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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

#281

Post by ubermonkey »

vertnerd wrote: post #272

As someone who grew up with only vinyl in the 60s and 70s, I would never choose it over a CD for audio quality. BUT I would enjoy recreating the rituals that go with playing vinyl: obsessive cleaning of the disks, the gentle manipulation of a delicate tone arm, and the soft thud when the turntable cover drops. Playing a record was a minor event to be savored. I doubt the younger generations are getting all of that ri…

Yeah, this.

Vinyl absolutely CAN sound great. If you have a nice amp and good speakers, modern listeners will be amazed at the fidelity possible from vinyl played back on a good turntable with a decent signal chain.

BUT.

CD is still better. CD is simpler. You don't have to faff about with cleaning them, or treat them like hothouse flowers. The platform is incredibly portable.

And yet: Vinyl is more fun.

We moved last year. Our audio room can play streaming, CD, or vinyl. It's the first and third options that get by FAR the most usage. CD comes up once in a blue moon.

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

#282

Post by jghn »

tracker1 wrote: post #179
garciasn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen X. Own a record player. Listen to vinyl as “intentional listening” and love the album cover art. My daughter (Gen Z/A) could play her albums but doesn’t. She puts them on display in her room. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also Gen X... though don't own any vinyl or a record player... mostly ripped CDs through the later 90's up through 2010 or so. Since then, mostly just use online streaming. That said, I did once consider getting a record player only to rip/archive my grandmother's collection of vintage vinyl that wound up going to my niece on her passing. I just prefer convenience/portability. Of course, as far as purchasing goes...…

Also Gen X. Stopped purchasing physical media altogether ~2010 after trailing off once the iTunes store opened up. My old physical media are all down in the basement somewhere. I don't own anything that'd be able tp lay any of it.

Instead, all of my music is digital, mostly purchased on Bandcamp. I have a full archive on my NAS, also in the basement. I use iTunes Match so that i'm able to stream any of my music on demand to any of my devices. I have 0 desire to ever go back to physical media. It's far more convenient and space efficient to do it this way.

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

#283

Post by mrob »

numpad0 wrote: post #260
bpev wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was more that vinyl has a distinct sound, whereas CDs are just the digital files in a physical package. So if someone decides that distortion suits a particular album better, it's not going to "sound worse" to them.

And that would be wrong. It's the other way around. It's CDs that has a distinct sound for some reason, not vinyl having "analog warmth".

CDs have no distinct sound. CD quality (assuming correct dithering) is transparent to human hearing. You could play a vinyl record into a good ADC, dither it to 16 bits, then burn it to CD-R. It will sound 100% identical to the original vinyl in a blind test. The only way to tell the difference is that the vinyl continues to degrade with each playback, while the CD-R will last decades if stored correctly (pressed CDs last even longer).

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

#284

Post by e-neko »

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…

Playing vinyl is a bit like making espresso on a manual machine: a small ritual. Bit without the machine, it's a cargo cult.

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

#285

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

sehansen wrote: post #268
coldtea wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

During the entirety of the 90's 11883 records sold at least 50 000 units[0]. If we assume $3 royalty each[1] that's ~1200 artists making $150 000 or more in an average year. That's ~$300 000 adjusted for inflation. In 2024 1450 artists got over $1 000 000 in royalty from Spotify.[2] Additionally 2.3% (~276 000) earned at least $1000 and 100 000 earned at least "almost $6000". It seems to me that there now is a long t…

You're not comparing like for like.

The $1m is gross income, pre-royalty slicing. The actual payout to artists on a label will be much lower.

The $3/album is post-royalty at the other end of the telescope, and the actual number varied by territory. The gross income to labels would be much higher.

So the final premise is incorrect. The real winners - the household name bands, artists, and soundtracks - made incredible numbers from their royalty slices which are impossible on Spotify today, especially once labels take their cut.

Drake may be getting lifetime sales of $400m, but a chunk of that goes to UMG for distribution.

Meanwhile there were vital scene subcultures around indie/rave/dance/hiphop where niche artists turned DIY music production, pressing, and distribution into a workable fairly well-paid full-time career. Those numbers mostly weren't logged.

Spotify dilutes the scene effect because everyone is competing with everyone else, globally, so it's harder to get exposure, even in a specific niche.

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

#286

Post by xnx »

thechao wrote: post #20

My dad grew up in the 50s & 60s. During COVID he purchased my daughters' the, I quote, "shittiest briefcase record players" he could find. Both girls listen to their music on their devices, but also buy vinyl. The other day, my eldest came down from her room complaining that her vinyl "sounded awful". I told her to bring it up with their Grampy. His response: "you can't appreciate good playback until you've heard awf…

Every child should start the technological hedonic treadmill at a low level and rapidly progress.

