How Vinyl Got It's Groove Back

[Islander]

One last thing in my semi-rant, and you knowlegable fellows can correct me on this, but one of the main reasons I'm reluctant to start using vinyls is that they wear out.

Vinyl records do wear, but how fast they wear depends on a few things. If they're played on a decent turntable and kept clean and handled carefully, they'll last a really long time. If they're played on a cheap deck, particularly if it has a few quarters (or even a beer can opener, I've seen it) taped to the tone arm, handled by "party-hearty" types, or with the LPs piled in one stack and the covers in a separate stack, they start sounding terrible pretty quickly.

If you expect rough handling at a party, stick to the CDs, they won't hear the difference anyway. If you have the patience and respect to treat your LPs properly, you'll enjoy hearing the better sound. Do what suits your situation.

[wilbucd]

Lets not forget the price of a new cd. I hate buying a $17 cd wondering if I will like it. One of my favorite hobbies is collecting used vinyl. I have around 500 LP's that I paid an average of maybe $2.50 each. I took a $100 bill last month to my favorite used vinyl store in Nashville and came home with 38 LP's. The same $100 bill would have bought maybe 5 or 6 new CD's. I buy lots of music that I wouldn't normally buy that way.

The Great Escape in Nashville. Check them out. http://www.thegreatescapeonline.com/

[jacksonbart]

So is Vinyl, Stella's younger brother?

[whatever55]

Could it be a static charge on the vinyl?

Nope....I cleaned it on a VPI cleaner. I finished checking out my order and they all had a problem.

Aqualung... debris you can feel with your finger as the lp spins

Blind Faith... pos

Dirt Farmer and Relaxin' (Miles Davis) both have blemishes you can see and hear. One looks like scuff marks the other a white streak on both side in the same place.

I think I got seconds...

Last week I bought some albums by the foot and got better quality

[garymd]

It doesn't surprise me that a title as popular as Aqualung would have issues. Classic Records sold a lot of those. They press so many copies that pads and such just wear out and a batch or two might have issues before they catch it.

One of my Blue Note 45 LPs had a half moon shaped dent in the vinyl where the pad on the cooling arm (or something like that) wore out. They immediately sent a replacement and let me keep the original. It was just a small ding so I basically got a free $25 album out of the deal. In addition, they sent the wrong replacement and I ended up with a nice Dexter Gordon LP that they also let me keep. Gotta love those defective albums!

[Travis In Austin]

Better buy those used records while you can cause even CBS Evening News is now reporting that lps are on the re-bound with about 1.6 million to be newly issued this year, double over last year. Silly fellows, though, offered no cogent reporting as to why this is actually happening.

TheBes,

I was reading your post with great interest, as I am usually prone to do given your gift of prose and spinning a yarn. As a matter of fact, I am was having a bit of hot tea in your honor as I read the responses. It figures that CBS is way off in their numbers. They are not even close. As you know, I am a big vinyl fan, have lots of it, and am always looking for more of it. I really wish it was true, that vinyl got it's groove back, but the fact of the matter is that vinyl is insignificant in the total U.S. music market.

So why do they continue to make it? Because it is a high markup item, and idiots like me are more then willing to pay to pay twice what a cd costs for perceived (actual in most cases) superior sound , collectibility, nostalgia, to justify high $ turntable rigs, etc. Thus, on a limited scale, it is still profitable. LP's are now made in much smaller runs, 1,000, 2,000 maybe 5,000, and then they sell what they make. Depending on how fast they sold they may, or may not, run another batch. The day's of cutouts and bargin bins are pretty much over. All new vinyl is pretty much a limited edition, whether it is marketed that way or not.

Why the growth last year? I am not really sure I think it is for a number of reasons, some previously stated in this thread. Things like folks, like me, that grew up with the lp format will continue to buy in that format as long as we can. Others see that it is still out there a plenty and that it is not difficult to get back into it and so they have. Others, still, have found, to their own ears, that it provides something that the digitial formats do not and so they have taken the splurge. You hear their stories in threads of this forum all the time.

Now the real question. Why was it big news this year? Because it was about the only positive thing that the music industry had to report. CD sales have been in a decline for 4 years and even with downloads, total music sales have also been on a 4 year skid. So some music industry executive when asked about the 20% decline in sales responds with some good news: "Well that is true, but downloads sales are skyrocketinng and vinyl is making a comeback. Vinyl sales are up nearly 50% from last year." You sit back and get a warm fuzzy feeling inside with visions of giant vinyl retailers poping back up again, advertising that they stay open 'till midnight every day of the year with thousands of square feet of vinyl as far as the eye can see.

