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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

#81

Post by skeeter2020 »

chollida1 wrote: post #46

Makes sense. Most kids I know put records up on their wall as art. or as a way to pay artists directly by purchasing their album at a concert If you want to listen to music then Spotify runs circles around vinyl as a medium. Records really suck for music quality which is why everyone dumped them when tapes came along and then even more so when cd's became a thing. If Vinyl was a good medium to listen to music then no…

I won't ever go back, but my teenage daughter wanted (and bought) a low-fi digital camera, "dad cam" videos are a common format, polaroid prints had a resurgence and I would not be surprised if we saw a retro tv/video movement. Go figure...

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

#82

Post by falkensmaize »

I buy vinyl for one reason - it forces me to actively listen to the music. My teen daughter does the same.

I have many happy memories of getting a new record as kid, laying in the floor and listening from start to finish while poring over liner notes and album art. There was a level of connection with the music that I just don’t get from listening to Spotify while I’m washing the dishes or something.

I know it’s sentimental, but I get so much joy out of watching my daughter do the same thing now. She has a blast going to our local record store, finding records from her favorite bands old and new and then coming home and just listening. No devices, no distractions, just her and the music she loves. In a sometimes horrible and depressing world, it’s a sweet escape.

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

#83

Post by skeeter2020 »

Aurornis wrote: post #40
zkmon wrote: post #29

And 50% of that are for showing off their oddity in their social networks. The WTF factor. Do something archaic.

Or people just enjoy things. Let’s let people enjoy things.

You're both right of course, but it does seem to be an enjoyment filtered through the social media promoter lens, which makes me a little sad. Unlike say, the enjoyment I got listening to a record (and then CD) as I examined the liner notes and insert, this go-around feels like external validation by casual (or no) acquaintances. Historically this is not as valuable and can lead to some bad outcomes...

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

#84

Post by prmoustache »

Clamchop wrote: post #61
chollida1 wrote: post #46

Makes sense. Most kids I know put records up on their wall as art. or as a way to pay artists directly by purchasing their album at a concert If you want to listen to music then Spotify runs circles around vinyl as a medium. Records really suck for music quality which is why everyone dumped them when tapes came along and then even more so when cd's became a thing. If Vinyl was a good medium to listen to music then no…

Minor nit, cassettes were and are mostly worse audio quality than records and they coexisted for decades with their respective compromises. Cassettes replaced 8-track in the portable space and eventually enabled the Walkman. CDs killed both.

CD didn't really killed cassette. They coexisted peacefully for 2 decades. CD was nice, transportable but cassette was still more convenient to carry around because a walkman was much smaller[1], wouldn't skip when running/jumping[2], a cassette was less fragile and it was simply so much easier to leave a cassette in a deck and record anything you would ear on the radio on the go. Virtually nobody could/would live burn a dj mix from the radio.

Napster + portable mp3 player and smartphoned did kilómetros ll the cassette.

[1] especially the late 90's early 00's ones that were barely bigger than a standard cassette case.

[2] there was buffering for discmans but it wasn't 100% effective if skipping happened for longer than the buffer

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

#85

Post by saltcured »

Clamchop wrote: post #43
knollimar wrote: post #8

It seems like a silly cargo cult to me. It feels like ewaste compared to a poster

What cargo do the cultists think is coming?

A wonderful sonic experience from ritualistic handling of a vinyl disc in a paper envelope?

Little do they know, the true sonic experience comes from wetting the disc with a special felt pad and watching the stroboscopic markings on the edge of a turntable platter...

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

#86

Post by skeeter2020 »

creatonez wrote: post #62
wlonkly wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the *e*-waste from a record and sleeve?

PVC releases potentially harmful vapors and is difficult to properly dispose of.

records rarely end up in waste, and the relatively small amount of waste from production is not where we should be focusing our energies.

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

#87

Post by skeeter2020 »

oogali wrote: post #24
knollimar wrote: post #8

It seems like a silly cargo cult to me. It feels like ewaste compared to a poster

If it really is cargo culting, and the people buying the physical product are not keeping the manufacturers in check because they never play the vinyl, then I can see a potential situation where manufacturers ramp up to meet "demand" but at lower quality (improved profits). The secondhand market becomes saturated with inferior pressings that are inevitably bound for landfills since they don't meet the quality/expecta…

This doesn't make any sense; there's no craft here, where it's cheaper to press "bad" records vs "good" ones. You would literally need multiple production lines to intentionally execute this "strategy". Also a record cost next to nothing to make.

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

#88

Post by justincormack »

bob1029 wrote: post #34
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…

480i content, CRTs, analog signal chains, non-digital transports, film grain, et. al., provide opportunity for our imagination to step in and produce a better interpolation than the ground truth might otherwise provide.

There is the old quote "I like radio, the pictures are better"

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

#89

Post by Ray20 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
HPsquared wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would work if housing and food were super cheap, for instance.

There are overwhelming examples of people who continue to work when all of their basic needs are met. Some work because they love to, some work because they have to; we, collectively, should be trying as hard as possible to make work optional (automation, etc), because the point of life is to live, not to work. Some combination of Abundance [1], Solarpunk [2], etc. The entire planet will eventually be in population d…

> 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.

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

#90

Post by toomuchtodo »

Ray20 wrote: post #89
toomuchtodo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are overwhelming examples of people who continue to work when all of their basic needs are met. Some work because they love to, some work because they have to; we, collectively, should be trying as hard as possible to make work optional (automation, etc), because the point of life is to live, not to work. Some combination of Abundance [1], Solarpunk [2], etc. The entire planet will eventually be in population d…

> 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 2024 (10 comments)

(TLDR Decent living standards for 8.5B people would require 30% of current resource use)

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