wanted I could pack them all away in a handful of boxes, and just listen to the versions stored on my iTunes server. I dread to think how much space (and what sort of re-enforced shelving) I'd need if it was all on vinyl.

The first Terrortones release - 500 CDs came in couple of easily lifted cardboard boxes. 500 copies of the album on vinyl was 6 very heavy boxes on a pallet! Also because of the size and weight of the vinyl, they had suffered damage in transit and I had to replace the paper sleeves of a whole box worth of records.

Then when it comes to mailing them out, CDs can go in a small jiffy bag with a bit of extra bubble wrap. Total P&P cost for a UK address under £2.00. The vinyl needs a proper album mailer with a cardboard stiffener, and is a lot heavier with a total P&P cost of around £4.00. All of that has to passed on the the consumer.


So, as an artefact vinyl is great. Even a 7" single is big and impressive, but as a delivery medium for music - which after all is what it is designed for - there's a lot of better ways to do it nowadays.

BTW. For those who are analog purists, almost every record release made in the last 20 or so years will have gone through a digital stage somewhere between when the instruments were mic'd up and the vinyl being cut, so any perceived inadequacies of the digital process will have been added to those of the vinyl medium.

[spongebob]

Having lived with vinyl and then CD's, I'll be sticking with a quality bluetooth speaker, tablet, and Google Play subscription.

Personally, I'm not nostalgic for vinyl at all. Months/years spent in grimy record fairs looking for 'that' album - now it's there in it's entirety at the click of a mouse. Search takes as long as it takes me to type it.

....and I don't have to haggle with some strange-smelling bloke with a unkempt beard to get it, either!

[spectoremg]

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1481190631' post='3190327']

FYI - Most records fall well below £25 after a while. Most of The Smiths albums are £12.99 or less, HMV sales have classic reissues of The Clash for £9.99, etc....


[/quote]That's £12.98 and £9.98 more than they're worth respectively.

[spectoremg]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1481196703' post='3190375']
As someone whose band has been releasing vinyl there are pros and cons...

Pros:

It looks and feels great. An album on 12" vinyl is big serious statement of intent. Even a 7" single looks more impressive than a CD, and with my graphic designer's hat on, you really can't beat the enlarged canvas that vinyl packaging allows you.

It's popular. I'll be the first to admit, that one of the main reasons we've been releasing our music on vinyl is because we sell more copies and make more profit per copy sold, than if it was released just on CD.

Cons:

It doesn't really sound very good. Admittedly the quality of vinyl these days is substantially better than it was back in the 70s and 80s when I was last buying it. I dug out some albums and 12" singles from the early 80s in order to play them the other day, and compared with even a modern "low quality" 120g pressing they felt flimsy and insubstantial. However a well produced and mastered 16Bit 441.1kHz digital file will always out-perform even the best vinyl from a sonic PoV. The CD version of the Terrortones album sounds better than the vinyl version when played back to back. Each version was specifically mastered for the intended delivery medium, but unfortunately vinyl simply can't compete sonically.

There are all sorts of technical limitations to what can be reproduced on vinyl when it comes to bass, stereo imaging and phase effects. None of these affect digital files.

You need decent (and expensive) playback equipment to get the best out of it. A digital file just needs a good quality DAC, and these days the gap in quality between consumer grade and professional DACs is not very big and it's getting smaller all the time. While it's perfectly possible to enjoy your vinyl on a junk-shop Dansette (although these are by no means cheap any more), to get the best out of it you need to invest in a good quality turntable, tone arm, cartridge etc. and get them set up properly and keep them maintained. Even then, every time you play your vinyl you are damaging it. A good deck and careful handling of the medium will minimise this, but ultimately every play wears the record slightly. A properly backed-up digital file will last forever and sound exactly the same as the day it was digitised.

It is expensive to produce and therefore expensive for consumers to buy. 500 copies of the Terrortones album cost £4000 to make including the recording. We could have had 1000 CDs for around half of that. On top the increased production costs of the actual vinyl over CD, there was the increased printing and production costs for the larger 12" packaging, and finally there was the cost of the extra mastering optimised for vinyl cutting, as well as the standard digital master for downloads.

It's heavy and bulky to store and easy to damage. Both for the producer and consumer. My large collection of CDs occupies the wall one side of the chimney breast in my lounge, and if I really wanted I could pack them all away in a handful of boxes, and just listen to the versions stored on my iTunes server. I dread to think how much space (and what sort of re-enforced shelving) I'd need if it was all on vinyl.