Then you realize that when you look at the numbers, vinyl is not even a drop in the bucket. I too had romantic ideas of vinyl being stocked in every department and drug store once again when I heard the stories about vinyl sales on the rise. I was brought back to harsh reality by my bean counting wife's uncle. Her uncle used to be a top A&R man at A&M records until H & J sold it to Segrams. He then went to Nielson Soundscan, i.e, Billboard, the company that is charged with tracking music sales. He is really into vinyl, and we were sitting playing some of mine when they were in town earlier this year and I brought up the Wired article that came out in the spring that suggested that vinyl was going to be the death of the CD. He laughed and said, "I hate to burst your bubble but . . . ."

He then went on to explain that it was true that LP shipments were in fact up over 35% from '06 to '07. He then had me guess what the total number of lp's shipped were in '07. I thougt 5 million so I said 3 million cause I knew it was a trick question. He said that the units shipped went from 900,000 units to 1.3 million. Well not bad right, I mean, that's 400,000, units, not chump change. The shape of things to come right? He explained that was a jump of $15,000,000 to almost 23M in sales, and that was the key to seeing it continue. I thought that was pretty impressive jump, but the numbers sounded so low. I then thought, well this is all relative, and I asked him what do these numbers really mean in relation to the whole picture. He said that was the other part of the story, as it was concerning vinyl, that was not being presented because the industry was searching to put a positive spin on anything in light of all of the bad news.

In '07 over a half billion CD's were shipped, with sales of over 7.4 billion. That's billion with a B. The total U.S. music market in '07 was 10.3 billion, down almost 1.5 billion from '06. CD's were 83% of the market. Vinyl? 7/10 of 1%, a whopping 1/10 of 1% up from '06 (down 2/10 from '04, where vinyl was almost 1% of the market). To put that in perspective, SACD's accounted for 6/10 of 1% of sales. You remember SACD? That is the format that everyone is saying that is all but dead and gone. DVD-A sales are 1.2% of the market.

It's not back, it's not even close to being back. But it is steady, and appears to be profitable to the extent that we are getting both great reissues and new stuff. Hopefully it will continue to be profitable for companies to be able to offer it at a price, while more expensive then CD/downloads, is still within the realm of reason.

I agree with all of the atributes that have been mentioned by others here as to why it continues to be made and sold when the market has obviously gone for the CD.

Now the good news I got today was that Tascam was talking about going back into making reel to reel machnes and I am dreaming of big return of reet to reel pre-recorded tapes (I'm a subscriber to the Tape Project, a total of 10 tapes that pop out 1 every couple of months). Well I can dream can't I?

Travis

[jbsl]

Lets not forget the price of a new cd. I hate buying a $17 cd wondering if I will like it. One of my favorite hobbies is collecting used vinyl. I have around 500 LP's that I paid an average of maybe $2.50 each. I took a $100 bill last month to my favorite used vinyl store in Nashville and came home with 38 LP's. The same $100 bill would have bought maybe 5 or 6 new CD's. I buy lots of music that I wouldn't normally buy that way.

The Great Escape in Nashville. Check them out. http://www.thegreatescapeonline.com/

You can listen to most songs from artist albums on their websites or other places on the web or at music stores. Also if you can find new cds for much less than $17.99, Walmart is one example. Also you can go to some artist websites and download only the songs you like from the album paying around a $1 a song. What quality is the download is the question.

Now $2.50 is a great price no doubt about that! If someone likes vinyl and buys it then they believe the pros outway the cons. Others feel the opposite and the cons outway the pros just depends on what you want.

[Mallette]

>Others feel the opposite and the cons outway the pros just depends on what you want.

? If you want any of about 80% of the recorded music heritage at all, records are pretty hard to ignore. It is pretty hard to imagine a person loving music but refusing to listen to anything that wasn't recorded after the early 1980's.

Dave

[garymd]

Good point Travis but one thing nobody has mentioned.........Aren't the majority of CDs produced today are the same old crappy compressed sounding CDs (although most definitely better than 10 years ago)? SACD/DVD-A/HDCD make up a very small percentage I assume. Isn't it true that the stuff that's sold in the billions is the less expensive stuff to folks that don't gave a crap about sound quality? I'm no expert. Just guessing.

LPs produced today on the other hand are almost all audiophile quality (180 - 200 gram and/or half-speed) and most are produced from the original tapes. Doesn't someone have to pay for the use of those tapes? More likely they just get a cut? I just assumed that was why prices were so high. I have no idea if a 200 gram record costs more to make than a 150 gram record other than the cost of the extra 30 grams of vinyl. I do know that it must cost a lot more to press two 180 gram 45rpm LPs than it does one album of any weight. Plus, all those "original" inserts cost a little too.

