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CD Sales Continue To Plummet, Vinyl Records Soar
Lucas123 writes "Over the past four years, vinyl record sales have been soaring, jumping almost 300% from 858,000 in 2006 to 2.5 million in 2009, and sales this year are on track to reach new peaks, according to Nielsen Entertainment. Meanwhile, as digital music sales are also continuing a steady rise, CD sales have been on a fast downward slope over the same period of time. In the first half of this year alone, CD album sales were down about 18% over the same period last year. David Bakula, senior vice president of analytics at Nielsen Entertainment, said it's not just audiophiles expanding their collections that is driving vinyl record sales but a whole new generation of young music aficionados who are digging the album art, liner notes and other features that records bring to the table. 'The trend sure does seem sustainable. And the record industry is really doing a lot of cool things to not only make the format come alive but to make it more exciting for consumers,' Bakula said."
Smell is the sense that is tied to memory the strongest. I remember the smells of those records as much as I remember the sounds and the artwork. :)
Generally the vinyl is not over-compressed.
It certainly was back in the record era, at least for pop or rock records from the 60's-70's on, with rare exceptions. It almost had to be to sound recognizable on AM radio or in cars (since the radio stations all played the records). Only in the mid-late 70s were there many pop or rock records that were mixed for FM or home listening on quality equipment. Early 70's pop records were horrifically compressed, easily as bad as your average Britney Spears crap. Even back as far as the "Wall of Sound" where the dynamics were intentionally compressed "up front" is an example.
I would also note that most full-dynamic-range records *can't be played* on anything less that pretty expensive cartridges on perfectly-adjusted equipment. I have one Sheffield direct-to-disk "Harry James" records that I could only reliably track after extensive adjustments to the tracking force and cartridge moment of inertia and tonearm mass. Almost anything I tried, and any conventional inexpensive cart ($50) is sends the tonearm off the record 1/8". If for nothing else, it would play much better in the majority of cases if there *was* some compression applied. It HAS to be.
I have been a high-fidelity guy (not an audiophool "cable consumer") for the past 40 years. CDs and digital music has been such a tremendous advance. Compression is hardly a new idea and absurdly compressed range was common for as long as records have existed. Vinyl is no solution, it's the engineering, no matter what the delivery medium.
Brett
The loudness war didn't start cranking up until about 1990, so most CDs pressed before then don't suffer from it. (This is why so many "digital remaster" CD releases sound crummy compared with the earlier CD release!) Those early CDs often sound better than the LP version.
The CD format is really fantastic when it's used properly and not abused. It was billed as a technological wonder when it was introduced, and it mostly lived up to the billing. The only things I would change are the fragile little jewel boxes and setting some kind of mastering standard to reverse sonic havoc wreaked by the Loudness War.