The very real possibility that vinyl will outlive CD - T or F?

My 17-y.o. sister never buys cds at all.

I should amend this to cds, or records, or mp3s, or, or, or...

more anecdotal evidence:

I am on vacation in my home town in Virginia, there are three places here that carry new/used vinyl. I haven't been here in two years. The first place I checked out had moved all of their new vinyl to a more prominent location near the front of the store, but the amount was about the same. The next place had tons more used vinyl than before and the guy said sales had increased to the point that he now sells turntables. And I guarantee you he doesn't report to Soundscan either.

Is it a bad sign that the latest Vinyl Anachronist column reads like a suicide note?

man i wish i thought sacd was going to make it, i hear great things

xpost: Well, there's this:

I'm not going to worry about future generations embracing the LP and the turntable. (They seem to be doing that on their own, remarkably enough.)

WISHFUL THINKING.

My 17-y.o. sister never buys cds at all.

I should amend this to cds, or records, or mp3s, or, or, or..

check - 18 yo daughter with a full MP3 player, spends maybe €50 on music if that

xpost

€50 a year...

i don't even care that much about it. if sacd and/or digital playback gets great, then fine...but for me, i get the most bang for my buck -- sound quality-wise -- from vinyl and a turntable. i don't think that's romantic or irrational at all.

for about $1000 i got a great, small speaker, amp, and turntable setup that sounds amazing and to my ears better than cd or mp3. i realize that if i dropped like 10Gs or something i could probably get server or whatever and do flac but it sounds like too much work to me.

Most people aren't going to spend a thousand dollars on a setup.

my gf just got a new CD/turntable/radio one-piece stereo for $70. It sounds better than her old CD boombox thing. They are on sale at B!-Mart, to my knowledge the first cheap new turntable in years that has been available in big box stores. Still more anecdotal evidence...

Most people aren't going to spend a thousand dollars on a setup.

Not in one go, maybe, but that's what cool about separates - upgrade one bit at a time (that's what's shit too of course - it don't stop)

..... but you have a point Rev. - time was when any young couple with pretensions to being cultured would have a decent stereo set up as part of the living room furniture; now it its home cinema, with an ipod docking yoke as the sole concession to the idea of public music

xp

Would you say music has become something more private for most people then? Something relegated to earbuds and enjoyed in solitude?

Definitely - earbuds and driving or on computer speakers/ headphones while working much more than sitting down and listening while doing nothing else.

People doubting the young hipster crowd's interest in vinyl are so wrong! I live in a remarkably unhip college town, and even here, everyone who considers themself really "into" music has a turntable and thinks its cool to buy vinyl. I don't know anyone who buys cds (besides blank ones by the 50-pack.) Illegal MP3s for most new stuff, and vinyl for the fuzzy-happy-collecting feeling (don't underestimate the draw of that feeling.)

Yeah, most teenagers still haven't touched a turntable, but CDs are just disposable trash used for car-listening, not much else. They're waning in popularity whereas vinyl is on the rise. I think vinyl is definitely sticking around, at least, I'm not sure what what'll happen to the CD market.

I'm not doubting the young hipster crowd's vinyl enthusiasm, I'm doubting everyone else's.

The Garden State effect. Seriously (kinda). I, embarassingly, know of two people who bought turntables after seeing Natalie Portman's room in that movie.

everyone who considers themself really "into" music has a turntable and thinks its cool to buy vinyl.

hence the need for a kick in the balls

iPOD PEOPLE

I don't know why you feel it necessarily to kick people in the balls for wanting to own a physical object that represents the music they love.

you sound like you need one too

the soundscan stats count only vinyl LPs sold in soundscan locations. the amount of 12"s and other singles/EPs/underground albums that are sold in places that dont report to soundscan has to be double those figures. plus any used vinyl shops! alot of records still get sold, and it will continue to happen. i dont see that ever ending, people will still be making vinyl as well, even if on a small basis. compare that to CDs which will have no advantage compared to a higher resolution digital file, i just dont see why people would keep making them.

there will be vinyl as long as pressing plants can afford to stay in business. there will be pressing plants as long as there are a billion suburban emo bands who want to put out a 7".

(well, you know what i mean.)

the big difference, which someone must have pointed out already, is that anyone can make a CD. very very few people can make an LP. things that anyone can make will probably outlive things that practically no one can make.

xpost

PEOPLE CAN'T DELETE RECORDS
PEOPLE DON'T BUY USED MP3S

the big difference, which someone must have pointed out already, is that anyone can make a CD. very very few people can make an LP. things that anyone can make will probably outlive things that practically no one can make.

In the future, the only CDs we will use will be CDrs and we will use them just as we used floppy disks in the nineties.

"In the future, the only CDs we will use will be CDrs and we will use them just as we used floppy disks in the nineties.

-- ian"

in the future? that sounds like today to me. i dont even need CDs in the car as my radio has a minijack plug on the front of it so i can play straight off my ipod or any other portable device. i use CDs primarily for listening to while i fall asleep, and for purchasing hardcopies of music that is not avalaible on vinyl that i must own.