I'd like to see some real numbers to find out just how badly we vinyl fanatics are being taken. I do know there is nothing better than to finally get a killer pressing of an album you've loved for 30 years that has never been released in a decent format before. That's priceless!

[Mallette]

>Aren't the majority of CDs produced today are the same old crappy compressed sounding CDs (although most definitely better than 10 years ago)?

Yes, as well as the bulk of SACD/DVD-A. So sad and unnecessary. My own recording experiments demonstrate that you have to go out of your way to screw it up. There is no reason why a CD should not sound as good as most LP's, and better when it comes to noise and dynamic range. One of the most highly regarded names in DVD-A (name escapes me at the moment) that have won numerous awards stink to high heaven IMHO. Same excesses as old Quad.

There are the Gothic Recordings, Linn Hi Res downloads, Mapleshade, etc. exceptions, thank goodness...but they are a drop in the bucket.

Dave

[HatTrick66]

I am part of the wave. I was never into vinyl before. I went from 8 tracks to cassettes to CD's. I was even resisting now until a friend of mine gave me a very nice turntable. He was doing the going to estate sales thing and grabbing every classic album he could. This did not appeal to me. However, when I made the recording quality connection and was able to see how I might enjoy albums, I was hooked. I still have made a pledge to not try and get every CD I own on viny, but for new stuff, I love it.

Also, the artists are getting creative with their releases. Beck released his new one on vinyl and inside there is a code for a download of the album in "high quality" MP3. The download is not just a digital version of the songs, it is a digital recording the vinyl being played. It sounds great and you get the hear the needle hit the record. Very cool.

The Black Keys put a copy of the CD in with their latest release on vinyl.

Yes, that's right guys, artists producing great music with some great marketing, too. I am willing to pay money for that and would not be satisfied with a crappy burned copy of it from a buddy!

Check out Music Direct. Those guys are making some great stuff and are very helpful. If you are in Chicago and can go down to their shop, they have a couple of $1 bins where you will find something you will like. They are also doing the remastering for Warner Brothers on some reissues they are putting out. The Metallica remasters have been outstanding.

So, I am hooked and will forever enjoy my vinyl. It's not an either/or decision for vinyl vs. CD's.

Every man (or woman) deserves both!

[thebes]

I'm thinking what is currently happening with vinyl is more than aging boomers pining for the free love days. Just look how often you'll see a turntable or album in various tv commercials and in movies and tv shows. Go to a yard sale, estate sale or your local lp shop or thrift store and you'll often find the 20 somethings college types who used to be after cassettes wading through the record crates.

Yes Travis, in monetary terms it's still chump change, amongst the youth it maybe just a fad, but I suspect not.

It's a curious phenomenon and I'm not even sure the artists understand the attraction for vinyl. Even Shelby Lynn thought it was a nostalgic thing in her interview on the CBS piece. Then there's the whole DJ thing and that definitely drives a lot of lp sales but they are more concerned over the impact of the music than the quality of the recording.

Now my own very generalized view on cd's versus lps is that stuff originally recorded generally sounds better than the cd and visa versa. The real cool thing about lps for me is the tons of hidden musical treasurs waiting to be discovered. More and more, though I am spinning vinyl for the quality of the sounds, rice krispies and all.

I am happy to own some new heavy-weight pressings and many I like, but some seem to offer up a weighty sort of sound, like the re-masterers figure they must make the music sound as heavy as the platter. Pressing quality, however, is almost always better than the general run of the mill pressings of earlier days.

This latter point surprises me because I would imagine that all of these new records are being put out using archaic technology and 40 years old presses.

What I'm hoping for is that sufficient revenues and interests will come along and that will result in refinements and improvements in the production of the lp. Given modern materials science chemical and production advances, I would think it would be possible to produce a new kind of vinyl that say, comes with some sort of anti-static and dirt coating built in. Also I saw a video on YOUTube that shows how they make a record. It was like watching Frederick the Greats artificers melting down church bells to recast them as cannons. No reason with modern means not to make a perfect copy every time.

What we need is some billionaire audiophile to come forth and sink some money into modern R&D and manufacturing processes.

I'm thinking that scumbag Apple Jobes or Jobs guy. I think he owes us after returning us to the era of the cheap Japanese transistor radio,.

Hey Travis, how's your tea supplies holding out? Need a refill?

[fenderbender]

Thebes....as eloquent a summery as ever....Spot on.

Right now I'm listening to an original 67 pressing of Lou Donaldson's "Lush Life".....which with out my craze for finding old original jazz, I would not ever have the pleasure of listening to......

Steve Jobs is the anti-christ!!!! .....I do love my mac though....

