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

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.

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.

I really, really, REALLY want to hurt people like this. Violently. (A character flaw, I realize.)

This year Capitol/EMI is in the process of reissuing its first substantial vinyl catalog in decades. Some of those albums, like “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys, are classic rock leviathans aimed at nostalgic baby boomers.

uh

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

yeah, there's a lot of "IT'S ON VINYL, I MUST BUY IT" going around with the kids these days. bragging about "only paying $10" for huey lewis or elton john albums that you should be paying a quarter for at a goodwill. if at all.

I only take pride in a purchase if it's = or > $1, are there really young dudes out there super amped about their $12.99 Rumors buy?

I only take pride in a purchase if it's = or > < $1

well take a look at the warner bros site:

http://becausesoundmatters.com/

40 dollar versions of dollar records for sale! yay! hey, they made people throw away their records so they could buy the cd and now they can throw away the cd and buy the "deluxe" vinyl version!

"are there really young dudes out there super amped about their $12.99 Rumors buy?"

lots of young folks just don't have a good idea of what things sell for. so, if it costs less than a cd they are probably happy most of the time. not ALL young folks obviously, but people into vinyl for kicks or whatever.

used to be people would be all lame and tell you for years that they needed to get their turntables fixed. now people are actually buying turntables. i'm all for it. there's more than enough good stuff for me. and if they get bored with all the stuff they bought i will be at the record store waiting for their overpriced new junk that i can then buy used.

but they can keep their 40 dollar deluxe version of stadium arcadium.

I really couldn't get past the first few paragraphs of that article. I swear, everyone in college nowadays collects vinyl and wears black rimmed glasses. THIS IS NOT SPECIAL. BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE IS NOT SPECIAL.

Yeah it's become a hobby of mine to try to guess the time lapse between the steps

-noisy austin hype of some style revival ("omg have you ever heard BOOTY MUSIC")
-OG stylists flooding stores ("why are there 2452834572987 used copies of 'bass rock express' in the bins this week?")

haha, I didn't even get to the part where they start talking about people at NYU. I actually saw someone sitting outside one of our dorms with a record player and the self titled BSS record last year. Everyone here is that guy. Except me obviously. All the vinyl I buy is not lame at all and in no way falling into any stereotype at all.

yeah the articles and the shit people say is silly but the vinyl resurgence of the past couple years has given me so much increased pleasure in my music listening that people can write that stupid article every day and I'll be quite happy about it. you know? thank God I can get shit on vinyl now pretty easily. from the artist end, too, there's just this feeling that people give more of a shit about the stuff that comes out on vinyl. they ask questions about it, they're interested in it, it's not something they download and immediately lose track of in a 1,000,000-song library. fuckin', long live the vinyl revival even if there's plenty of profiteering behind it!

in re: Ned's comment, we've had the "should people have to do more work to acquire vast collecitons?" argument before I think, I stand firmly on the "yes I am an asshole and yes it sucks that any douchebag can hear Great White Wonder without having to do any groundwork" side of the question. Value in hard work, builds character, etc.

My post was poorly constructed. My apologies.

Yeah, I've always agreed with John on the groundwork issue. Reason I highlighted that quote myself above is that getting ahold of (or listening to) music on vinyl never struck me as "incovenient"; it's just fun (at least if you stick to thrift stores and dollar bins; these prefabricated "collectibles" with useless bonus doodads are beyond my comprehension.)

Totally disagree with John, Chuck, and anyone else arguing that music is in any way improved by being hard to come by. Get it to as many people as possible, as conveniently as possible, I say. And as far as the vinyl's concerned, I hated it before there was any such thing as CDs.

I don't think they're arguing that the music is improved by the rarity of the object, it's the integrity of the person that's built by the work put into the acquisition.

Since I'm about to unload thousands of records this month, I'm happy as punch with articles like this, for obvious reasons of raw greed.

Otherwise, I agree with John, Xhuck, etc.

On the other hand, vinyl's now taking up half my living room. I don't want to pay more to rent a place with an extra room just for vinyl, sorry. It has to go. :/

^donut so very very otm on that last point (and the first one too!)

My friend Rick in Pennsyltucky e-mails me weekly about the new old 8-tracks he's found. He's a scrounger of southeast Pennsy's antique-and-scrap marts were they must still be plentiful. He even knows which color casings are the best between the gray and the red. One series was fabricated with superior glue and is therefore now less likely to split when put into a player after decades of sitting in a box in the garage somewhere.

Now there's an eccentric article waiting to be written.

Actually...

http://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Theyre-Right-Russ-Forster/dp/B0009ZE95I