The first Terrortones release - 500 CDs came in couple of easily lifted cardboard boxes. 500 copies of the album on vinyl was 6 very heavy boxes on a pallet! Also because of the size and weight of the vinyl, they had suffered damage in transit and I had to replace the paper sleeves of a whole box worth of records.

Then when it comes to mailing them out, CDs can go in a small jiffy bag with a bit of extra bubble wrap. Total P&P cost for a UK address under £2.00. The vinyl needs a proper album mailer with a cardboard stiffener, and is a lot heavier with a total P&P cost of around £4.00. All of that has to passed on the the consumer.


So, as an artefact vinyl is great. Even a 7" single is big and impressive, but as a delivery medium for music - which after all is what it is designed for - there's a lot of better ways to do it nowadays.

BTW. For those who are analog purists, almost every record release made in the last 20 or so years will have gone through a digital stage somewhere between when the instruments were mic'd up and the vinyl being cut, so any perceived inadequacies of the digital process will have been added to those of the vinyl medium.
[/quote]Nice one. In your pipe and smoke it digital/digital/vinyl lovers.

[mcnach]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1481196703' post='3190375']
As someone whose band has been releasing vinyl there are pros and cons...

Pros:

It looks and feels great. An album on 12" vinyl is big serious statement of intent. Even a 7" single looks more impressive than a CD, and with my graphic designer's hat on, you really can't beat the enlarged canvas that vinyl packaging allows you.

It's popular. I'll be the first to admit, that one of the main reasons we've been releasing our music on vinyl is because we sell more copies and make more profit per copy sold, than if it was released just on CD.

Cons:

It doesn't really sound very good. Admittedly the quality of vinyl these days is substantially better than it was back in the 70s and 80s when I was last buying it. I dug out some albums and 12" singles from the early 80s in order to play them the other day, and compared with even a modern "low quality" 120g pressing they felt flimsy and insubstantial. However a well produced and mastered 16Bit 441.1kHz digital file will always out-perform even the best vinyl from a sonic PoV. The CD version of the Terrortones album sounds better than the vinyl version when played back to back. Each version was specifically mastered for the intended delivery medium, but unfortunately vinyl simply can't compete sonically.

There are all sorts of technical limitations to what can be reproduced on vinyl when it comes to bass, stereo imaging and phase effects. None of these affect digital files.

You need decent (and expensive) playback equipment to get the best out of it. A digital file just needs a good quality DAC, and these days the gap in quality between consumer grade and professional DACs is not very big and it's getting smaller all the time. While it's perfectly possible to enjoy your vinyl on a junk-shop Dansette (although these are by no means cheap any more), to get the best out of it you need to invest in a good quality turntable, tone arm, cartridge etc. and get them set up properly and keep them maintained. Even then, every time you play your vinyl you are damaging it. A good deck and careful handling of the medium will minimise this, but ultimately every play wears the record slightly. A properly backed-up digital file will last forever and sound exactly the same as the day it was digitised.

It is expensive to produce and therefore expensive for consumers to buy. 500 copies of the Terrortones album cost £4000 to make including the recording. We could have had 1000 CDs for around half of that. On top the increased production costs of the actual vinyl over CD, there was the increased printing and production costs for the larger 12" packaging, and finally there was the cost of the extra mastering optimised for vinyl cutting, as well as the standard digital master for downloads.

It's heavy and bulky to store and easy to damage. Both for the producer and consumer. My large collection of CDs occupies the wall one side of the chimney breast in my lounge, and if I really wanted I could pack them all away in a handful of boxes, and just listen to the versions stored on my iTunes server. I dread to think how much space (and what sort of re-enforced shelving) I'd need if it was all on vinyl.

The first Terrortones release - 500 CDs came in couple of easily lifted cardboard boxes. 500 copies of the album on vinyl was 6 very heavy boxes on a pallet! Also because of the size and weight of the vinyl, they had suffered damage in transit and I had to replace the paper sleeves of a whole box worth of records.

Then when it comes to mailing them out, CDs can go in a small jiffy bag with a bit of extra bubble wrap. Total P&P cost for a UK address under £2.00. The vinyl needs a proper album mailer with a cardboard stiffener, and is a lot heavier with a total P&P cost of around £4.00. All of that has to passed on the the consumer.


