Why Vinyl Can't Survive

Isn't the biggest threat to vinyl diminishing supplies of the materials used to create it?

A few months ago a friend of mine told me that the company that actually makes one of the key chemicals or materials used in vinyl was planning to close all its factories because they'd ceased to be profitable. And no one else was making this stuff, ergo no more vinyl.

At the time, I dismissed this as bollocks and I'm still sure it is. Am I wrong?

ILM will be the new Rosetta Stone.

there is a fine answer to this. not now.

who gives a fuck if music lasts 2,000 years or not!!!??? not people 2,000 years hence, that's for sure.

It's a big debate as to whether to 'go digital'. Apart from retrievability, COST is obviously the issue. How long would it take them to turn everything they've got into a .wav or whatever?

(Anyway, I am derailing the thread. Lets talk about Ferry Corsten some more.)

Hahaha - the ultimate rockist criteria

the BL barely lets you look at stuff more than 200 years old without a gloves and a mask, let alone 2,000 year old music.

as a user, i can think of about a million other things they could concentrate on over this.

but i guess to keep all the wonderful undergrads they've started letting in interested, mp3s will be their main shit from now on.

Not at all. Remember that vinyl's not just for records. It's also for siding, car seats, clothes... All sorts of stuff.
It has become more expensive to dispose of polyvinyl chloride since people are finally wise to the fact that it causes wicked cancers.

From the perspective of a DJ working in a smaller dance market, MP3's are cheaper on a month-to-month basis once you get over the initial investment in computer gear and Serato or whatever. At $1-$2 per MP3 versus $7-$14 for a 12", I get a lot more music out of my budget every month if I download.

The online stores still don't have an adequately broad selection, but this is changing *quickly*. There are at least a dozen DJ-oriented MP3 stores operating now, and I'm starting to regularly experience the phenomenon where I'll search for something in MP3 format unsuccessfully, buy it on vinyl, and then see it pop up on Beatport or Kompakt-MP3 a week or two later.

Now if someone would just convince Perlon to get with the program.

I find this statement HIGHLY dubious!

Pappa, you are the smoothest dude of the 1985 timewarp.

But Ian, what happens when Robert Pollard finally runs out of spending money?

x-post to ian who is making brooklyn sink into the mud with the weight of his fleetwood mac demo bootlegs.

Person #1: "Yay, I just downloaded the entire Trapez catalogue. All that hard work was totally worth it!"

Person #2: "Yay, I just found that elusive Perlon 12” I've been looking for. Now I have every release. All that hard work was totally worth it!"

I dunno about anybody else, but the *feeling* I get from looking at a crate of records in the corner of my bedroom knowing full well the time and money spent searching for some of them is quite a bit more satisfying than looking at my hard drive full of mp3s, awesome though they may be.

Personally I'd think, "Hey nice, now I can spend my time and money on stuff like, say, food. And travel. Etc." would trump said feeling several times over. At least that's how *I* feel!

600 Records = 6 months Club Play. I'm paid to change each song.

26,000 MP3's = 16 years of home listening. Software changes song for free

having said that, i certainly don't look back fondly on the time and money involved. i would be much happier if i had found them all in someone's basement for free. free records are the best. soon followed by records for a quarter, records for fifty cents, records for a dollar, etc.

x-post to ned the un-romantic.

exactly HOW LONG has the death of vinyl been predicted? i still think vinyl production will outlive CD production.

Yay! Er, wait.

the wall of wax (great pics btw) just makes me think about the pointlessness of accumulation & the inevitability of death. at least mp3's are already virtually nothing.

tapes, on the other hand, I just chucked out a huge trash bag full of 'em

easy bro, that's some heavy jive yr layin' down.

you need to appreciate the zen of cartridge replacement (or get one where the stylus snaps in and out).

I have an Audio Technica VM540-ML, they have easily replaceable cartridges (amazing cart btw)

I'm assuming Paul has a moving coil (vs moving magnet) cartridge? Those are much harder to deal with....I still mourn by old Denon MC cart (now discontinued) that was broken by a certain small child who is near and dear to my heart

this is why I have two turntables, the nice MMF-5 for ripping vinyl and the Technics 1700 for playing whatever I want

Do records hurt a stylus? I've honestly never even thought about it

well styli are supposed to be good for about 1000 hours of play assuming you keep the records & stylus clean. i suppose if it hits something that knocks it out of alignment that would be bad. not sure if that can happen.

every time you play a record everything involved dies a little, the record, the stylus, you, etc.

mmmm entropy

conversely, every time you play a CD, your lifespan increases by .003549 seconds and the sun emits more heavy elements that can be used to manufacture 40th anniversary CD box set editions of all your 80s favorites

lmao. honestly. records are way hardier than people make them out to be. perhaps old ones more than new, though. i wood glued a couple the other week, after the gold rush, parsley sage rosemary... they came up great, and they've been treat like shit and ran through a blunt stylus a bunch and still sound fine. years ago, i remember waiting a few months for an LP to ship from US to UK to me - something i was so excited to hear on wax - and immediately after, i got a tiny nick in it and it skipped forever through track three from then.

