[HN Gopher] Vinyl records are now outselling CDs
___________________________________________________________________
Vinyl records are now outselling CDs
Author : ofou
Score : 45 points
Date : 2021-10-22 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| criddell wrote:
| This is US only. CDs are much more popular in a lot of other
| countries.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Last I checked (a few years back), vinyl sales were also supply-
| limited rather than demand-limited, since there was (again, last
| I checked) a shortage of equipment for producing vinyl records.
| If the supply capacity had been available, vinyl would have
| passed CD's a few years ago.
|
| Of course, this year sales of just about everything are supply-
| limited...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Both are now nostalgia formats, and Vinyl is nostalgia for people
| with more money and free time. So, wins.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| What is interesting about this to me is that 99.9% of music
| mastered and produced in 2021 has a digital step somewhere along
| the chain i.e. whatever perceived technical advantage the
| physical medium has in terms of sound fidelity is actually not
| really there and in any case limited by digital to analog
| conversion and vice versa. Vinyl as a music format has certain
| limitations [0] which will mean that even a perfect digital
| master may have some problems that need to be addressed to not
| cause problems when pressing to vinyl. I certainly understand the
| appeal of a nice physical package, though I project that sometime
| soon, the humble cdr might make a comeback and satisfy that need
| too. From my acquaintances involved with releasing stuff on vinyl
| I know that for a few years there have been huge queues and
| delays at all common pressing plants, which seems to match with
| the data reported in the tweet.
|
| [0] https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-vinyl-tips-
| fo...
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Most professionally recorded music is recorded and mastered at
| 24-bit resolution, which has a theoretical maximum SNR of
| 144.49 dB.
|
| Fresh virgin vinyl has an SNR of 70 dB, which reduces each time
| it is played.
|
| Even 16-bit audio (96.33 dB) exceeds the SNR of vinyl
| recording.
| digitalslr wrote:
| It's worth noting that these numbers aren't great indicators
| of sound quality. A 70 dB SNR is perfectly fine for listening
| to music. Listening and recording environments often have a
| worse acoustic SNR than that. Instruments are often recorded
| with converters and digital/analog effects that have a < 100
| dB SNR, and they're often further compressed/distorted.
|
| Still, I agree that vinyl is nowhere close to ideal in terms
| of sound quality. I enjoy it in spite of that.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not arguing vinyl is a superior format,
| personally I strongly believe a humble (and typical) 16bit
| 44.1 KHz "consumer cd" type ready for delivery digital file
| is for 99.9% of listener use cases completely fine, and in
| any case far superior over any practical analog medium
| including vinyl. This is why I added "perceived" to the
| supposed technical advantages of vinyl. From the audio
| quality point of view, to me there is no point to using vinyl
| even if the chain is fully analog. It's just a funny thought
| to me that whatever claims of analog superiority (however
| fake or misguided they may be) are undone anyway by the
| digital part of the chain.
| zepolen wrote:
| Vinyl is analog, this means it has infinity SNR, the audio
| store salesman assured me this before I purchased a $20,000+
| pickup. You do not understand music, my hdmi cables cost
| $1,000, so as you can see, I understand music.
| dfghjs wrote:
| ~Gold~ plated HDMI cables?
| Ekaros wrote:
| I only accept gold plated optical cables...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| You see the same stupid "analog is better" shit among
| photographers, even today.
|
| Digital SLRs (even APS-frame-size ones) surpassed the best
| 35mm film money could buy (retail or even "professional") in
| the mid 2000's in terms of resolution at a given ISO, dynamic
| range, and even focus (a digital sensor can be flatter than a
| piece of film ever could be, thus ensuring consistent focus
| across the entire film plane.) I'm sure the boys at the CIA
| and whatnot had much fancier film for their cameras, but even
| they went digital a long, long time ago.
|
| Even back in the mid 2000's retail-available sensors were
| starting to approach theoretical quantum limits in efficiency
| of turning photons into a state change on the sensor well
| they strike. These days some cameras are just stunning with
| what they can do with the tiniest amount of available light.
|
| Digital is cheaper past a fairly low number of photos, has no
| per-shot expenditure, you can store tens of thousands of
| photos on something the size of a thumbnail, you get instant
| review of things like exposure and "did anyone blink", you
| can instantly back up the photo to multiple sources (most mid
| to high level digital SLRs have provisions for mirroring
| photos to a second card), you can do focus stacking and HDR
| and panoramas so easily many cameras can do it internally,
| you can instantly transmit the photos around the world as
| many cameras have wifi built-in and apps for smartphones that
| work with it, film and print development is slow, cumbersome,
| very difficult to do consistently and usually involves pretty
| toxic chemicals and fair amount of dedicated space.