So, as an artefact vinyl is great. Even a 7" single is big and impressive, but as a delivery medium for music - which after all is what it is designed for - there's a lot of better ways to do it nowadays.

BTW. For those who are analog purists, almost every record release made in the last 20 or so years will have gone through a digital stage somewhere between when the instruments were mic'd up and the vinyl being cut, so any perceived inadequacies of the digital process will have been added to those of the vinyl medium.
[/quote]

great post.

[GarethFlatlands]

[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1481217503' post='3190704']
....and I don't have to haggle with some strange-smelling bloke with a unkempt beard to get it, either!
[/quote]

Hey, I have a name you know!

[spongebob]

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1481222379' post='3190784']


Hey, I have a name you know!
[/quote]

Brilliant!

[funkgod]

[quote name='spectoremg' timestamp='1481133906' post='3189966']
I heard the horse and cart's making a comeback too
[/quote]

if my car gets any more expensive to run i might just be looking at one of them,

[fleabag]

The thing with vinyl is the fantastic artwork that crept in around the 70's or maybe late 60's

And one in particular creamed them all and that was Tull's ' Thick As A Brick '

If anyone is young enough to remember the original and bought it on vinyl ( me ! ) it was utterly fabulous

It was actually a bit of a piss take by Anderson, but he went to the extreme, as the album was just one track that started on side one and ended on side two.
You had to like Tull i guess to buy their stuff, but it was fabulous music. Quite complex

But the sleeve was out of this world. It was the size of a mini broadsheet newspaper, and it had pages and stories just like a newspaper. It really was the ultimate vinyl sleeve, IMO of course

http://www.rhino.com/article/doing-a-180-jethro-tull-thick-as-a-brick

[itsmedunc]

I loved vinyl. Tangible, collectible, inner sleeves, coloured, different shapes etc etc, brilliant! Along came CO. I thought they were boring. The sound just seemed bland. Presentation was minimal in comparison. Took me many years to even possess a cd. I dont think I've ever bought one? Then came the download mp3 etc. Nothing but digital info. Impersonal and clinical.

We can all get Mp3 and CO for free, rightly or wrongly. For me, you can't beat the buzz of spending your pocket money on something you really Want! Showing my age now I suppose!

I used to look forward to amassing enough money to buy an album and then literally running to the music shop and buying what I wanted.

Vinyl is the only medium that can do that in my eyes. CO etc took all the excitement out of buying a bands work for me. The sound was not and is not the same. CD technology was and still is flat and soulless in comparison.

Mp3 download is just too clinical, just like digital photo's are not the same as holding a photo in your hand and being able feel it and relate to it.

Hypocritically, my extesive vinyl collection is in the attic but now converted to mp3 on a small hard drive that takes up a lot less space. If I had the room though, the vinyl would be my first and only choice.

[arthurhenry]

Vinyl is harder to steal.

[Leonard Smalls]

CD easily outperfoms vinyl?
Depends on what you're listening to them on!
My Advantage cd player rarely sounds as good as my Clearaudio/SME/AudioNote/EAR vinyl set-up...

[oldbass]

Can't see the point at all as vinyl only sounds good if the recording process is 100% analogue. Simply pressing out vinyl thats had a digi signal thrown at it cant possibly sound authentic.

[PaulWarning]

it's not just about sound quality, the ambiance is vital to the listening experience, how many of us have enjoyed listening to records on a clapped out pub juke box? the enjoyment is nothing to do with the sound quality it's about our mood and the atmosphere which, for some, is enhanced by putting vinyl on a turntable

[Rocker]

A decent vinyl setup costs a lot of cash. It is very true that a chain is only as good as its weakest link, vinyl replay proves this and vinyl replay is a very long chain.....

When CD started to get decent sound, it showed up the failings in vinyl. But the vinyl fraternity fought back and now there is little difference in sound quality between a good CD system and a good vinyl system. The notion that vinyl sound is warmer than CD really shows the upper bass emphasis that some vinyl systems give. Pleasant to listen to but it is wrong and CD showed this up as such.

The more recent usage of FLAC or WAV files stored on a NAS or computer system with a USB connection to a DAC is a much easier system to accommodate in modern rooms. No CD or vinyl storage needed in the room. And with the advantage of control from an iPad or smartphone. It is simply daft to listen seriously to music on low resolution formats such as Spotify. By all means evaluate music on Spotify but if you like it, then get the CD and rip it to your file system.