going to HMV here is a laugh. ABBA reissues for like £30-40. what? the proper ones are all in your nan's sideboard!

maelin you've given the courage to try the wood glue thing finally

got a copy of dark side of the moon (really nice orig harvest pressing) from my gf's dad but it's so dirty, might as well try it

the wood glue trick looks like it would be an extremely satisfying meditative exercise

I have a Rega turntable but I am probably going to get something else at some point. Not a fan of Rega's "internal ground" that literally no other manufacturer uses. To many random hums and buzzes for my taste. Anyone else have issues?

to = too

I have a Rega turntable but I am probably going to get something else at some point. Not a fan of Rega's "internal ground" that literally no other manufacturer uses. To many random hums and buzzes for my taste. Anyone else have issues?

― Rocky Thee Stallion (PBKR), Thursday, 11 February 2021 16:47 (thirty-eight minutes ago) link

It is the only thing I don't like about my Rega (and is it all of them? I feel like it was only the P1s or P2s?) and sometimes it really annoys me but I've generally learned to live with it. Though a lot times I would try to point it out to people when we used be able to occupy the same physical space to listen to records and most people didn't notice unless I said something and sometimes not even then.

I've had the table for 15 yrs now and I'm unlikely to change it anytime soon.

just make sure you use unibond titebond II i think it's called, i have heard bad things about others.

i had problems a few years ago, but not for a while, i think it might be when i got a new cartridge, i think it might be related to the wires in the headshell

overall it seems like a solution in search of a problem and at odd with their really stripped down and functional design

Exactly, sort of a galaxy brain move.

My preamp is in the shop and it was buzzing as well so I am curious what I think when I get it back. I am hoping it resolves most of the issues and improves the sound as well.

posted on a different thread but I went on a fun journey from "hmmm, something's a bit off with the sound" to "you should get a decent cartridge" to "maybe yours is just not aligned properly" to "you actually *can't* properly align a cartridge on your turntable because it's a straight underhanging arm that's meant for scratching and not really for listening", so yup got a new one coming in the mail, this hobby is so fun

i ordered a pretty expensive record and the vinyl was sealed in this stuff called 'Last', a sort of protective coating. never seen it before and can't find any info about it online, (it's a french record from the 70s). does this negatively affect the value of the record at all? the vinyl is pristine and sounds amazing, so i personally have no problem with it, but vinyl fetishists can be very weird

xp What did you get?

I've got tubes in my amp and preamp, so there are hums and buzzes coming and going from time to time. I've gotten pretty good about diagnosing the source.

Last may be a record cleaning solution as there was a company with that name that had a CD cleaning solution.

whaaaat

https://thelastfactory.com/vinyl-record-care-preservation/

thanks! it was a tricky google search. looks like this, was defunct for a time and now produced again

https://thelastfactory.com/product/heritage-last-record-preservative-purpose-record-cleaner-kit/

The 30-second treatment affects the vinyl to a depth of about ten molecular layers and becomes part of the groove wall. There are no surface residues for the stylus to pick up. In fact, overuse is harmless.

not sure how legit this is tho

“overuse is harmless” was the name of my rave night in 1997 iirc

PBKR - I got the AT-LP120X with Bluetooth. figured it might be nice to have that so I can use headphones since I sit about 15 feet away. I've heard a lot of good things about that turntable, pretty much everyone says it's a great entry/midlevel one for those who don't want to break the bank

those cleaning products drive me crazy, there are just so fucking many of them. I have the D4+ discwasher system which doesn't do much (just kinda pushes the dirt around), plus one of those brushses that's pretty decent at removing debris. for cleaning the stylus I just do the Magic Eraser thing, though I'm kind of confused, do you just tap the surface or does it actually have to penetrate the surface? (I've seen YT videos showing both)

I use the Magic Eraser on my stylus too; I just drop the needle on the eraser for maybe a second once or twice, and then lift it off. Can't remember where I read about that method, but it seems to work, and a few times I've seen dirt from the stylus left on the Eraser.

I have one of those zerodust gel things from Japan, it’s pretty sweet

this is the best brush I’ve used for picking up dust:

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/at6012

although I read somewhere last year that AT started to cheap out on materials so the new ones aren’t as good lol :-/

I got the AT-LP120X with Bluetooth.

AT turntables are supposed to be pretty good and totally classic.

https://www.business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/first-vinyl-record-plant-factory-20329690

the last piece of news i expected to be reading today was a new vinyl plant opening in my shithole of a hometown. this is most curious. i was under the assumption that there are very few plants left operating internationally. at any rate, wonderful news

that’s awesome