|
| And yet there are still assholes, fifteen years after film
| was eclipsed, who will stroke their goatee and tell you why
| their Pentax K1000 with _insert film you 've never heard of_
| is "better." I can make the stuff coming out of my digital
| camera look just like the shit coming out of their camera,
| only in a fraction of the time, for less cost.
| david38 wrote:
| Wow. That's just laughable. There are some benefits to
| film, but digital can mimic them all.
|
| With film you have to think about your pictures a little
| more because you can shoot 400 shots per role. Trivial to
| use a tiny memory card.
|
| With film, you can put your negatives in a box and never
| lose them, compared to the hell of always managing digital
| storage. Surely you can get slides made from digital files.
|
| With film, each type has its own characteristics, all of
| which are copyable in software.
| 13415 wrote:
| I've often heard the claim that these limitations are the
| reason why some older record sound better than CD. During the
| loudness wars CDs were so aggressively limited, all while the
| bass content was driven up, that these would make a needle jump
| out of the track. A vinyl master requires more subtle
| preparation, controlled bass and stereo image, less dynamic
| compression.
| klelatti wrote:
| Another theory - CDs popularity was always mainly about
| convenience and not sound quality. They lose out massively to
| streaming on this.
|
| Streaming leaves music fans with money left over to spend and
| they buy vinyl to have something nice looking to put on the shelf
| (and play occasionally).
| WalterBright wrote:
| I prefer CDs to vinyl because:
|
| 1. higher dynamic range needed for classical music
|
| 2. don't have to clean the disk every time I play it
|
| 3. doesn't skip
|
| 4. no snap crackle pop that happens even on the first play
|
| 5. vinyl takes up too much space
|
| 6. the needle doesn't turn into a furball after a few plays
|
| 7. the needle doesn't need to be replaced after 300 plays
|
| 8. the speakers don't cause feedback with the needle
|
| 9. you don't need to tread softly lest the needle picks that up
|
| mp3s, however, trump CDs.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > dynamic range
|
| > mp3s, however, trump CDs.
|
| What? If CD's have better dynamic range than vinyl then how
| does mp3 trump CDs?
| WalterBright wrote:
| With high quality mp3s, dynamic range is no longer a
| perceptible difference.
| kaetemi wrote:
| Thought experiment. WAV vs MP3 at the same bit rate. At a
| low bit rate, which one is better? At a high bit rate?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Because at a certain bitrate it is impossible for listeners
| to distinguish it from the uncompressed audio. I think at
| 160kbit for mp3 damn near 99% of the population couldn't
| tell even with a very high quality set of gear.
|
| With AAC and other modern codecs it's probably closer to
| 128.
|
| For me the biggest annoyance is that some bluetooth audio
| codecs are pretty trash (thankfully most everything
| supports the ones that are decent), you can't configure any
| of it or even tell what codec has been negotiated between
| your phone and stereo, and I don't think any car company
| publishes what codecs their radios support.
| klelatti wrote:
| I used to agree with this but even with my (quite old)
| ears can hear the difference between high bitrate
| compressed audio and lossless on (eg) Apple Music - I
| wonder if other aspects of the audio have improved and no
| longer mask the differences?
| klelatti wrote:
| If you buy vinyl to put on the shelf 5. becomes an advantage
| and the others are purely theoretical!
| WalterBright wrote:
| I have a lot of vinyl. The consumption of space in my house
| is a significant problem. The CDs are much less of a
| problem, and streaming/mp3s are no problem at all.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| What I want to know is, if CDs are so unpopular now, why is it so
| hard to find used CDs for sail? I can buy DVDs and BluRays off of
| craigslist for cheaper than CDs...