But do try to hear a top flight vinyl system sometime soon. The best bet is at one of the Hi-Fi shows. Problem with Hi-Fi shows is the choices of music they use to demo equipment. Drab, boring and dull, I horrified several listeners by asking to play my Appetite for Destruction by GnR at a show. It sounded brilliant and it got a mention on one of the internet forums that were covering the event.

[Bassassin]

Agree 100% with BRX's post.

Had a massive vinyl collection as a yoof (the alternative was cassette) but when I finally got a CD player & decent system in the mid 80s it was a revelation.

I did miss the 12" sleeve artwork & presentation, and coloured vinyl was fun, perhaps for about an hour or so in 1979 - but I'm not a big wearer of rose-tinted specs.

Vinyl was always crude & crap - now it's trendy hipster crap.

[megallica]

While I was collecting vinyl in the 80s bands would use exclusive b sides for their 12" singles and gatefold sleeves which looked really cool.
Picture discs I never really liked and didn't appreciate the sound quality of these.
Reissues do feel a bit of a cash in now but some of the mid nineties Lps were pressed in small numbers so sell for lots on auction sites.

[leroydiamond]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1481373149' post='3191817']
CD easily outperfoms vinyl?
Depends on what you're listening to them on!
My Advantage cd player rarely sounds as good as my Clearaudio/SME/AudioNote/EAR vinyl set-up...
[/quote]

IMO, if you want to hear vinyl at its best, there is a requirement to invest in a proper turntable, arm, phono stage and cartridge. The alignment of the cartridge and arm is a crucial factor. If there is anything amiss in that chain, then one is in for a crap listening experience.
I listen to both CD and vinyl. IME the pre digital age albums on vinyl have never transferred very well to the digital domain, despite various efforts at remastering. For instance the original vinyl pressings of the Led Zeppelin catalogue sound superb IMO, whereas the CD equivalent, remastered or not, just don't get there.
I have heard the remastered versions of a couple of Led Zeppelins albums on vinyl and found that to be equally disappointing.
Interestingly the finest sounding Vinyl album I have in my collection is this one [url="https://www.discogs.com/Various-Live-In-London/release/5435201"]https://www.discogs....release/5435201[/url]
Recorded in Dublin Castle in the 80's directly onto a '2 track valve mobile' according to the cover info. A cheap as chips production and sounds incredible.

Edited December 11, 2016 by leroydiamond

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1481402146' post='3192116']

Vinyl was always crude & crap - now it's trendy hipster crap.
[/quote]

I feel that those who shout loudly about how crap vinyl has always sounded have only ever heard a 20s hand-cranked gramophone with hawthorn needle and large horn, or at best a Dansette!
Once you've experienced a really good vinyl system you'll know what all the fuss is about...
Now I'm off to oil my beard and sculpt my man-bun.

[RockfordStone]

i still like and listen to vinyl. we have so much music piped into our ears at supermarkets, restaurants etc that it has become just a thing.

the whole process of putting on vinyl (or a cd for that matter) and reading liner notes etc whilst you listen makes you appreciate the music more.

[mcnach]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1481466282' post='3192454']
I feel that those who shout loudly about how crap vinyl has always sounded have only ever heard a 20s hand-cranked gramophone with hawthorn needle and large horn, or at best a Dansette!
Once you've experienced a really good vinyl system you'll know what all the fuss is about...
Now I'm off to oil my beard and sculpt my man-bun.
[/quote]

I was there and it was very good.
But then a good mastered CD sounded as good if not better, with the addition:

- no crackles or pops ever
- no need to turn it around every 20 minutes
- the songs closer to the centre sound just as good as the ones on the edge

a lot of the bad press for 'digital' comes from bad mixes/masters, and the awful compression war that started in the late 80s.

I enjoyed my vinyl... the ritual of opening a new album, admiring the artwork, reading the notes, looking at the photographs... But with regards to sound quality, give me a good digital copy anytime.

However, I'm glad I got to experience the following when I was 12 or 13... I got my record of "Mob Rules" by Black Sabbath and I waited all day for everybody to go to bed so that I could listen to it without interruptions. The record player was pretty decent, my dad liked his music... but it was in the living room which was always busy with TV or just people chatting etc. It was summer... warm night, windows open letting a small breeze through. The room is dark, illuminated only by some residual street lighting and the green pilot lights of the amplifier. I get my headphones on, and get the record out... I can see the label (Vertigo) with the lightning and flying saucer... a little eerie... I place it carefully on the plate and as I lift my hands... static "lightning" sparks between the record and my fingertips, resembling the lightning of the label. I stood there with my hands in the air still... ah, you had to be there! it was awesome!

