Vinyl sales much ado about nothing?

[BigH]

I was wandering around a bootsale yesterday, there was the usual rubbish vinyl on sale as you'd expect and as two teenage boys wandered past I overheard this conversation: Boy 1: what are those things in that box? Boy 2: records, 1: what are they? 2: you know like CDs have music on them? 1: Errr, yeah, sort of.... 2: they're like that but bigger.

what surprised me about the conversation was not that one of them didn't know what vinyl was, it was that he was only vaguely aware of what CDs were!

Sounds like Essex.

 

[BigH]

The proliferation of new turntables on the market (and manufacturers supporting the format) is fantastic.

'Hipsters' or not, it will showcase the format to a new generation, encouraging them to go beyond the ubiquitous iphone/headphone combination (nothing wrong with that either). It will ensure more pressings from music companies and guarantee the survival of vinyl for another generation and hopefully beyond.

Why would anyone argue against that?

As I've mentioned before, my brother (hardly a 'hipster') has got into the format a short while ago. He has three kids which will enjoy playing vinyl (when he lets them close eventually) and either inherit the turntable or hopefully buy their own.

My guess ... vinyl will still be here for decades to come.

Vinyl will be around for ages, same as cds. However vinyl is still a very small part of music sales, most sales of turntables seem to be from young hipsters, so not sure how long this boom will last. Hifi market is very small also, with headphones sales more than as the whole hifi sales.

 

[britain4]

I'm not for a minute suggesting it's a bad thing - indeed, I'm into vinyl myself and I think it's a great format. I'd love for it to become more popular and gain more momentum in the marketplace.

All I'm saying is from what I've seen and my own personal experience I think there are many, many people in it for the wrong reasons - as a status symbol, and I think that's a big reason it's blown up in the way it has - although maybe this is a positive thing in that it's brought the format to people's attention and I think it is starting to gain some genuine enthusiasts from it.

 

[britain4]

I know I'm generalising massively there but like I said in my last post I think the 'retro cool' thing is what's helped it to gain so much momentum.

 

[Kamikaze Bitter]

I know I'm generalising massively there but like I said in my last post I think the 'retro cool' thing is what's helped it to gain so much momentum.

It's undeniable. Vinly is part of a tred at the moment like beards and craft beer. None of this is bad, but all of it could be forgotten very shortly. I don't think it's driven by the desire for better sound - some of the low price decks on offer look absolutely horrible.

 

[The_Lhc]

I was wandering around a bootsale yesterday, there was the usual rubbish vinyl on sale as you'd expect and as two teenage boys wandered past I overheard this conversation: Boy 1: what are those things in that box? Boy 2: records, 1: what are they? 2: you know like CDs have music on them? 1: Errr, yeah, sort of.... 2: they're like that but bigger.

what surprised me about the conversation was not that one of them didn't know what vinyl was, it was that he was only vaguely aware of what CDs were!

Sounds like Essex.

Nope.

 

[bigfish786]

Not the young hipsters that are buying vinyl just to look at!

 

[respe]

A couple of myths are perpatuated here. The first one is that sound on CDs is compressed. It's not. And it's more than good enough for HiFi standards. The fact that some vinyl/SACD/Bluray Audio sounds better than CD is to with the atrocious mastering of some CDs.

The other myth is that you need loads of speakers to enjoy SACD or Bluray Audio. You don't. Some of the discs are stereo only. Some SACD players are stereo only.

We can play a lot of different formats on our system but it comes down to the mastering. We have heard good and bad in all formats. It becomes very interesting when there are different masters of the same record available and the loudness wars come into play. Without the loudness, noone in their right mind would and could claim that CDs aren't a great format and more than good enough for most purposes. Personally I like listening to vinyl records. But I know more than enough about the the technology behind records to know that there is a lot of distortion added to the music during the production and playback. I can't understand why audiophiles rave about playing records when they must be fully aware of all the distortion, hiss, rumble and wow and flutter.

I'm old enough to remember the switch from analogue to digital recording for classical music. The recording engineers at the time were not happy with the fidelity of analogue recordings and embraced digital recordings because of the lack of tape hiss and other distortion. The audiophiles at that time embraced the digital recording that were transfered to vinyl (in the days before CDs) and concluded that the digital recordings sounded better than the analogue ones on vinyl. A couple of years later these digital recordings were released as CDs and most people at the time concluded that they now had a perfect copy of a studio master on a little shiny disc. Recording should be about faithful reproduction and therefore eliminating as much distortion as possible. Unless of course distortion is part of production.

Why does everyone seem to have forgotten the history of sound recording?

People have not forgotten, but if you think CD sound is not compressed are you mixing data compression with dynamic range compression. A lot of CDs suffer the latter.,

 

[Al ears]

I was wandering around a bootsale yesterday, there was the usual rubbish vinyl on sale as you'd expect and as two teenage boys wandered past I overheard this conversation: Boy 1: what are those things in that box? Boy 2: records, 1: what are they? 2: you know like CDs have music on them? 1: Errr, yeah, sort of.... 2: they're like that but bigger.

what surprised me about the conversation was not that one of them didn't know what vinyl was, it was that he was only vaguely aware of what CDs were!

Sounds like Essex.

Nope.

Must be Wales then....

 

[BigH]

A couple of myths are perpatuated here. The first one is that sound on CDs is compressed. It's not. And it's more than good enough for HiFi standards. The fact that some vinyl/SACD/Bluray Audio sounds better than CD is to with the atrocious mastering of some CDs.

The other myth is that you need loads of speakers to enjoy SACD or Bluray Audio. You don't. Some of the discs are stereo only. Some SACD players are stereo only.

We can play a lot of different formats on our system but it comes down to the mastering. We have heard good and bad in all formats. It becomes very interesting when there are different masters of the same record available and the loudness wars come into play. Without the loudness, noone in their right mind would and could claim that CDs aren't a great format and more than good enough for most purposes. Personally I like listening to vinyl records. But I know more than enough about the the technology behind records to know that there is a lot of distortion added to the music during the production and playback. I can't understand why audiophiles rave about playing records when they must be fully aware of all the distortion, hiss, rumble and wow and flutter.

I'm old enough to remember the switch from analogue to digital recording for classical music. The recording engineers at the time were not happy with the fidelity of analogue recordings and embraced digital recordings because of the lack of tape hiss and other distortion. The audiophiles at that time embraced the digital recording that were transfered to vinyl (in the days before CDs) and concluded that the digital recordings sounded better than the analogue ones on vinyl. A couple of years later these digital recordings were released as CDs and most people at the time concluded that they now had a perfect copy of a studio master on a little shiny disc. Recording should be about faithful reproduction and therefore eliminating as much distortion as possible. Unless of course distortion is part of production.

Why does everyone seem to have forgotten the history of sound recording?

People have not forgotten, but if you think CD sound is not compressed are you mixing data compression with dynamic range compression. A lot of CDs suffer the latter.,

Virtually all music recordings are compressed, there are a few that are not but they have warnings on them. Yes lots of recent cds are compressed even more. As for vinyl, the engineers have to do lot of things to the sound to fit it all on and make the bass mono unless you have about 10 minutes each side of an lp. Everything is a compromise. No vinyl lp is perfect either.