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Not sure but, but music has higher repeatability than movies.
| Amazon is an option for used.
| cosmotic wrote:
| Wait till the Gen-Z-ers discover CDs where with superior sound,
| durability, and the ability to skip tracks.
| sidpatil wrote:
| I'm all about CDs. I can play them in my car without worrying
| about battery levels or data caps.
| [deleted]
| philistine wrote:
| I understand the people buying Vinyl. It's a beautiful piece of
| decorated cardboard. It has a sentimental effect on you.
|
| But who is still buying CDs?
| sys_64738 wrote:
| I only buy CDs and haven't bought an LP since 1992.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| I started collecting vinyl as a preteen in the mid 2000s because
| I was (and still am) into rave music and at that time vinyl was
| THE format to find it on.
|
| I'm not sure if I got in before the greater vinyl revival, but I
| wonder if it will prove to have just been a bubble, or if there
| are really enough audiophiles, DJs, etc to keep it going once the
| hipster chic wears off (if it hasn't already)
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I initially thought that because the graph cites "Revenues by
| format" that it likely meant that CDs were still selling more
| units than vinyl records. But it appears that's not the case. At
| least according to another RIAA doc, in 1H 2021 they shipped
| 16.1m CDs and 17m LP/EPs.
|
| https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Mid-Year-202...
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| ...in the USA.
| CarVac wrote:
| I can't trust CDs or digital downloads to not be Loudness War
| mastered.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| This is changing. You can actually thank youtube and spotify
| for the win here. Since they normalize volumes, there's no
| point to try and make things as high volume as possible. you're
| actually better making a fuller sounding track that uses the
| dynamic range.
| glenstein wrote:
| You're right, and that's genuine good work by YouTube and
| spotify. I wonder, though, if that practice has had any
| ripple effect into recorded mediums such as cds?
| moogly wrote:
| Many vinyl releases use the digital master.
| CarVac wrote:
| And yet the newly released album I just bought has plenty of
| dynamic range on the vinyl and heavily clipped FLAC
| downloads.
| moogly wrote:
| I'm glad you like that particular album. You used the word
| "trust". Just pointing out that you can't always trust the
| audio that was cut to vinyl to not just be the same old
| "loudness war" master.
|
| However, as someone else pointed out, the peak (heh) of the
| "loudness war" has been over for a while now.
|
| That doesn't mean there aren't new albums (be it on vinyl
| or CD, or lossless digital) that are still terribly mixed
| and mastered.
|
| After all, it's easier than ever to get your music to be
| published these days.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This is often overlooked. In many cases vinyl gives much better
| dynamic range than CD or WEB rips.
| shampto3 wrote:
| Like a lot of people, I don't buy a lot of music anymore now that
| streaming is so easy. But when I do buy music, I buy a vinyl. And
| it's not because of the sound quality, because I can't tell the
| difference.
|
| I buy vinyl because I like having a large version of the album
| artwork. Most vinyl albums come with a digital copy of the music,
| which is what I use to actually listen to the album (if not on a
| streaming platform). I rarely listen to the actual vinyl version.
|
| There's not really a reason for me to buy a CD. I can just buy
| the digital version and store it on my Plex server if I want just
| the music. If I want the physical copy, I want it to look really
| nice so I go with vinyl.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I don't normally like to do self promotion on this site, but
| this is the exact reason why me and my team (mostly me) created
| Vinylr.
|
| Instead of just getting a digital download, we provide a full
| size copy of the album art minus the actual record, and we give
| you a slightly lower quality version of the digital download
| with some random crackles and pops added in with advanced AI to
| simulate the vinyl listening experience.
|
| For an additional 20 dollars, we cut down a tree and set it on
| fire for you.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > Most vinyl albums come with a digital copy of the music
|
| Been a while. What does that mean? They put a download URL or
| cheap SD Card in the package?
| drdrey wrote:
| If you buy a vinyl through Bandcamp, the album automatically
| gets added to your account, which is pretty neat.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| Depends
|
| Most come with a URL and a download code.
|
| Bandcamo automatically gives you the digital if you buy a
| record through the service.
|
| Amazon used to have "auto rip" where you could download the
| digital from Amazon music if you bought some records from
| them. I haven't seen that in a while though
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| It sounds silly, but I find it extremely comforting to know I
| can play back my vinyl using entirely mechanical components.
|
| I don't expect the world to forget how to decode mp3s, or even
| loose the ability to generate electric to power my
| computers/storage to retrieve it. But, in the event all
| technology collapsing I've got a vibration trapped in a piece
| of vinyl, and I can play back by scraping a nail over it.
| There's something quite beautifully "pure" or simple about
| this. As much as analogue audio tape is doing similar, vinyl is
| a physical waveform.
|
| Sure, in any world where this could happen there's going to be
| far more important things to worry about than playing back Paul
| Simon, but it seems easier to believe I could build a
| gramophone from first principals than a CD player. Comforting.
