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Vinyl's Revival Is Now a Phenomenon On Both Sides of the Atlantic
New submitter journovampire sends this report about the resurgence of vinyl:
Vinyl album sales smashed records on both sides of the Atlantic in 2014, as a format that recently seemed on its last legs hit astonishing new heights. ...n the UK in 2014, vinyl album sales totaled of 1.3m – six times bigger than its tally just five years earlier (2009). In fact, 2014 represented the most vinyl albums sales in the UK since 1995 – nearly 20 years ago. In the U.S., vinyl sales have quadrupled in the past five years, narrowly missing out on a 10m sales milestone in 2014. Amazingly, the year’s 9.2m vinyl sales haul is the biggest since Nielsen Soundscan records began in 1993 – by some distance.
Of course, there is the retro side to vinyl. However, there is the physical aspect of the media, from plenty of space on the cover for album art (as opposed to what is shown on a smartphone display) to having liner notes and other niceties with the album, to the actual handling of a record which is 100% analog. Of course, its audio quality compared to a CD is debatable, but there is definitely something about having a record collection and the physical aspect of that.
For example, one physical aspect was Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" newspaper. Another album actually folded into a miniature desk. This is a physical trait that has been lost, and is now being rediscovered.
Of course, there is the fact that DRM and the play device phoning home isn't an issue, and it doesn't take that much in the way of electronics to play a record compared to a CD or MP3 file.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
peace out...
I noticed our local JB hifi has got a whole section of vinyl so had a leaf through. Most of the albums I already have on LP from when they were new and they cost a lot but it is still nice to see. The real problem LPs had back in the late 80's was the quality of the pressings because they were so mass produced and the vinyl was thin plus they were trying to squeeze a CDs worth of music onto the LP so you got shallow grooves and crushed dynamics making them sound much worse than they could. Given the choice between CD and those terrible LPs from that period the CD is hands down the better choice. If these new pressings are done right, they should sound very good assuming the source material is good and I have a few direct to disc LPs which are incredible. I don't tend to use my turntable these days but I have still got it, plus my collection and hope to have the right space to set it up because the experience of listening to a record isn't just about the quality but rather you end up listening to the whole album as a complete piece of work where with CDs or MP3s you would focus more on tracks
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
There are a few types I see doing this.
You'll always have those insane people who think Vinyl has better quality than CDs or FLAC... but I imagine they are a pretty small group.
You've got people who're after the experience -- maybe a more personal feel to having a big physical system that needs more interaction. Again I imagine this is larger than the first group, but still relatively small.
And finally you've got hipsters, who'll do anything just because nobody else is doing it. Very suspicious that vinyl's popularity starts to grow with a strong correlation to this group's size.
I'm a self-proclaimed "audiophile" but not in the annoying, trust-my-ears-only way that plagues the hobby (I'm a scientist, dammit). I have a nice tube amp, great speakers, subwoofer, etc.... and I have a turntable as well (and a network enabled player + nice DAC). Anyhoo.... I can speak to the non-hipster side of things. Yes, some of the growth of vinyl has a faddish aspect to it. But, keep in mind, many musicphiles and audiophiles never stopped collecting and buying vinyl even through the meteoric rise of CD.
If you are a major music fan (and do not have an unlimited supply of pirated needledrops on the internet), a turntable is essential. A lot of obscure stuff was never released on CD. A lot of stuff that was released from the past on CD sounded (and continues to sound) dreadful due to the mad scramble to ride the CD wave; nth generation tapes, some equalized for vinyl, were used as the source material. Thankfully a lot of stuff these days that is selling is remastered versions of old stuff from original master tapes (not copies). You can be cyincal about this (say the major labels are just milking old warhorses) and you can also acknowledge that the digital audio technology has increased astoundingly since the late 80s and 90s. What does this have to do with vinyl? Well, vinyl can sound really good if done well. I won't argue that it is a better medium than digital; it simply isn't. But it has its own charms.
I have bought vinyl reissues that were mastered very well, and the vinyl was quiet, lacking surface noise - but about a third of the time I get burned with either lousy mastering (sibilance and related issues - and I have a very good microline cart) or more commonly, ticks and pops in shrinkwrapped new vinyl (and run through a we clean). This is the way it has always been and will always be with vinyl.
A primary motivation I have for buying new vinyl releases of new music is to acquire recordings that haven't been as dynamically squashed in the digital mastering process. While vinyl releases can be very dynamically compressed as well, as a rule, vinyl releases tend to be mastered with more dynamic range than the digital version (you could argue that this is partly, or mostly due, to physical limitations of the vinyl medium). And yes, I acknowledge that most vinyl is either digitally sourced or goes through an ADA conversion.
But mostly I continue to buy vinyl because it's fun - it's part of a hobby I enjoy very much. Spending hours just sitting "in the sweet spot" and listening to music (from any source - digital, tape, vinyl or whatever) is something I enjoy. So while people scoff at the vinyl "revival" I'm just glad to see there are more choices our there for getting good sounding music.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
Years ago I was very close to buying a whole lathe setup with spare cutters and everything, it was an auction and the price was 1$... but you had to pay for getting the thing out of the warehouse that very day or they'd penalize you big time.
Sometimes I regret not being more proactive about the whole thing. I enjoy electromechanical contraptions like that and would have liked to make masters and one-offs for people.
But the thing was enormous and it would not have worked well in a 3rd floor apartment in any case. It would be happier in the basement of a warehouse.
http://gallery.audioasylum.com...
plus two 19 inch racks full of all kinds of junk...
Mostly random stuff.