Vinyl sales up again

[PaulWarning]

and in monetary terms higher than CD's.

I suppose if you're going to go digital you may as well just download it, or listen to Spotify, if you want something physical LP's are better, can't explain the rise in cassette sales though

https://www.nme.com/news/music/uk-vinyl-sales-in-2020-are-the-highest-since-the-early-90s-2846310

Edited December 29, 2020 by PaulWarning

[TheGreek]

I still have vinyl and a deck but I won't use them - far too fragile compared to CDs.

[Jonesy]

2 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

I still have vinyl and a deck but I won't use them - far too fragile compared to CDs.

Far too fragile? What are you doing with them??

I've just catalogued my vinyl collection with the Discogs app, which sounds incredibly boring, but nevermore will I end up buying doubles!!

[TheGreek]

I'm referring to how easy it is to scratch vinyl compared to how CDs can be damaged.

Pretty sure you wouldn't play a record in a car but have no qualms about putting a CD in one. That's probably the only place I use recorded music.

[Jonesy]

You can easily listen to vinyl on the go......

 

The one good thing about working from home over the best part part of a year is that I've been able to listen to my records all day, I don't think I've listened to a CD in the best part of 10 years - maybe even more. From time to time I'll buy a CD and rip it to digital, but when I'm on the go it's streamed/stored digital for me.

[PaulWarning]

21 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

I'm referring to how easy it is to scratch vinyl compared to how CDs can be damaged.

Pretty sure you wouldn't play a record in a car but have no qualms about putting a CD in one. That's probably the only place I use recorded music.

lot's of cars don't have a CD player these days, mine doesn't, have to Bluetooth off my phone or use a memory stick, which isn't helping CD sales, one or two people commented on this when I was trying to sell them my bands last CD

[bass_dinger]

I recently offloaded my small vinyl collection, because I rarely if ever listened to them.   With a cheap Dual CS505 deck, and nowhere to store the records, it was an easy decision to fix my old Marantz CD52 player, and focus on that medium.    

However, my wife still has some vinyl and cassettes, which I thought that I could easily replace with the CD version.  I was stunned to see how expensive CDs can be, especially when it was released as a limited run by an obscure artist.  Contrast that to how easily available the vinyl version is.

EDIT - everything is easily available, if one has the money...   

 

  

 

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by bass_dinger

[4000]

Yeah, the car thing is probably the final nail in the coffin for cds. Have to sayIm still buying them but I don’t know who else is. I dread the thought of transferring all my cds to digital. 

[TheGreek]

32 minutes ago, 4000 said:

but I don’t know who else is.

Just me and you then...

[Hellzero]

And me.

Being 55 years old and having lived the birth of CD, I really can't stand vinyl, which, is, to me, sorry for those worshipping it, the worst medium ever. And I laugh a lot when I hear the analogue sounding argument... Scritch, scratch, riiiiip, shrook-shrook, shrook-shrook, shrook-shrook...

Edited December 29, 2020 by Hellzero
So old, I forgot old.

[Mykesbass]

2 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

can't explain the rise in cassette sales though

Nostalgia - pure and simple. Dreadful medium!

[bass_dinger]

6 minutes ago, Mykesbass said:

Nostalgia - pure and simple. Dreadful medium!

I think that what we call a compact cassette, was originally marketed as a dictaphone recording device.
Nakamichi managed to get a lot of mileage out of the format, but they were perhaps best suited for in-car entertainment, and for recording Radio 1's chart show - and for doing mix tapes for your mates.  I still treasure my Best Of Shalamar, compiled by my mate Roger...     

"Home Taping Is Killing Music."
 
  

[bass_dinger]

25 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

Just me and you then...

Me too.  Ebay is a good hunting ground for cheap music on CD, as are artist home pages. 

http://www.document-records.com/ are great for Blues completists who want recordings of old scratchy 78s.  https://www.naxos.com/ are good for classical stuff, perhaps recorded by an obscure eastern European orchestra, which is cheap to licence and re-release. 

I think that I like the idea of vinyl, more than I like the sound.   

[BigRedX]

Having had music that has been released on both CD and vinyl in recent years, I can say that the production costs for the two are not as far apart as the retail prices would have you believe...

[PaulWarning]

I think the appeal of vinyl is as much to do with physicality  as nostalgia, Cd's seem small cheap and plasticky (the original concept of the plastic jewel case doesn't help), art work is disappointing, and they usually disappear into the player, so you can't see them playing. Of course that doesn't explain the rise in cassette sales, a mystery to me.

