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50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

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Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#191

Post by onion2k »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #142
superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

My wife and I both own vinyl, and neither of us has ever owned a record player. We put them on display for the most part. We have a song we got married to, and we bought a couple of album variations (each with different artwork) with that song; we also like the cover art on some vinyl releases as wall art.

I'm curious - does the music content actually matter to you? Would you buy an album from an artist you've never heard just because the cover art was great?

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#192

Post by onion2k »

superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

It’s a lot of plastic. A lot of waste.

It's only waste if it's being discarded. If someone wants to keep it and cherish it, even if they're not playing it, then it's not waste.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#193

Post by tonyedgecombe »

onion2k wrote: post #192
superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

It’s a lot of plastic. A lot of waste. It's only waste if it's being discarded. If someone wants to keep it and cherish it, even if they're not playing it, then it's not waste.

It's all waste eventually.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#194

Post by itake »

onion2k wrote: post #192
superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

It’s a lot of plastic. A lot of waste. It's only waste if it's being discarded. If someone wants to keep it and cherish it, even if they're not playing it, then it's not waste.

At some point in the future, the owner will pass and their children will have a mass of plastic to manage.

Perhaps their children will cherish it for generations, or perhaps their children will have different musical tastes from their great great great grandpa and the plastic ends up in a landfill, forever un-played.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#195

Post by thih9 »

onion2k wrote: post #192
superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

It’s a lot of plastic. A lot of waste. It's only waste if it's being discarded. If someone wants to keep it and cherish it, even if they're not playing it, then it's not waste.

Technically they could get some paper stating “you own one vinyl” and we would use less plastic and storage (and we’d get an alternative monetary system perhaps).

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#196

Post by leogao »

itake wrote: post #194
onion2k wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a lot of plastic. A lot of waste. It's only waste if it's being discarded. If someone wants to keep it and cherish it, even if they're not playing it, then it's not waste.

At some point in the future, the owner will pass and their children will have a mass of plastic to manage. Perhaps their children will cherish it for generations, or perhaps their children will have different musical tastes from their great great great grandpa and the plastic ends up in a landfill, forever un-played.

in the grand scheme of things, this is a very small amount of plastic waste, and as far as resources go, one of the less scarce ones. at some point, the cost of the hand wringing to avoid waste is more of a drag on society than the actual wasted material itself.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#197

Post by bentley »

RileyJames wrote: post #185
superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

I’ve been buying vinyl for the sake of collecting it, with limited intention to ever play it. And I’ve been wondering why would anyone buy the cassette or CD? (And I own more cassette players than the zero vinyl players) I recently found out that some of my favourite vinyls, that I’ve been collecting, ONLY include the art/lyrics booklet in the CD version. These are from the early 2000’s (peak cd?). I reckon I’d buy a…

> And I’ve been wondering why would anyone buy the cassette or CD?

I have no interest in cassette or vinyl. I love CDs because they provide the highest music quality, uncompressed audio that’s trivial to rip to lossless FLAC files, complete with metadata.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#198

Post by no-name-here »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #90
Ray20 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who continue to work when all of their basic needs are met There are no such things as "basic needs". If people can easily satisfy their basic needs, they simply expands this concept until it ceases to be easily satisfied In other words, abundance is a myth promoted by mentally ill cultists, and meeting the basic needs of all people is unattainable.

Disagree. Citations below. Please consume more data and update priors accordingly. How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2024.100612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43465127 - March 2025 (26 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529256 - December 202…

>> If people can easily satisfy their basic needs, they simply expands this concept until it ceases to be easily satisfied.

> Decent living standards for 8.5B people would require 30% of current resource use

That claims seems to be based on your first link.

1. They define decent living standards as including things like 1 cooking appliance, a mobile phone, and internet, but not things like a dishwasher/microwave/Netflix account, etc.

2. To achieve this, they specifically say that existing resource uses that are wasteful, such as buying extra clothing, wasteful entertainment, etc, should be “reallocated” to the basic needs of society, as without reallocation they explicitly point to how the basic needs like food and shelter become too expensive.

So in the context of the grandparent commenter’s argument, we would have to take away a lot of the luxuries (which is probably a fair description) that most Americans have like entertainment, buying more clothes than they need, etc and would not include things like any trips/travel, eating out, etc - and you believe people would react the opposite of what the grandparent claimed, that they would not consider those things to be “basic needs”? I guess if we were truly able to eliminate most inequality and all millionaires, etc, then maybe people would accept life without those existing things they have as basic needs? But I am not sure if your argument is meant to be a thing that could happen in real life, or merely a “If I was dictator I'd ensure peace on earth” type idea?

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#199

Post by Animats »

mrob wrote: post #95
numpad0 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't, because just about anything available is better than CDs. Vinyl craze is actually not about "warmth", just genuinely more data.

The only additional data that (some) vinyl has over CDs is inaudible ultrasound. Ultrasound is intentionally omitted from CDs because they're intended for humans to listen to. In all audible aspects a correctly mastered CD release is closer to the original sound than any vinyl. And if you really want ultrasound (perhaps your dog enjoys it), you can get digital releases at higher sample rates.

Phonograph records tend to top out around 20,000 Hz. It's limited by groove and stylus size. CDs top out around 21KHz.

There's some audiophile content on Blu-Ray disks encoded at 24-bit/192 kHz, intended for people who subscribe to The Absolute Sound.[1]

(Typical TAS review: "Their Crystal Cable Infinity power cords markedly lower background noise; increase resolution, density of tone color, and dynamic contrast; and add a more substantial third dimension to images." US$34,000 for a 2 meter AC power cable.)

[1] https://www.theabsolutesound.com

[1]

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#200

Post by coldtea »

superultra wrote: post #129

I oversee pressing for over 150k+ records a year. We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low. I wouldn’t doubt if the number of buyers who don’t own a record player is even higher tha 50%, and that the percentage of people who actually play the records is actually 10-20%. I don’t have data on that, it’s just a hunch. Many of us in the indie music industry (hip hop sustained record…

>It’s a lot of plastic. A lot of waste.

Compared to the plastic waste produced daily it's a drop in the ocean. And at least this is kept and collected.

>even though it arguably is the best and easiest income generator for artists

Digital is nowhere "the best and easiest income generator" for musicians. A common complain from musicians is how, with the advent of online music, sales craterred, and musicians despite having the same or more fans, and be able to fill the same venues, have lost the living they could make by selling even 50K records (with a favorable indie label split).

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