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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

#201

Post by coldtea »

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?

Many people I know buy the CD because they prefer owning a physical medium, and the CDs they actually play and have a collection of them.

As for cassette, I don't know about buying regular releases on it, but there's a small but very passionate music community around cassette releases for experimental and indie music (same as a demoscene using old computers or people making new 8bit games).

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

#202

Post by thaumasiotes »

Loughla wrote: post #151
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)_/¯

I own a very nice record player. Absolutely love listening to vinyl while looking at the cover art (Jethro Tull has the best album art and I'll fight anyone who disagrees). For me it's a time machine back to my childhood. We grew up poor and couldn't afford tapes and then CD's. We had thrift store vinyl albums. For my kids, vinyl was this weird thing that sounded scratchy. Then they grew up and found that the plethor…

> and there's nothing as crushing as realizing the album you just bought based on one song only has that one good song on it (any album by The Police, I'm looking at you)

Why call out The Police? This is the norm for all studio albums. That's why the popular albums are greatest hits collections instead.

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

#203

Post by thaumasiotes »

icehawk wrote: post #162
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much less prone to degradation to vinyl huh... and I thought the vinyl craze happened because it's more durable out of ye old formats CDs are well known to oxydize in the span of decades of storage

CDs can oxidize in the span of decades. I've got hundreds of burned CDs that are from 2003 that are fine (even if they have changed color) because i store them in a climate controlled environment. A vinyl record degrades every time you play it in a normal turntable.

Note that if you don't store your records in a climate-controlled environment, they'll melt. You don't need to play a record to degrade it; just keeping it around is enough to render it completely unplayable.

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

#204

Post by DavidPiper »

lucideer wrote: post #139
jen20 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they want the vinyl itself or do they want the cover art and so forth?

I'd say it's varied & most often a combination of multiple things. - They want the cover art - They want a physical token representing an artist they like - They want to financially support the artist in a direct way - They speculate they might get a player someday (much akin to book buyers leaving books on their shelves unread for years on end) 1 of the above might be the primary driver for any given buyer but I'd a…

Makes me wonder if bands produced something like a Displate wall hanging (no promotion intended) whether that would satisfy the same itches.

For my part, there's something visceral about owning a piece of "physical music", as it were, even if I never play it.

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

#205

Post by thaumasiotes »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #163
Bratmon wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vinyl was infamous for degrading during use to the point where you could identify whether an album had been played more than a dozen times by the reduction in sound quality.

this is perhaps a language barrier, but I'd call "measurement of getting worse during use" *durability*, while degradation is exactly about not-in-use deterioration...

Records are also vastly inferior to CDs on that metric. They're not durable in any sense.

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

#206

Post by gyulai »

So, the advantages of physical media are much touted these days, but all the actual physical media we have are yesteryear's technology, and each come with their own unique problems, plus there is the problem of waste. Why isn't a new physical format taking hold?

Something like Bandcamp-style downloads, which you put on a micro SD card. You put the card in a 3d-printable piece of plastic, resembling a cassette case. When you buy the download, the band sends you a printed piece of paper (the inlay for the cassette case thing) saying “limited edition run #1, Sequence Number 465/2000; thanks for your support”. If you want to get fancy, maybe record the transaction in some kind of ledger; perhaps put the buyer's name on the band webpage as a patron.

For the software, perhaps there could be something open source based on hardware like the anbernic rg355xxsp and similar devices (multipurpose, portable, hackable by design, …)

It would take very little to get it established: A critical mass of bands in some genre getting together, their fans getting on board, and things spreading from there.

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

#207

Post by burnt-resistor »

Anemoia exists, I guess.

I have 2 (and a spare for parts) tts and a DJ mixer to allow crossfading (it's a 4 channel because it was the cheapest usable thing available). I threw in moderate Audio-Technica MicroLine cartridges in both and had to get a digital scale and some other calibration crap because these tts are some relatively cheap with a bunch of adjustments lacking interchangeable cartridges. I'm at around 10 milk-crate sized storage boxes and have stopped buying almost entirely. It's not a "purist" rig at all (I'm allergic to audiophiles) considering it feeds into a Marantz NR1711 that has Tidal and a PlexAmp Pi that drives a couple of Elac Debut mains and an SVS PB16.

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

#208

Post by mcv »

I'm not buying vinyl records, but I still have a ton of them, and my ancient record player broke down ages ago. Similarly, I've got tons of CDs I'm not using anymore. The fate of old media, I guess. But I do miss selecting a specific album to listen to. Spotify is not the same.

I guess I'm in the market for a new record player. Is that market picking up again?

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

#209

Post by taejavu »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #202
Loughla wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a very nice record player. Absolutely love listening to vinyl while looking at the cover art (Jethro Tull has the best album art and I'll fight anyone who disagrees). For me it's a time machine back to my childhood. We grew up poor and couldn't afford tapes and then CD's. We had thrift store vinyl albums. For my kids, vinyl was this weird thing that sounded scratchy. Then they grew up and found that the plethor…

> and there's nothing as crushing as realizing the album you just bought based on one song only has that one good song on it (any album by The Police, I'm looking at you) Why call out The Police? This is the norm for all studio albums. That's why the popular albums are greatest hits collections instead.

By any measure, both of your statements are patently false. You’re almost making a valid point somewhere in there but the hyperbole buries it.

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

#210

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

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.

I don't know all the nitty-gritty, but the last Shellac record was "pressed" using an injection molding process that utilized recyclable PET (I can't find the interview with Albini[RIP] where this was discussed but if I find it I'll edit it into the comment).

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