As for the sound,  even if it's accepted that CD's sound better (and let's not go down that road) most folk are just not that picky about the sound quality,

Edited December 29, 2020 by PaulWarning

[dannybuoy]

Film (and instant film) cameras are seeing a massive resurgence also, used prices for old cameras are going up and up.

[PaulWarning]

6 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Having had music that has been released on both CD and vinyl in recent years, I can say that the production costs for the two are not as far apart as the retail prices would have you believe...

depends on numbers, for a small band with limited sales the unit cost of  producing CD's is lower, and we've sold a lot  more of them than the Vinyl version, mostly at gigs, granted Vinyl comes down the more you produce, more so than CD's

edit, I remember when CD's first came out, they were about 15 quid and Vinyl about a tenner

Edited December 29, 2020 by PaulWarning

[skidder652003]

I listen most days to Spotify through my HiFi, but when we have guests over or I've had a right skinful, the Vinyl comes out (got about 500 classic rock, sad sack that I am). Still great fun but trying to get the right LP's into their sleeves the next day is a nightmare!

[BigRedX]

1 minute ago, PaulWarning said:

depends on numbers, for a small band with limited sales the unit cost of  producing CD's is lower, and we've sold a lot  more of them than the Vinyl version, mostly at gigs, granted Vinyl comes down the more you produce, more so than CD's

I'm talking glass-mastered CDs, with production quantities of 500+. CD runs of under 500 are mostly CDRs which IMO don't count because they don't have the longevity required to be considered a reliable delivery medium. 

[Mykesbass]

9 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

As for the sound,  even if it's accepted that CD's sound better (and let's not go down that road) most folk are just not that picky about the sound quality,

Not going down that road but suggesting a detour...I like both. They sound different. Neither sounds 'better'.

[BigRedX]

1 minute ago, Mykesbass said:

Not going down that road but suggesting a detour...I like both. They sound different. Neither sounds 'better'.

And as someone who has had an album released on both CD and vinyl, the CD version is noticeably closer to what we were hearing in the studio during mixing, and what we want our audience to hear.

[bass_dinger]

I do wonder about the relative prices of the equipment.  A good, hifi, turntable seems to be more expensive than a good, hifi, CD player.  Less robust too....

With £400 to invest in a turntable and vinyl, and the same £400 to spend on a CD player and CDs, which would get you a better outcome?




 

[TheLowDown]

I remember reading an article about vinyl from a record engineer who worked on vinyl, cassette, 4 track, and other formats for years.. He was saying that the warmth that people talk about when listening to vinyl is not something to be sought after, but is actually an artefact of a lossy recording.

It's the same with valve amps. They don't reproduce the sound very well, even though their sound is popular. It would be much better to just simulate it in a normal amp.

 

I can totally understand vinyl becoming more popular though because they provide a more tangible and tactile owning experience than CDs. They're larger, often have those lyric booklets rather than the tiny things with CDs. They're more involving. I believe that it's the millennials who are largely responsible for buying the vinyl, even though few of them play the record. They just want something solid to own in the days of digital.

 

 

I used to have a minidisk player as part of my hifi at one time that was sold to me as the next big thing to replace CDs. I don't think I ever used it for the minidisk.

Edited December 29, 2020 by TheLowDown

[Dankology]

I heard an interesting (and possibly apocryphal) statistic about how many new LPs are being bought as ornaments and collectors items, never to be played. And the quality of some recent pressings is shocking.

Anyway, I'm very fond of vinyl - as a teenager in the mid 90s it allowed me to scoop up loads of essential stuff without breaking the bank. Black Sabbath first 6 for £2 - £4 a piece, the Ramones' classic stuff for not much more, endless boot sale bargains (Layla on seemingly unplayed double vinyl and Bringing It All Back Home for 60p each being particularly memorable)...

Latterly I've been able to pick up Van Morrison's OOP stuff for much less than the scarce CD versions but this is very much an exception.

I still love the process and ceremony of putting a record on, the big sleeves and the magic of how the sound is actually extracted from the disc - something that seems far more fascinating than digital encoding. But they are an indulgence for me and I'd always want a digital copy too.

Anyway, I've been plugged the gaps in my collection via ultra cheap Amazon, Ebay and pound shop secondhand CDs for the last few years. This wonderful song by Jeffrey Lewis could be the story of my life:

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Dankology

[4000]

1 hour ago, PaulWarning said:

 most folk are just not that picky about the sound quality,

This, sadly. Most of the people I come into contact with wouldn’t know a quality sound system if it ran them over. Pretty much everyone I know thinks that if it’s got vast bass then it’s a great system, regardless of what the rest of it sounds like.