I've always liked portable cassettes the most. They sort of force you to listen to complete albums (or at least whole sides) because it's always such an inconvenience to fast forward/rewind/pause to leap between songs.

And I like the trebly sound and odd, accidental depth.

It's sad that they will probably be lost forever.

I act like buying cultural artifacts is so horrible but I took an entire morning a month or so ago to go to the tea shop, walk around the corner to the record store, and buy the album I wanted on vinyl (new Liars album). It has a nicely designed insert and is pleasing to the eye on my floor! Also the tea was excellent and it was a beautiful morning, and people asked me what record I got because it wasn't a small cd case rolling around in a shopping bag.

if petroleum prices go up, you won't

xposts

I like how half the people on this thread assume that the way they use and consume music is the exact way every other person on the planet uses and consumes music.

the way they use and consume music is the exact way every other person on the planet uses and consumes music.

.... or the way every other person on the planet should etc....

no wait, you guys are right. people will forget all about ipods and the idea of them being able to play better quality files in the future. people will stick with CDs. they will have huge collections of them just like people have of vinyl now. vinyl will die. along with you guys, thankfully.

you definately need a kick in the balls

DG--it wasn't funny the first time

What, are you 12 or something? xp

don't just take my word for it

Okay, I'm not going to engage in debate with someone who's going to wish death on me. It's not worth my stress.

This thread will be really interesting to read a decade from now, so I'm going to go ahead and give my future self in 2017 a shoutout. Sorry for all the dumb things I'll do.

I'm in the vinyl + downloading camp. Nearly all of my disposable income goes to records.

if drugs were cheaper i wouldnt download music

or I'd pay for it

I buy CD's these days pretty much solely to have a quality hard copy for albums i really really like so i can rip them to my computer at any time.

Vinyl will always be around and will outlive CD's, but I doubt the current resurgence of vinyl interest beyond that of serious music fans will last long.

The Garden State effect. Seriously (kinda). I, embarassingly, know of two people who bought turntables after seeing Natalie Portman's room in that movie.

-- jon /via/ chi 2.0, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 9:29 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yes! Hahaha I know some people who did this too.

Probably worth noting, from one of the sidebars to that Billboard piece (which I edited, but what the hell):

No one is making new vinyl pressing machines. "We can't buy the machines anymore, so we rebuild them as we go," [United Record Pressing plant manager Dave] Jump says.
Likewise, some aspects of vinyl manufacturing are so specialized and bordering obsolete that at some plants, only one person is trained to perform certain functions. "We were going to put out an album in vinyl, but there was only one guy at the company who could glue the sleeve properly, but he hurt his arm, and they couldn't complete the album on time," one major-label head of sales says. "So we had to scramble and go elsewhere."
...In the last two years, two vinyl plants, 33 1/3 and Hub Servell, have closed their doors, one industry executive says."

I still buy just about anything.

scott seward - nice collection, of course, but how do you keep the youngster from tattering all your goodies. The only worn-out CD i have is a MP3 comp that spent less than 60 seconds in the presence of my two-year-old. My proper collection resides in a room i won't even let me boy into. Asshole; i know.

Michael Jones, on the consequence of format -- for some reason the thoughtful insights you share regarding format limitations are something i fear many engineers lack.

On deterioration. An associate at the record store i worked at back in the 80s would routinely throw her discs on the floor and step on them to prove the invincibility of the format. Ignoramus. I myself have never considered the CD a portable format and pity the fools who practice otherwise.

On MP3s - they sound crap at 192kbps to the point where i'd actually prefer a cassette. If you jack up the volume through a good stereo even low bit MP3s sound passable. I positively love the capacity as well as the ability to play tunes in 5+ hour slabs. Also, since most of these are e-pirated, at the end of the day, don’t really hold them in very high regard.

On the demise of CDs - I hope not, but, i really don't care. The bigger issue is hardware; as i doubt there are manufacturers that make disc players that really last. Sure, i know i can dump it all to a hard drive, but where's the fun in that?

On DVD/CD/MP3 players -- is it just me or does anybody else around here despise having to turn on the friggin' TELEVISION to navigate through an MP3 discs folders? Can’t you make me a little alphanumeric screen on the unit (or remote) so I can get around a little more precisely than dead reckoning?

On Ipods and digital devices-- once again, the bigger crime is the fact that these units are crap and offer no real safe harbor for archiving. Flash memory holds promise, but i'd sure as hell rather haul my stax around than have to manage some monster digital archive along with all it's requisite back-ups and hard copies. It's like that old Steven Wright joke about his "actual size" map (1 mile equals 1 mile).

maybe this is mean, but i'm always kinda rooting for the demise of everything.

love, that guy who buys old vhs tapes twenty at a time at yard sales

(CDs at yard sales are already treated like yesterday's meatballs. a quarter. fifty cents. people just want to get rid of them. more for me!)

there's nothing sadder than cds of failed, anonymous major label acts.

owning a bunch of them comes pretty close

cds left over once Tower closed to thread

;_;

Cheap LPs always look potentially interesting - cheap CDs look beyond sad