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

i dunno how many used vinyl shops there are left in london apart from the MVE chain. but yeah, i love buying stuff i didnt know i wanted too. i also hate buying stuff i didnt know i wanted then going home and finding out there was a reason i didnt want it in the first place. lol.

There are precious few places to buy vinyl in and around Exeter

Shit yeah, when my mum lived there a couple of years back I combed the whole town and found pretty much fuckall, apart from I think the first Birthday Party album in some weird place in an arcade

I'm moving house in a few weeks which is ushering in the very real possibility of not having enough space to house all my music. I really don't want to store a bunch of stuff away in boxes if it's shit I actually want to keep

I don't do the buying stuff I didn't know I wanted anymore, since the advent of downloading. My list of stuff I do know I want is about 2000 long as it is.

i dunno how many used vinyl shops there are left in london apart from the MVE chain

Quite a few still - off the top of my head:
Intoxica! (Portobello Road)
Out On The Floor (Camden)
Beano's (Croydon)
Flashback and Haggle Vinyl (Essex Road)
The shop on Hanway Street whose name I can never remember but used to be Vinyl Experience
Revival Records (Berwick Street - the shop formerly known as Reckless)

I'm not getting any more vinyl though because I've got enough music in the house as it is and my wife will be bringing an equally huge amount of music from Canada when she comes over, plus there is the perennial digestive biscuits problem (i.e. shelves of vinyl records smell like digestive biscuits).

CDs still exist as a great medium for bands doing home-production stuff, e.g. to sell on tour. you can't make vinyl at home (well, you *could* obviously. but you'd be insane), and telling people to go out and d/l stuff is all very well, but lacks the immediacy of "have it now" (+ will people actually even remember the web address/band name?) and as, say, a souvenir from a show.

that's true. these days more and more though it's like a CD is a car that drives music to your computer. and then you throw it away. so it's a disposable car. ok the analogy's not perfect.

you can't make vinyl at home

The Presto disc cutter!!! (tenth photo down)

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/7980/dmphotos.htm

Vinyl is around because of nostalgia, and provided it becomes irrelevant (hopefully never will) the CD will also be around for the same reason.

CDs deteriorate and will become unplayable. some made in the 80's are already doing this.

None of my 80s CDs have done that. My only problem with the is that health organisations have gotten portable CD/headphones producers to bring down the max level of their players to protect listeners' hearing, and because of the current loudness war going on, it is impossible to turn up the volume at a satisfactory level when playing 80s CDs.

If you've only got low-fi equipment (e.g., headphones, speakers, etc.) at your disposal it is impossible to turn up the volume at a satisfactory level when playing 80s CDs (or at least that's been my going from low-fi to higher-fi experience).

that's true. these days more and more though it's like a CD is a car that drives music to your computer. and then you throw it away. so it's a disposable car. ok the analogy's not perfect.

-- Tracer Hand, Friday, 11 January 2008 12:44 (3 hours ago) Link

Not really, in my case. I don't end up ripping most of my music, and I play the actual cds (on the home stereo, in the car) much more than mp3s, anyway.

Then again, I never owned an mp3 player until about two weeks ago.

It's been more a convenience (for instance, I can take it jogging) than a liberation for me.

It's been more a convenience (for instance, I can take it jogging) than a liberation for me.

Wait 'til the convenience rears its uglier head; I count maintaining my encoding (ensuring everything's accurately labeled/categorized, etc.), and the resulting encoded collection (keeping the external drives defragged and/or healthy, etc.), among the least enjoyable music-related tasks in my life.

and because of the current loudness war going on, it is impossible to turn up the volume at a satisfactory level when playing 80s CDs.

Get a better stereo for the love of god. With a decent amplifier you can get the quietest CD more than loud enough.

Apologies if this self-described rant's already been posted here (or elsewhere), but I found Fastnbulbous' take on things, Analog Vs. Digital Redux, very persuasive.

I agree with practically everything he says there.

Get a better stereo for the love of god. With a decent amplifier you can get the quietest CD more than loud enough.

Oh wait he's talking about on headphones, I dunno there cos I only listen to music on headphones on my ipod, where everything's been mp3gained to the same level.

The direct headphone loops on most CD players are generally too fucking loud anyway...

Or get a dedicated headphone amp!

dblcheeksneak has a good point about the maintenance involved with non-CD digital music - it is insanity.

Good article, FnB.

For what it's worth I had about 8 projects I was trying to push through the pressing plants (I use 2) around the 1st of Dec.

One said that he hadn't been this busy since the 90s and RAN OUT OF VINYL for a couple of days.

The other stayed open Xmas week (one of the 2 traditional closing times for US pressers, the other being 4th o July). They would have been open on the 24th if they could have gotten their crew in.

Your free market economy at work...

On the downside Syntax AND Unique closed their doors in the last couple of weeks, 2 of the biggest vinyl distributors in the states. Well... more for me.

