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Vinyl Records Outsold Digital Downloads In the UK Last Week (adweek.com)

Posted by msmash on from the holiday-season dept.

Sales of vinyl outstripped those of downloaded music for the first time since the advent of digital downloads last week in the UK. From a report on AdWeek: The U.K.-based Entertainment Retailers Association, or ERA, said Monday that Britons spent 2.4 million pounds ($3.03 million) on the old-school wax last week while only doling out 2.1 million pounds ($2.65 million) for digital downloads. Vinyl Factory, a website dedicated to records, reported that those numbers represent a big change from the same week in 2015, when just 1.2 million pounds was spent on records compared with 4.4 million on digital downloads. That's a 100 percent year-over-year increase in vinyl sales and also the first time that vinyl album sales have bested digital downloads over a weeklong period in years, per Vinyl Factory. The surge in vinyl sales could be attributed to the popularity of vinyl as a Christmas gift and the growing number of retailers. You know it's a gift because, as BBC adds: But 48% of those surveyed said they did not play the vinyl they bought -- while 7% did not even own a turntable.

28 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. A perfect Christmas gift... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Vinyl is the new coffee table book that people are expected to see but not read.

    1. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by geekmux · · Score: 2

      Vinyl is the new coffee table book that people are expected to see but not read.

      And thanks to the hipster Millennial, sales statistics are something we're expected to value but not understand.

      Gee, look at that...Nordstrom is selling a fucking rock for $85.

      Just in time for the holidays...

    2. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by pr0fessor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I really miss speakers that are made with real wood enclosures they sounded so much fuller, crisper, and bigger. Then again I have a tube stack with a 4x12 oak slant back offset classic and greenback Celestions that sounds like it's a crisp 300 watts (it's only 200) compared to the new stuff anyway.

    3. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I really miss speakers that are made with real wood enclosures they sounded so much fuller, crisper, and bigger. Then again I have a tube stack with a 4x12 oak slant back offset classic and greenback Celestions that sounds like it's a crisp 300 watts (it's only 200) compared to the new stuff anyway.

      Me too.

      I have a pair of Klipschorns 50th anniversary speakers ....horn loaded, VERY efficient, and they are made to run with tube amps. I have a couple of older Decware SET amps (I have the long old, SE84C). .....sounds really nice. I'd like to some day get an old McIntosh amp, but even old 60's versions are pretty $$$$.

      I'm very tempted to dig out my old turn table...I'm SO disappointed with so many of the new "remixes" they have been putting out of my artists which are classic rocksters.....they have succumbed to the compression wars and there is no fucking dynamic range anymore.

      From what I understand, with the physical limitations of the vinyl format, they really can't over compress. Even though my hearing isn't what it used to be, I can still hear that my music often doesn't sound as good as it did when I was a kid. With new stuff, I quickly get ear fatigue, but with something well recorded on my system, even at pretty high volumes, I don't get ear fatigue and can listen endlessly.

      I have a few gems on digital...Jethro Tull's Aqualung put out a year or so ago for a remastered anniversary edition is amazingly well done. It has plenty of dynamic range, and they've brought forth instruments that I'd never really heard before..it is great.

      But like my Stones re-issues...ugh...they've killed what used to be fun recordings.

      I'm hoping my vinyl experiment might give me back the sound I want to hear....and not be processed to sound like shit like so many engineers seem to aspire to create (or destroy).

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    4. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by brantondaveperson · · Score: 2

      No-one gives a shit about sound quality anyway - they never did. People like buying records because they like owning a physical object with the music literally stamped into the surface of it. People who buy vinyl, do play it. Of course they do.

    5. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by dlingman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Gee, look at that...Nordstrom is selling a fucking rock for $85.

      Just in time for the holidays...

      Your local jewelry store will sell you rocks for vastly more than 85$.

    6. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

      I really miss speakers that are made with real wood enclosures they sounded so much fuller, crisper, and bigger. Then again I have a tube stack with a 4x12 oak slant back offset classic and greenback Celestions that sounds like it's a crisp 300 watts (it's only 200) compared to the new stuff anyway.

      Particle Board is MUCH better for enclosures, specfically because it doesn't have a easily-definable resonance frequency.

      Rap your knuckles on a "real" wood speaker cabinet. Notice it has a sort of "ring" to it. Particle board cabinets (properly braced), not so much.

      I want my speakers to sound like MUSIC, not a dining-room tabletop.

    7. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by Mal-2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most speakers, even high-quality ones, are medium-density fiberboard (MDF) with a wood veneer over them. Real wood has resonances, MDF much less so.

      I have a pair of Tannoy SRM-12B studio monitors at my workstation and they look like wood, but they're clearly not as revealed by the places where the incredibly thin (about 0.7mm I'd say) wood finish has broken away. They still work perfectly. I am driving them with a mere 80W/ch class AB solid-state amplifier, but they can't handle more than 100W/ch anyhow. They have self-resetting breakers though, which I have seen get tripped once or twice when the amp has fed them a nasty transient. (The amp itself also has similar protection, and sometimes it's a race to see which one trips first. If it resets in seconds, the amp tripped. If it resets in minutes, the speakers tripped.)

