Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 • Hacker News Board

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#311

Post by skinnymuch » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #178

skinnymuch wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ and select only LP/EP and vinyl single. Or just LP/EP. Including both and just looking without inflation, it’s above 1989 levels and could hit 1988 levels eventually. It’s 5x higher than mid 90s through late 00s. Almost 4x since 2010. Take out vinyl singles and the increase is absurd. It’s 9x to 40x+ increase from any year between 1991 and 2007. 8x from 2008. Almost 2x f…

> Even if you add inflation, the resurgence is still there. IE for LP/EP, 2019 will beat out 1989. I'm having trouble viewing those graphs on mobile but it looks like in 1989 vinyl only had >4% market share and 34.6 million units, where as in 2018 it had >3% with 16.7 million units. It's not nothing and it's not a large part of the overall market. It appears to be smaller than 30 years ago when it was considered a de…

I can be convinced otherwise as statistics isn’t a strength of mine, but those two numbers are by units.

Unit share doesn’t seem to make sense as a comparison point to me. A single or ringtone shouldn’t be given equal respect to a full collection of songs. Downloaded singles are 75% of the unit market share but only 5% of the revenue market share in 2018. 2018 will be the last year downloaded singles have a greater revenue share than vinyl.

To me this looks like a resurgence because of how its revenue share has been. Its collapse of market and revenue share from ~83 to ~92 and being dead by 89 (with 3.3% revenue share, less than the past 5 years if including 2019). Having a revenue share of 0.1% from 93 to 07. Yeah, for 25 years it’s revenue share was 0.1%. Then ~1.5% for the next 5-6 years and ~4.5% for the past couple of years.

It’s not a crazy resurgence, but compared to 93 to ~2012, a 25 year span, it’s many multiples higher and not looking to let up for now.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#312

Post by fortran77 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:44 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #47

klingonopera wrote: post #44

A CD, and a FLAC-rip for me, please. I'd pick it over vinyl or any digital stream any day.

If you really just want a FLAC rip of a CD to play over a media center, then consider simply downloading the FLAC rip from a filesharing community, but then buying the vinyl release for the sake of owning the physical artifact. That way, you both get high-quality digital audio and you financially support the artist, but the vinyl release has larger artwork and is more satisfying as a collector item.

If you disagree with how music is sold, don't buy it. But don't tell people to steal or violate the terms of the license.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

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Post by KiSM » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #309

KiSM wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ELP Japan has some pretty back drawbacks other than price... It doesn't work with coloured vinyl and it's worse than regular turntables when it comes to dust since it just reads it instead of potentially moving it away There are some videos about it on YouTube and it looks like you have to meticulously clean your vinyl before playing it.

Could they mount an air-jet directly ahead or around their “needle” to solve that problem?

I really like that idea, although the dust on vinyl is generally statically charged so i'm not too sure how effective that would be. Also the noise might be an issue.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

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Post by ddeck » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #294

electrograv wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that if we’re pursuing sheer audio fidelity, CD quality is objectively superior to vinyl in every way. However (as others mention), many vinyl listeners are not after objective sound fidelity perfection: For them, the flaws are part of their “retro” charm. However, one note about CD quality — it may not be as perfect as you think! A peer-reviewed meta-analysis has shown that humans can hear the difference bet…

Do you know where to find the actual meta analysis that article is talking about? They mention the journal, but not the title. I'm not really sure what their criteria were. To me, it would seem that in order to compare the two, you would basically need to resample the 24/192 recording, with dither, and then resample it back to 24/192; and you would need to choose a high quality resampling filter. Anything other than…

The study is here: (pdf)

https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/134...

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#315

Post by bscphil » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:52 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #273

tuscen wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd add that the ritual around vinyl (i.e. manually adjusting tone arm, touching a vinyl and placing it on the platter, etc) is the part that people like the most, not the actual sound. I don't think anyone would be able to discern a new vinyl from a cd in a blind test.