A lot of my good memories of vinyl comes from the fact that I was young and discovering music and I had a lot of time to go over every minute detail. Also, I'd only be able to buy one record a month maybe... unless it was my birthday... so I was carefully choosing where I spent my money and each record was a little treasure. It's just different now.

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1481477728' post='3192564']


a lot of the bad press for 'digital' comes from bad mixes/masters, and the awful compression war that started in the late 80s.

[/quote]

Don't get me wrong - digital can sound deeply excellent too especially at higher res. And vinyl can sound terrible if it's a scratched record, or a bad pressing.
But it's amazing how quiet a freshly-cleaned quality bit of 180g vinyl can sound; vanishingly low background noise - often it's only the master tape hiss on an older recording from before the days of Dolby SR, and somehow, despite the alleged inferiority of the format (you can argue tech specs for/against digital and vinyl all day without coming to a serious and meaningful conclusion), it sounds so much more immediate, more like you're actually there rather than listening to a recording. And every bit of vinyl I play that sounds that good makes up for all the scratchy and knacked ones I've played before it!
Still, each to their own!

[spectoremg]

[quote name='fleabag' timestamp='1481328466' post='3191629']
The thing with vinyl is the fantastic artwork that crept in around the 70's or maybe late 60's

And one in particular creamed them all and that was Tull's ' Thick As A Brick '

If anyone is young enough to remember the original and bought it on vinyl ( me ! ) it was utterly fabulous

It was actually a bit of a piss take by Anderson, but he went to the extreme, as the album was just one track that started on side one and ended on side two.
You had to like Tull i guess to buy their stuff, but it was fabulous music. Quite complex

But the sleeve was out of this world. It was the size of a mini broadsheet newspaper, and it had pages and stories just like a newspaper. It really was the ultimate vinyl sleeve, IMO of course

[url="http://www.rhino.com/article/doing-a-180-jethro-tull-thick-as-a-brick"]http://www.rhino.com...hick-as-a-brick[/url]
[/quote]Well done for going off topic! One of my favourite albums.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1481466282' post='3192454']
I feel that those who shout loudly about how crap vinyl has always sounded have only ever heard a 20s hand-cranked gramophone with hawthorn needle and large horn, or at best a Dansette!
Once you've experienced a really good vinyl system you'll know what all the fuss is about...
Now I'm off to oil my beard and sculpt my man-bun.
[/quote]

In fairness I'm sure an eye-wateringly expensive audiophile setup playing high-end pressings would doubtless sound immeasurably better than the cheapo Amstrad separates system I deafened myself with Motorhead on when I was 18.

But the bottom line is, no matter how superlative your system might be, you are listening to the sound of a pin being dragged along a lumpy plastic trench. There's only so much you can do.

Now you mind how you go on that fixie. Not good for the knees.

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1481488449' post='3192677']
In fairness I'm sure an eye-wateringly expensive audiophile setup playing high-end pressings would doubtless sound immeasurably better than the cheapo Amstrad separates system I deafened myself with Motorhead on when I was 18.[/quote]

Amstrad, eh? I had a mate with an impressive tower of cheapo lights labelled "Amstrad". If we wanted to listen to music we usually went to my house.

[quote]
But the bottom line is, no matter how superlative your system might be, you are listening to the sound of a pin being dragged along a lumpy plastic trench. There's only so much you can do.[/quote]

Luckily, the resolution of vinyl depends on the grain size of the vinyl used, just how well the mastering engineer has carved the master disc (as well as the quality of the master), and how well the "pin" tracks the groove. If the "pin" is small enough (like my Audio Note cartridge is), the arm and cart are sufficiently isolated from outside vibrations (wall-shelf, 20kg turntable), and the RIAA decoding is accurate, a well-cut record has at least the resolution of cd, with a higher potential maximum frequency, but lower available dynamic range (not that most cds use that range, wot with loudness wars). And it also has the advantage of not being a torch dragged across a lumpy plastic disc!

[quote]
Now you mind how you go on that fixie. Not good for the knees.
[/quote]

Fixies are sooo yesterday. I've got a recumbent with an anarchy flag.