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Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

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

#41

Post by monocasa »

CharlesW wrote: post #36
monocasa wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of albums that aren't mastered correctly for digital. They end up clipping outside the dynamic range because they're too loud. Vinyl doesn't really clip in the same way. And this isn't an old phenomenon, it's getting worse in fact. You can see some of that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war Additionally, bands will typically get better margins on vinyl (although that's starting to disappea…

I'm sure there were early cases of bad audio engineers introducting digital clipping during the digital mastering process. You mention that "it's getting worse", but it's unlikely that you'd be able to find a release mastered/remastered with noticable digital clipping within the last decade. As one example of how basic a concern this is for digital mastering, Apple's "Apple Digital Masters" (formerly "Mastered for iT…

AFAIC, dynamic range compression is very nearly as bad as clipping. It just curves out the signal so you don't go straight off of a cliff, but you're still trying to fit 10 lbs of potatoes into a 5 pound bag.

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

#42

Post by dTal »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #33
tyingq wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nostalgia and appearance. Old cars drive like crap and are unsafe, but popular for the same reason.

Vinyl is way more popular than old cars.

What a weird thing to say. The analogy was vinyl : digital :: old cars : new cars. Obviously cars are way more expensive than music, so it doesn't make sense to directly compare their popularity in an absolute sense.

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

#45

Post by reaperducer »

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…

I think the "good enough" phrase you used really touches on the reason vinyl still exists.

Streaming is "good enough." But physical media is a different experience. It's more intimate. You can touch, feel, and examine the music and the packaging. Some bands (REM is one) even put Easter Eggs in their physical media that can't be reproduced by digital.

Streaming is fine for when you want to fill your space with sound. Physical media is for when you want to really enjoy the music. Read about what you're listening to, see the artwork and photographs, and experience an album of music on the order it was meant to be heard.

As one of many examples, a streaming service can play "Home by the Sea" by Genesis. But I've never encountered one smart enough to then follow that with "Second Home by the Sea," which is how the music was made to be heard. Some services will even play "Second Home" on its own, which is jarring.

Music is one of the increasing number of areas where people are figuring out that abdicating human curation for machine selection just isn't the same thing.

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

#47

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

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.

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

#48

Post by jccalhoun »

geogra4 wrote: post #14
kome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vinyls are better objects to handle: they are bigger, they have better artworks and usually richer booklet. To play vinyl is like a beautiful ritual, full of little gestures. It's not about technology, of course, it's about fun. Like analog photography.

I wonder at some point if film cameras will outsell digital ones

if we mean stand alone cameras then I could see it happening at some point as phone cameras get better and better.

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

#49

Post by echelon »

As much as it pains me to say this, I think I'm a hipster.

I put a lot of attention and care into my audio and vinyl setup, but now that you can find albums at Walmart, the hip factor has been sucked out of it like a vacuum.

I've recently been downsizing, and this might be something that doesn't stay with me. I'll keep my signed albums, but maybe not the rest.

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

#50

Post by reaperducer »

big_chungus wrote: post #2

Would some one please enlighten me as to what on God's green earth is going on with vinyl? It's less dense, lower-quality, degrades with use, and is more expensive. It's probably less environmentally-friendly, too (though I'm not sure what it's target demographic is, so I don't know if that means much). Why is vinyl popular, all of a sudden? I had to rip all my grandmother's vinyl records, once, and it was a pain in…

I listen to vinyl because a lot of the music I like never made it to digital.

I have at least 30 albums that simply do not exist as downloads, streaming, or any other digital medium. And there are people today who are still putting out new music in analog formats that will never get a digital release.

And I'm not even much of a music buff. If I have 30 "lost" albums, there must be tens of thousands more out there that simply do not exist to people who restrict themselves to digital formats.

I really don't understand why some people choose to limit themselves to digital. That's like deciding to only eat tacos for the rest of your life.

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