| bombcar wrote:
| Vinyl is one of those things that is at the limit of human
| scale but still accessible - without any power you can spin a
| record and "hear" it by putting your ear near the needle.
|
| Both cassettes and CDs go out of human scale and into
| technology.
| Symbiote wrote:
| They should really start selling CDs in 30x30cm cardboard
| cases. The best of both.
|
| Or even, a 30x30cm print on thick canvas, with a download code
| on the back.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| This comes up every year. It's not true.
|
| It's only true _by value_ , because records cost a lot more than
| CDs do.
|
| By unit sales, CDs are still outselling records, and both are
| irrelevant when compared to streaming revenue.
| klelatti wrote:
| This may have been true last year but is no longer true - see
| comment by lastofthemojito
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| As a musician, I've always been just used CDs as a surface for
| which people can feel good about giving me a bigger tip at the
| small places I play; lots of folks are fine with high markups on
| merch, but won't tip musicians at all for some reason.
|
| I've been on vinyl albums... I don't think they are great for a
| lot of reasons. They do encourage folks to give you money,
| though. And they certainly show a commitment to artistry that CDs
| never quite had.
|
| If you just want the music, streaming is better on almost every
| front. If you collect them and need to move, they get to be super
| heavy. They are bad for the environment. Your acoustics are
| probably the limiting factor in your listening environment, so on
| and so forth.
|
| It's an interesting moment to mark, to me, not because vinyl is
| selling more, but because the industry is doing so poorly in
| general that the relatively niche format has overtaken what was
| the dominant physical medium for decades.
|
| That is to say, this is the point where we might understand
| physical recording distribution to have finally died.
| xondono wrote:
| > And they certainly show a commitment to artistry that CDs
| never quite had.
|
| To me that's one of the ironies of the whole thing. Producing
| vinyl records is way harder for a starting up musician.
|
| I don't know how hard is to get listed on Spotify/Apple Music,
| but I would be curious about if starting has become easier or
| harder in net terms.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| If you have the recordings it's pretty simple to toss some
| .wav files up on distrokid.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Adam Savage did a pretty cool tour video[0] where he went
| through the Third Man Record's vinyl production process. It's
| not a particularly deep dive into the processes used, but it
| gives a great idea of how much work it takes to publish truly
| analogue recordings. Plus, Jack White makes an appearance to
| chat about the ways digital recording shaped music
| production.
|
| I don't really like vinyl that much either, but I love music
| and simply can't help but respect the few people dedicated to
| such an arduous process.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF4A4wdnXkU
| dogman144 wrote:
| What you leave out is vinyls are a way to own music, not rent
| it.
|
| Then, between CDs, vinyl, and tapes, vinyls win out for the
| reasons you say and more, which generally summarize to ~better
| artistry/sound.
|
| You don't "have" the music if you're streaming it. You're
| renting it for $10.99/mo from Spotify, and routinely certain
| song access will drop from complete records on a streaming
| service for unknown reasons.
|
| Vinyl is a small but important way to properly incentive
| property ownership, and and I think that's why it's so popular
| at its root. Digital access is not digital ownership.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| For "ownership" vinyl does not win over CDs - a format
| doesn't need special storage, doesn't wear each time you play
| it, doesn't need maintenance...and has far better SNR and can
| be easily (and perfectly) ripped to portable data formats.
|
| I found my big CD wallet in my attic full of all my old CDs.
| It was all dusty and a bit moldy. Decided to re-rip a bunch
| of the CDs to AAC as I'd originally done so to mp3 at 160kbit
| way back in the 2000's.
|
| No issues reading any of them.
|
| Vinyl only wins if you're filthy rich because you make money
| just by having money (yay capital gains cuts!) and you need
| something to pump money into to impress yourself or your
| friends.
|
| I imagine it is a lot easier to jack off while looking at a
| $10,000, thirty pound marble platter turntable hooked up to a
| $5,000 tube amplifier, than it is the high-end twenty year
| old CD player you bought off craigslist for $40
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Vinyl only wins if you're filthy rich because you make
| money just by having money (yay capital gains cuts!) and
| you need something to pump money into to impress yourself
| or your friends
|
| You doing OK?
| dogman144 wrote:
| You can also buy a $20 vinyl album on $80 turntable with
| $20 speakers but what do I know.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| So clever, focusing on the hyperbolic sarcastic joke I
| made instead of my comments about how difficult vinyl is
| to store compared to a CD, or the fact that you degrade
| the record every time you listen to it, or the fact that
| vinyl has a fucking terrible SNR, or how easy it is to
| perfectly rip a CD to whatever digital file format is
| popular for the day.