[LarryC]

I'm thinking what is currently happening with vinyl is more than aging boomers pining for the free love days. Just look how often you'll see a turntable or album in various tv commercials and in movies and tv shows. Go to a yard sale, estate sale or your local lp shop or thrift store and you'll often find the 20 somethings college types who used to be after cassettes wading through the record crates.

Yes Travis, in monetary terms it's still chump change, amongst the youth it maybe just a fad, but I suspect not.

It's a curious phenomenon and I'm not even sure the artists understand the attraction for vinyl. Even Shelby Lynn thought it was a nostalgic thing in her interview on the CBS piece. Then there's the whole DJ thing and that definitely drives a lot of lp sales but they are more concerned over the impact of the music than the quality of the recording.

Yeah, I'm thinking it's an upscale prestige image thing, which is great IMO. LIke what Hugh Hefner did for the image of sex.

[darkside]

The audio quality argument in favor of vinyl is one of the main reasons I really want to switch from CDs. I got to listen to my dad's old copies of Darkside Of The Moon and Meddle and they were incredible sounding, even on the crappy turntable we had at the time (which we gave to my grandma). But even still, I walk into Best Buy, find that ska CD I'm looking for and hope to high heaven the quality doesn't suck. So I rip it as high a quality as I can and deal with it although the CDs I've gotten lately haven't been that bad actually. I did strike it lucky on a trip through Plains, Georgia though. I found a Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Ultradisc II (the gold plated, uber quality CD) release of Meddle in a random shop for 15 bucks. I can tell a distinct difference between that and the generic copy. The only problem is that if every recording studio took the time to make a CD sound like that one does (even without the gold plating), I think it would still cost a fortune and I would assume be about the same price that vinyls go for currently...

[fenderbender]

The driving force behind the way music is recorded to CD these days is the cursed Ipod and earbuds, and just prior was the walkman and cheep factory installed car systems........Music producers/execs know that the vast majority of listeners these days, are very happy with the sound coming through there earbuds and cheap car systems.....so the loudness/ compression wars are on.

McDonalds sells millions of burgers using the cheapest beef possible and millions of pallets are happy with it......why would they start making a filet mignon topped with foie gras and truffle??? they leave that to Le Circe.....

I know this as fact because my Step daughter's real father (who we are very friendly with BTW ) was a top producer for Sony Music before he just retired...

[darkside]

Yeah, so those of us that aren't happy with the low quality stuff have to pay more for good stuff. Just like every single other thing you can buy. No surprise there.

[jbsl]

>Others feel the opposite and the cons outway the pros just depends on what you want.

? If you want any of about 80% of the recorded music heritage at all, records are pretty hard to ignore. It is pretty hard to imagine a person loving music but refusing to listen to anything that wasn't recorded after the early 1980's.

Dave

My Luxman int amp has a phono input(MM and MC) so I need to borrow a extra turntable from someone and find some records that I have on cd and do a real comparison in my system.

So far I have had two chances to listen to vinyl both about 2 1/2 years ago and thought vinyl sounded very good but did not think it that much better to make me buy a table and start investing in vinyl but never say never. I guess it is like when you hear soo many good things about something and then when you experience it for yourself (vinyl in this case) it could not live up to my expectations. Again it did sound very good but just did not WOW me.

There was almost no clicks or pops(maybe 1 or 2 per song) so that was no bother. Both systems were very good, KHorns, VRDs, Mac preamp, and high quality Turntable and Chorus IIs, tube preamps and amps so that was not a problem.

Like I said pros and cons just depends on the person.

[JJkizak]

The very low and inconsistant quality of vinyl is why CD's were invented.

JJK

[HarryO]

Could the reverse now be contributing to the return of vinyl.

Many cd's are pretty lousy and I know how frustrating it is to buy a new cd and there's no substance to it. I've got an "A" selection, "B" selection, and "lousy" selection

It all comes down to the "bean counters" making the decisions to save a penny. Vinyl went down hill due to the cost cutting measures and making the vinyl so thin it didn't last any time at all. Recordings were accepted and quality mattered not. Just quantity. We're seeing the same things with CDs.

Many of my favorite companies have gone "down the drain" due to the cheap pricks destroying a great/good product just to make their own corporate existence seem important. They care not about the product at all. Just the bottom line. The bottom line will be "red" and the company will be selling Hong Kong rubber dog poop before it finally closes the doors.

Sooner or later the bean counters will destroy the companies that hire them to "turn a profit".

We're seeing it everywhere. Some of our favorite products have been outsourced at the expense of labor force, quality, and customer loyalty.

They'd better wake up and take a good look in the mirror before it's too late.

I'm glad vinyl is making a strong comeback.

Quality does matter. I'm tired of wasting my hard earned money on crapola.

Harry