Strongly disagree. A major reason is that you can't really get away with the crappy loudness war style mastering on vinyl. Just because of that they sound way better than most digital masters.

Well... you can. You just can't make them as loud on the absolute scale. But there's nothing preventing you from compressing your audio to death, then reducing the overall volume before you press it to vinyl. Once people turn up the volume, they still get the compressed audio that was the input of the process.

There's also the well-known effect where the process of recording and playing a vinyl creates dynamic range (as measured by various tools) where there is none. Some vinyls that are known to be from the same master as the CD still get much better scores on http://dr.loudness-war.info/

A very nice technical discussion of this myth is here: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Myths_(Vinyl)#Myt...

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#316

Post by optimiz3 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:53 AM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #304

jonhohle wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

You can also make an infinite number of perfect replicas of your CDs. You can carry backups of every CD ever made on a flashdrive that fits in your jeans pocket, then recreate any of them at any time with no degradation in quality. There are some quasi-plausible arguments for vinyl, but arguing that durability is one of them is hilariously myopic.

Sort of - sometimes there's sub-channel data that is very hard to properly replicate; only certain drives even expose that data to correctly extract. Making perfect audio CD image archives is surprisingly hard.

E: Specifically I'm talking about the P & Q channels, but this can also include R through W which while technically unused, still contain data in some form.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#317

Post by alanbernstein » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #293

cosmotic wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were a durable music format that had absolute perfect quality, didn't need special handling, no DRM, no compression artifacts, was stereo, and handled frequencies all the way down and all the way up to where humans can hear. Oh, the CD!

> durable ... Oh, the CD! In my experience CD’s are anything but durable.

I think "durable" here means "can be read without physically damaging the media".

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#318

Post by paublyrne » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

optimiz3 wrote: post #316

Godel_unicode wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also make an infinite number of perfect replicas of your CDs. You can carry backups of every CD ever made on a flashdrive that fits in your jeans pocket, then recreate any of them at any time with no degradation in quality. There are some quasi-plausible arguments for vinyl, but arguing that durability is one of them is hilariously myopic.

Sort of - sometimes there's sub-channel data that is very hard to properly replicate; only certain drives even expose that data to correctly extract. Making perfect audio CD image archives is surprisingly hard. E: Specifically I'm talking about the P & Q channels, but this can also include R through W which while technically unused, still contain data in some form.

What do you mean by "sub-channel"?

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#319

Post by yellow_postit » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #257

thinkmassive wrote: post #15

By revenue, not by units sold. Still interesting, and not really surprising based on my anecdotal experience of artists I follow. Streaming audio is good enough for most sound systems commonly in use. Vinyl serves as a better collectible from a favorite artist for a few reasons. - more room for cover art - physical analog medium (superficial, but has value to some) - requires more care than CDs (proves the owner’s de…

Yeah, vinyl has a lot of love behind it because it has "object appeal" for the reasons you cite. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a niche thing. As are cassettes (which ALSO are making a comeback of sorts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EbJ4ZX4RIw ) None of these physical media are remotely comparable in terms of market-share to streaming, I expect. It's just a thing, It won't last forever. Good turntables…

Anyone know the environmental impact on the rise in vinyl? Probably so small it's nearly inconsequential but still (to me) a shame to see an increased focus on consuming physical items ultimately destined for the trash bin.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#320

Post by voldacar » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

cosmotic wrote: post #265

tzs wrote: post #71

Is anyone working on a reasonably priced turntable to play vinyl discs without degrading them? In the mid '80s, Finial Technology announced such a turntable, and had a working unit at CES in 1986. It had a stylus that contained laser interferometers that could very accurately and precisely measure the distance from the stylus to the grove walls. It kept the stylus near, but not touching, the groove, getting the audio…

If only there were a durable music format that had absolute perfect quality, didn't need special handling, no DRM, no compression artifacts, was stereo, and handled frequencies all the way down and all the way up to where humans can hear. Oh, the CD!

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