| dogman144 wrote:
| You really hate vinyl. Power to you. I missed it in the
| rest of the hyperbole, unfortunately.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| I have 500 records. I do well. I'm not rich.
|
| I, also, have no friends.
|
| I just love music, love ritual, love big artwork that takes
| up a space in my life.
|
| I have a modest turntable hooked to a modest receiver.
|
| You sound overly aggressive
| drpfenderson wrote:
| This is probably the main reason I tend to purchase my
| favorite music as vinyl. It is one of the few formats that is
| unencumbered by major patents, hardware requirements for the
| most basic listening, and roadblocks on the
| decryption/decoding side. If I want to hear a record in the
| most dire of circumstances, I can manually spin it with my
| hands and use a needle and paper sheet shaped into a cone.
| The record is, itself, a visual waveform representation of
| the music in one of its most straightforward forms.
|
| The power can be out, no batteries around, no computer in
| sight, and I can still handcrank my music on a portable set.
| And I own it, DRM-free.
|
| And, as mentioned above, most records now come with a code
| for a digital copy of the album. Best of both worlds.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| "I could listen to it with a needle and paper sheet taped
| into a cone while spinning the record with my hands" has to
| be about the dumbest justification for buying vinyl I've
| ever heard.
|
| The chances of society deteriorating to the point where an
| mp3 player running off a rechargeable AA battery isn't
| achievable are slim to none, and even if they do get to
| that point, I think you're going to be far more concerned
| about the basic business of staying alive.
| drpfenderson wrote:
| Well, the main reason, as I stated, is ideological. That
| it is not encumbered by patents, like mp3 is/was. The
| "paper cone" example was the most extreme hyperbole that
| came to mind. I just think it's neat that I would still
| have tunes, even in that extreme, unlikely situation.
|
| However, in response to that: This past winter my
| apartment went without power for over 3 days, thanks to
| frost damage taking out major parts of our grid. UPC ran
| out of power in a couple hours, phones near the end of
| the day, any rechargables near mid-second-day. It was
| really nice to have the hand-crank player with built-in
| speaker while huddled up under a heavy blanket and
| reading. The same experience even more recently while
| staying at a fairly remote cabin, without streaming,
| signal, or convenient power. Had board games, a handful
| of records, and a nice lantern. Good times.
| nine_k wrote:
| Another thing is that vinyl discs, the actual discs, can be
| made incredibly fancy. Various colors, translucence, patterns,
| etc. Just look what kind of vinyls people now offer on
| bandcamp.
|
| CDs, due to their nature, can't be made as gimmicky, so vinyls
| are a better conversation item and a better collector value,
| among other things.
| tzfld wrote:
| Optical discs may not be that costumizable, but you can still
| have some options with them too. For example:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_compact_disc
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "Alone Together" (Dave Mason) is a great example of that.
|
| (No, I don't have that one anymore. Great record, though.)
| agumonkey wrote:
| Some youtube guitar teacher said the streaming generation is
| even less commited than the CD era. The kids come up with a
| spotify generated playlist and ask "how to play .. that".
| oblio wrote:
| The thing is, it doesn't matter. In the age of the internet
| any remotely interesting has an order of magnitude more
| practitioners, just because the barriers to entry are so low.
| agumonkey wrote:
| 5 passionated students vs 1000 bored ones ?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Vinyl is about active listening. Yes, it's much easier to put
| on a CD or stream the music, but when I want to sit down and
| really listen to the music... Vinyl is the perfect medium for
| that ritual. It's about the more visceral experience, not the
| fidelity or simplicity.
| squarefoot wrote:
| How good is the quality of newly reissued vinyl of old material?
| I'm not making comparisons to digital or CD versions but to old
| vinyl issues. The reason is that I heard from multiple sources
| that new vinyl records quality isn't on par with original ones.
| Did anyone experience that? If true, might it be related to new
| records being printed off a mastering copy that was intended for
| CDs?
| philistine wrote:
| I know one recent example: Billie Eilish's record was supposed
| to sound bad on vinyl because it was not mastered for the
| format. If it happened to her, I'm sure it happens all the
| time.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I thought I'd posted this, but now I don't see it, so:
|
| I bought 100 boxes for shipping records, and listed my collection
| on Discogs. Now I've used up all the boxes.