      In any case, these are hardly what you'd consider cheap crap. They are 40 years old, but are absolutely professional quality. They're 5/8 inch thick MDF.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    8. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 2

      I have a Pivetta Opera driving Genesis Dragon's, fed from a Goldmund Reference 2 through an Audio Note M10. I'm not sure I like the sound though, if I listen carefully to a 1942 recording of the Fortissimo Crescendo from Bombopoff's "Eruption of Vesuvius" it's as if the third oboe from the left has turned slightly in his seat, the soundstage just isn't right somehow. If anyone has an advice on how to deal with this I'd be interested in hearing it.

    9. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Informative

      Argh! Such idiocy! (or ignorance).

      Pops and clicks are due to scratches on the record and debris (dust, etc.) in the grooves. This is a flaw in the particular record, and will be different on each copy of the record (assuming the master or an intermediate copy is not damaged.) Some of it can be removed by post processing, even of your digital copies.

      Hiss is noise that can come from many sources: microphone, 1st stage microphone amplifier, many places within the analog audiotape recorder used before digital recordings, physical limitations of vinyl, the phono cartridge, and the phono preamp, to name the most obvious.

      Rumble is due to deficiencies in the playback equipment, although deficiencies in the cutter are also possible. A warped record will also cause rumble and other problems.

      Wow (low frequency speed variation) is again due to deficiencies in the playback or cutting equipment, or due to the record not being centered properly.

      Flutter is mostly an analog audiotape problem.

      The limitations of a clean, undamaged, properly mastered and manufactured vinyl disk are dynamic range, distortion, and frequency response. Dynamic range is limited by the size of vinyl molecules compared to the size of the wiggles in the grooves that represent sound, and by the physical errors that accumulate from each generation of copy from master to the final stamped record. Dynamic range is also limited by the signal before it reaches the disk (There are records where you can hear relative silence, then hiss (probably from audiotape) as the signal is applied to the cutter.) Distortion is limited by geometry mismatches between the cutting stylus and the playback stylus, and the tendency of the material in a freshly cut groove to rebound somewhat, and other factors. Frequency response is limited by geometrical considerations of the cutting and playback stylus and the linear speed of the groove as it passes the stylus. Frequency response is also limited by the RIAA playback and recording compensation curves, which deliberately reduce response below about 50 Hz.

      Digital has won out because it is more convenient, more durable, and easier and cheaper to produce excellent results. The best vinyl results require care and expensive equipment to reduce the flaws that come with sloppy vinyl use. Vinyl can be very good, just not as good as good digital.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    10. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2

      Unfortunately, a lot of modern (re)releases on vinyl are also compressed to hell and back, but the warts and limitations of the LP format sort of 'hide' some of the badness.

      The very best sound quality you're going to get is with mid-80s to mid-90s CD releases. This was after they figured out how to master properly for CDs, but before the Loudness War really got started.

      --
      Eat the rich.
    11. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2

      It's all down to the mastering. A well-produced CD will trounce anything else for sound quality.

      Do you want to hear a secret? 99.9% of all LPs released over the last 10-15 years have used the exact same masters as the CD releases, overcompression, clipping and all.

      --
      Eat the rich.
    12. Re:A perfect Christmas gift... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      I buy vinyl for the sound quality. Each one gets played exactly once as I rip it to my computer.

      Vinyl releases often sound better than the CD release these days because they are not as loud. The format simply doesn't allow the mix to be as loud as a CD does, clipped to hell and no dynamic range. What you lose in resolution and additional noise is more than made up for by the drums having some real slam and the guitars being more than just solid noise.

      If they released CD versions with proper mixing I'd buy those, but they don't. They used to, so sometimes I buy used CDs from the 80s that were properly mastered, but it's rare these days. DVD audio with a Dolby mix is usually okay, because Dolby mandates certain levels that prevent the over-use of compression, and they know that only people who care about such things buy those discs anyway.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Only downloads? by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By far the majority of digitally distributed music is streamed, not downloaded.

    Downloaded music is a niche market.

    --
    Eat the rich.
  3. Looks like the loudness war is being fought by sl3xd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because of the Loudness War, Vinyl really does sound better, because it can't be abused the same way digital recordings can. There's only so much the needle will tolerate.

    It's not because Vinyl is "better" -- it's because the mastering on the digital formats is appalling.

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    1. Re:Looks like the loudness war is being fought by sl3xd · · Score: 2

      Ah yes, let's compare that Adele album to Vinyl

      So a DR range of 4 ("high def" digital, vs 11 on vinyl).