Interesting article. However, this:

"First of all, the only time vinyl is audibly better than digital is when the remastering job for CD is botched or taken from faulty masters, which was fairly common in 1984-1992"

And then the "loudness war" started in like 94 or 95, so that means a lot of CDs were only mastered properly for a year or two? That sounds like a good argument for vinyl.

we had another thread at some point in which we discussed how it's a lot harder to screw mastering up with vinyl due to actual physical limits of the medium. unfortunately i can't remember which thread that was at all.

And then the "loudness war" started in like 94 or 95, so that means a lot of CDs were only mastered properly for a year or two? That sounds like a good argument for vinyl.

-- Mark Rich@rdson, Sunday, January 13, 2008 5:44 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

also says that not that much new music goes on to vinyl at all now.

I've been collecting CDs for 17 years. Do I start collecting vinyl now?

no.

I count maintaining my encoding (ensuring everything's accurately labeled/categorized, etc.), and the resulting encoded collection (keeping the external drives defragged and/or healthy, etc.), among the least enjoyable music-related tasks in my life.

now see i sort of enjoy this stuff. it becomes the digital equivalent of organizing and sorting lps or cds. moving files from one machine to another, labeling them correctly, or collating them on an external hard drive or whatever, it's labor-intensive and a little dreary in the way that any good obsessive hobby is. (and not as hard on the lumbar or as space-consumptive as lugging around and storing crates full of records.) it is all ephemeral and subject to sudden evaporation of course, which is why anything i really want i either buy or make a physical copy of, but honestly i have so much music in all these different forms that the ebb and flow of stuff acquired and lost just also becomes part of the endless pursuit. it's changed music hobbyism, but it hasn't made it any less fun for me.

A headphone amp might have been the solution, but it's a bit too much to carry around in public transport....

i like vinyl as a lifestyle accessory
also djing with vinyl is more intuitive to me than djing by computer, which is weird because i am of the compdj generation

lol @ phrase "lifestyle accessory"

digital equivalent of organizing and sorting lps or cds

I get a mental image of Cusack, surrounded by records (in Hi Fidelity) as he resorts his collection chronologically by girlfriend he was dating @ the time (or something)

Is there a thread for weird cataloguing systems?

those interminable chuck eddy ones... anyway YES there is.

lol @ phrase "lifestyle accessory"

-- The Reverend, Monday, January 14, 2008 2:37 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Link

& kudos for owning up to it! "i like this thing as a lifestyle accessory"

those interminable chuck eddy ones

No idea which threads this could be referring to. Anyway, there's this one, but I'm not on it:

Filing your music alphabetically - C/D?

Not on this one, either:

Filing CDs Geographically - C or D?

there was one recently where people talked about color-coded SPREADSHEETS they had made! i can't find it though. because i'm so disorganized.

there's this - So, how do you organise your CDs?

there's also this - Is there a program that will organise all the MP3s on my hardrive?

One of my first ever threads! Sorting your old LPs into Categories...

A headphone amp might have been the solution, but it's a bit too much to carry around in public transport....

You can get portable ones the size of an iPod. Failing that, look into headphones with sound isolation, which will cut out all external noise and prevent you needing to turn it as loud anyway.

RIP Canadian vinyl

dag yeah i didn't think about the old dudes retiring angle that could be the death, not lack of demand

the RIAA's 2007 stats, via Coolfer...

• CD shipments (net) dropped 17.5% while the dollar value of those shipments dropped 20.5%.
• The LP/EP category (vinyl records) saw shipments increase 36.6% with a 46.2% increase in dollar value.
• Cassette shipments (net) dropped 41.2% with, oddly, only a 18.4% drop in dollar value.
• Kiosk downloads increased 28.5% by units and 38.1% by dollar value.
• Subscriptions to music services (using a weighted annual average) increased a mere 0.7% while their dollar value dropped 2.6%.
• Mobile increased 14.6% by units and by 13.6% by dollar value. Mobile includes master ringtones, ringbacks, music videos, full track downloads and "other mobile."

How many times has this article been written in the past few months? (Gets dumber every time, I think.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/fashion/31vinyl.html

“It takes a special kind of person to appreciate pops and clicks and imperfections in their music.”

Yes, you're very special.

Young vinyl collectors said digital technology had made it easy for anyone — even parents — to acquire vast, esoteric music collections. In that context, nothing seems hipper than old-fashioned inconvenience.

Yeah, these articles keep treading over the same territory, but I never get tired of reading them ... especially if they are so chock full of LOLs at the expense of corny indie types and clueless record execs.

“It’s almost a back-to-nature approach,” Mr. Gagnon said. “It’s the difference between growing your own vegetables and purchasing them frozen in the supermarket.”

He said that people who buy vinyl nowadays are charmed by the format’s earthy authenticity.

And I love the pic of hipster dude showing off his Huey Lewis and Donnie Iris LPs. Score!

ugh, i get really tired hearing about the allure of pops and clicks. blah. buy clean vinyl, you dolts.

having bought a few records that looked fine to me but are hardly listenable recently, I think I'm gonna have to start being a special person.