|
| For me, I digitized the ones I wanted, and now they're on a
| microSD card in my phone. That works for me, since I can play it
| in the car, but I'm happy that someone who really wanted the
| vinyl now has it. I know I never played them.
|
| A brand new vinyl record? I doubt it's worth it, but hey, if
| that's what you like, go for it.
| filoleg wrote:
| My personal pet theory: CDs were kind of like an in-between
| format between vinyls (nice and feel good, but inconvenient and
| not as mobile) and hard digital storage/streaming (zero feeling,
| because it is just digital files on your storage device or
| streamed to you, but super convenient on the go). Until we all
| got devices that became able to stream music or upload music to
| it, CD addressed the mobility problem. But streaming/file storage
| is definitely a way more mobile and convenient solution than CDs
| in every way.
|
| With a more convenient option such as streaming, all the benefits
| that CD provided over vinyl became meaningless, as streaming/file
| storage beat it in every aspect. But vinyl still stayed, as it
| provides something that neither CDs nor streaming/digital file
| storage can provide. So as CDs got wiped as a medium, vinyl rose
| back.
|
| I have observed a similar situation in a completely different
| industry too. More specifically, with book stores. Before big
| bookstore chains, we had a lot of independent small book stores
| (following my earlier analogy, the vinyl). Big chain book stores
| started appearing and dominating, such as Barnes&Noble (the CD),
| squeezing out smaller independent book stores. Then came Amazon
| (the streaming/digital file storage, still following my earlier
| analogy with music), wiped the floor with the in-betweener medium
| (Barnes&Noble), and the number of small independent book stores
| (vinyl) has increased over that entire time period as the in-
| betweener got wiped. For specific numbers, the number of small
| independent book stores in the US has increased by about 50% over
| the past decade (from around 1,600 to 2,500)[0].
|
| Unlike with the in-betweener formats, the original ones will
| always have something to provide that the future iteration of a
| "more advanced format" (CD=>streaming) won't be able to provide.
| And with this in mind, I am happy, as it indicates that physical
| books and vinyls will be here to stay (albeit not for mainstream
| usage, but as personal preference pieces for enthusiasts). This
| isn't some hard rule that is guaranteed to be the case forever,
| but the current numbers and observations seem to support the idea
| that this trend will likely last for quite a long time, beyond
| lifetimes of people currently alive. That's just a pure guess
| based on the gut feeling.
|
| 0. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2020/02/12/how-
| indi...
| allturtles wrote:
| Vinyl was actually (mostly) killed by cassette tapes, then CDs
| replaced those because of greater fidelity and instant seek
| times.[0] Though it really took the emergence of writable CDs
| to totally kill cassettes, since you couldn't replace the 'mix
| tape' use case until then.
|
| 0. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/annual-recorded-music-
| sales-b...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| No, cassette audio quality is noticably inferior to vinyl.
| They had a strength in convenience/mobility. The original
| Walkman mobile music player was a cassette player. Cassette
| players were popular in cars, and portable "boom boxes." Most
| people I knew bought their music on vinyl and made cassette
| copies or mix tapes to play in their car or otherwise on the
| go. Cassettes did not seriously threaten vinyl sales at least
| not that I remember. The vinyl killer was the CD.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Makes sense to me. If you're going to collect music in the form
| of physical objects, then it might as well be physically encoded.
|
| Otherwise, you can just fill a hard drive with FLACs and make
| backups. CDs are in the "uncanny valley" of digital, but
| impermanent.
| criddell wrote:
| I still buy CDs for a lot of the same reasons people buy vinyl.
|
| * I like the physical interaction with my music (choosing the
| CD, putting it in the player, pressing play and getting 40-60
| minutes of music)
|
| * I like the artwork and liner notes (although the larger
| format of records wins there)
|
| * I like the record store experience
|
| I prefer CDs to vinyl because they sound better IMHO, are more
| durable, can be backed up and re-burned as needed, and are
| (slightly) smaller.
| p1mrx wrote:
| If the music industry could figure out a model where you
| bring a vinyl record to the store, and they give you a
| lossless digital copy, then that would be the best of both
| worlds. Basically the record serves as a physical license
| key.
|
| You could also have a smart turntable with a camera on it,
| that automatically cues the digital version of any known
| record.
| criddell wrote:
| A lot of records come with download codes already.
|
| People who want a physical way of interacting with their
| digital collection have done things like print tiny record
| sleeves that contain an NFC chip. Hold the sleeve up to
| your reader (like your phone) and that triggers the the
| songs on that record to play.
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