      A DR of 11 is still pretty bad, but it's not as horrifying as you get with the "high def" audio.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    2. Re:Looks like the loudness war is being fought by Verdatum · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's not like producers routinely do an entirely separate mixdown for vinyl when they release modern stuff in multiple-formats. They make one mix, and if causes the needle to skip over, they limit the entire track on the vinyl until it doesn't. The ratio between the amount of quiet portions and loud portions (dynamic range) doesn't change, it's just that the overall amplitude is reduced. Absolutely nothing prevents producers from making CDs with high dynamic range. Compressing the dynamics in order to up the loudness was done on CDs because they could, and because they were finding it helped sell more albums when you had more loudness to make you stand out over the competition.

      By all means, go buy an original vinyl album in good condition instead of a "Remastered anniversary edition", where, yeah, they tend to compress the mix and amplify the result. Or go buy a vinyl album because you are a DJ who actually knows how to spin vinyl. Or shit, go buy vinyl because you're nostalgic for the way things used to be, if that's what you're in to. But don't buy vinyl because you think it's gonna sound better than digital. That is, unless you group together the hiss of a low-quality hi-fi setup, and the clicks and pops from mishandling an record over time somehow improve the sound. And even if you do want that, There's an App for That.

  4. A gift for the stupid and uneducated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Digital recorded music on vinyl is like dehydrated chicken in a home made soup mix.

    You do not gain anything from going from digital to analog back and gain all of the wow, flutter, pop, hiss, etc.

    Those that claim more 'warmth' are fooling themselves. Sure. Back when analog recordings were made vinyl was better. But once you lose the quality from the digitization process it is lost for good. Why is it so hard to realize that the music today is 99.99% recorded digitally and that is where the problem is.

    If you still believe in converting your digital recordings to analog I have LOTS of swamp land as well as land on Mars I'd like to sell you.

    1. Re:A gift for the stupid and uneducated by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      You do not gain anything from going from digital to analog back and gain all of the wow, flutter, pop, hiss, etc.

      If you don't convert your digital music back to analog at some point, how are you supposed to listen to it?

  5. I will not buy this record by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    it is scratched.

  6. Re:God bless hipsters by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

    Buy a laser pickup turntable. There's no physical contact with the grooves, so no degradation just from playing your record.

    Also, some of them come with optical scratch recognition and correction, so even pre-existing damage (within limits) doesn't affect the sound.

  7. Peak Hipster by EnsilZah · · Score: 4, Funny

    Have we just reached peak hipster?

  8. It's not the vinyl, it's the subscriptions by EvilSS · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This trend has less to do with the increasing vinyl sales and more to do with the fact that more and more people are getting their digital music from a subscription service vs buying it outright. Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Google, and Apple music services are gobbling up digital sales.

    --
    I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    1. Re:It's not the vinyl, it's the subscriptions by Verdatum · · Score: 2

      I think this trend also has to do with where these articles are getting their numbers. From what I'm seeing, the ERA might not get a full report on all digital download sales from the UK; while they probably are privy to nearly all vinyl sales.

    2. Re:It's not the vinyl, it's the subscriptions by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      This trend has more to do with the fact that "man bites dog" stories are always good for hits.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  9. Higher dollars isn't more purchaes by taustin · · Score: 2

    Given how close the amounts are, and that vinyl costs quite a bit more per album, it's pretty clear this is still far fewer purchases. In fact, given that vinyl is more a fad (with half of them never being played), this could easily be accounted for by the same number of sales at twice the price each.

    In other words, this isn't particularly meaningful data, except that audiophiles haven't gotten any less gullible in the last year.

  10. This is about turnover by itsdapead · · Score: 2

    that Britons spent 2.4 million pounds ($3.03 million) on the old-school wax last week while only doling out 2.1 million pounds ($2.65 million) for digital downloads.

    So, its about turnover rather than numbers of sales. Lets have a look on Amazon...

    Thought so:
    Dark side of the moon vinyl: £18.98
    Dark side of the moon digital download: £7.99
    ...or stream for £0 if you already have Amazon Prime
    ...or rip the CD you bought in 1988 for £0
    ...or screw over those poor, penniless artists and torrent for £0.

    So, yeah, you can see why the turnover on vinyl is tasty.

    Got to hand it to the music industry: after getting everybody to replace all their vinyl with CDs in the 80s, it must have been so frustrating when the next big format let you convert all your CDs for free, but now they've gone back to the drawing board, applied themselves and found a wheeze to get everybody to replace all of their MP3s with vinyl again... so it looks like vinyl may even outlive the CD.

    Remember guys - store all your CDs carefully for the grandkids so they're ready for the big 16-bit revival in 2050...

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  11. I have a vinyl collection but no record player by Velimir · · Score: 2

    I'm one of those weirdo's who buys vinyl without owning a record player. It's mainly because I get something that is a beautiful large collector's item, it costs a tiny bit more than the CD and I already have the digital version so vinyl represents a distinct version of the music. I fully intend to one day buy a record player and listen to all my records, but I'm in no rush.