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

#287

Post by xvxvx »

Lots of negative comments about vinyl here, from people who have no clue. I collect vinyl because it sounds better. Vinyl has a warmer sound that is missing from digital formats.

Streaming is convenient for travel and great for previewing music, getting recommendations etc. But if I want to sit back and truly enjoy albums that I love, that’s where vinyl comes in.

I have a decent sound system. Buying albums on vinyl that I’ve listened to 100’s of times and playing through the system blows me away. I’ve been unable to get the same effect or quality from digital, despite trying everything aside from a $2000+ DAC. Wired streaming. Lossless. Various services and formats. CDs. Technically better quality. My ears disagree.

At the end of the day, vinyl is more enjoyable for me and many others. It’s a better experience.

To quote Trent Reznor:

VINYL MISSION STATEMENT

IN THESE TIMES OF NEARLY UNLIMITED ACCESS TO ALL THE MUSIC IN THE WORLD, WE'VE COME TO APPRECIATE THE VALUE AND BEAUTY OF THE PHYSICAL OBJECT. OUR STORE'S FOCUS IS ON PRESENTING THESE ITEMS TO YOU. VINYL HAS RETURNED TO BEING A PRIORITY FOR US - NOT JUST FOR THE WARMTH OF THE SOUND, BUT THE INTERACTION IT DEMANDS FROM THE LISTENER. THE CANVAS OF ARTWORK, THE WEIGHT OF THE RECORD, THE SMELL OF THE VINYL, THE DROPPING OF THE NEEDLE, THE DIFFICULTY OF SKIPPING TRACKS, THE CHANGING OF SIDES, THE SECRETS HIDDEN WITHIN, AND HAVING A PHYSICAL OBJECT THAT EXISTS IN THE REAL WORLD WITH YOU. ALL PART OF THE EXPERIENCE AND MAGIC. DIGITAL FORMATS AND STREAMING ARE GREAT AND CERTAINLY CONVENIENT, BUT THE IDEAL WAY I'D HOPE A LISTENER EXPERIENCE MY MUSIC IS TO GRAB A GREAT SET OF HEADPHONES, SIT WITH THE VINYL, DROP THE NEEDLE, HOLD THE JACKET IN YOUR HANDS LOOKING AT THE ARTWORK (WITH YOUR FUCKING PHONE TURNED OFF) AND GO ON A JOURNEY WITH ME. -TRENT REZNOR

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

#288

Post by danmelnick »

j4nek wrote: post #277
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 think we all know that Spotify doesn’t pay artists appropriately and we want to help sustain the music we love. not a big fan of all music streaming services, but they only keep about 30% of their revenue. the rest goes to the labels, and this is where most of the problem is. before the 2000s, very small artists hardly earned any income from the sale of (physical) media. I don't like the new platforms such as Spot…

This is part of the problem for sure, but it's also how the revenue is split between back catalog vs new music.

In the physical media era, when you bought a record/CD you owned it forever and your marginal cost of listening to a song approached zero over time. Most dollars went to new music.

Now, it's close to a 75/25 split of dollars going to back catalog vs new music on streaming services.

If you're a new musician, you're not competing against new music, you're competing against the entire history of recorded music. You're fighting for a piece of a pie that the Beatles are still taking a chunk of.

And the labels are a part of the problem there, they made the deals with the streaming services that allows back catalog to dominate.

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

#289

Post by compiler-devel »

sorushn wrote: post #231
anovikov wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less consumer-oriented culture demands brainwashing, totalitarianism and terror, to force people to not do things they naturally want to, when there is a capability for doing that (if there's no capability, a nation will be physically overwhelmed by other nations and cease to exist/replaced)...

>> Less consumer-oriented culture demands brainwashing It simply requires putting a stop to the constant brainwashing campaigns for inducing demand. >> do things they naturally want to collecting Stanley tumblers is not a "natural" tendency.

> It simply requires putting a stop to the constant brainwashing campaigns for inducing demand.

Unfortunately, there are C-suite level roles for this so it will never stop.

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

#290

Post by ragall »

bayindirh wrote: post #213
bartread wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m increasingly conscious of being an outlier here. I prefer physical, for a variety of reasons (ownership being one of them), but also prefer CD to vinyl. Nobody loves CDs any more and I don’t get it. I own vinyl, I like vinyl, but CDs are objectively better and somewhat easier to store.

I love both for different reasons. CDs sound better, they can be ripped and archived and can be carried around without any loss in their digital form. On the other hand, vinyl is great for intentional listening. Putting that hour aside to brew a nice cup of coffee and listen to something while exploring the feelings the album evoke, then get a break to flip/change the record and continue. It's a kind of personal care…

Vinyl is also better for all the old ones still around that haven't been republished as CD.
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