Vinyl making a comeback ?

Manfred-Klose

http://theweek.com/article/index/254901/the-baffling-revival-of-the-vinyl-lp

IceCreamMan

Shop near me just opened, sells vinyl and record players ONLY...

but its hellishly expensive , 400 rand odd for vinyl. I guess its considered cool an all but 400 rand is a lot of loot.

as an example the second Van Halen album is going for R520-00 or thereabouts. its crazy money

Chocklit_Thunda

Unfortunately, yes.... The worst part is that the rise is perpetrated by hipsters who have this belief that vinyl sounds better but they buy new editions from Musica instead of the old ones that have all the "mojo"...

Another unfortunate (or fortunate if you're the one selling) is that this hipster craze has jacked the prices of vinyl records sky high.... A few years ago when I was looking at Vinyl, I wouldn't have paid more than R6 for a run of the mill album and about R20 for something like Abbey Road.... Nowadays you see them going for over R500..... At least some people can profit from these hipsters' stupidity.... Good on those vinyl vendors! >☹ >☹ /rant

Edit: ^ICM hit the nail on the head! Hipsters are the new Infomercial buyers.....

Banditman

Didn't vinyl already make a comeback in the late '90s / early 2000s? Or did it go back out of fashion to come back into fashion again, to be a hipster fashion accessory?

So judging by the article, vinyl LPs have become the valve amplifier equivalents for devoted music listeners. Fair 'nuff.

studmissile

Vinyls had good support in the Europe for a while now, seems like only now we are catching on. But it is expensive.

AlanRatcliffe

It never really went away for some people - some audiophiles and DJs. Now it's moved into the realm of the fashionable, where any old tat can be adopted and popularised by the ruminati. It'll wear off...

Bob-Dubery

I think there's an element of fashion to this. I don't think that digital downloads are ipso facto crummy, but you can't play a vinyl disc via your smart phone and earbuds so the vinyl will come through better because you play it on better equipment. Which may not surprise some, but if you grew up listening to MP3s on a smart phone then it might.

I do think there is a sonic difference - but it's not necessarily about quality. There's physical constraints when you master to vinyl. A while back I posted about the Them Crooked Vultures album and how all the compression made it a most unpleasant listening experience. I bet they didn't add all that loudness to the vinyl - simply because they couldn't. That was a record that I wanted to like, think I could have liked but it was so damn tiring to listen to on CD. Maybe if I'd got the vinyl my experience would have been different.

I also know that some artists make special releases available on vinyl only. If you're marketing to the completists amongst your fan base then you probably have sure fire sales, can help some indy record dealers out and make a nice profit. In the USA there is a vinyl week each year organised by some association of independent dealers.

I do think that the experience of listening to music has changed with the transition from vinyl to CD. My mates and I used to carefully remove the disc from the sleeve (we knew how), put it on the turntable. 22 minutes or so later you'd have to flip it. That would be a useful pause for a cup of tea, some comments about the guitar playing or the sax solo... There was more of a ritual to it. We listened harder, I think. Maybe because you knew you had to maintain the concentration for a relatively short period of time. And the records, the good ones, were sequenced to flow pleasingly over two sides - so maybe you got more loud and soft, more fast and slow, more contrast.

Bob-Dubery

Nostalgia sells too. Steam train rides are doing well. People like vintage cars. They like to watch re-runs of Casablanca or The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Maybe vinyl is part of that dynamic.

I do recall watching an episode of Top Gear in which they were rattling on about E-type Jags and gullwing Mercs and all those other famous sports cars. They don't make them like that any more. No they don't! Clarkson pointed out the truth - modern sports cars are faster, handle better, stop better, don't break down nearly as much, are more comfortable and generally less likely to kill you. Nostalgia is not entirely logical.

Bob-Dubery

And booooo on the streaming. >☹ There's a thing that will kill musicians, though maybe not the music companies. The figures are out there. Artists make diddly from streaming. If you want to support artists and not just the company that makes the product available then don't stream. Artists get revenue from the likes of iTunes as they do from actual CD sales, but they get very little (and then only if they are very popular) from streaming.

Something I heard a while back from a guy who writes on music is that a lot of CD sales don't get counted because the labels are bypassed. Artists will have their own boutique labels and will sell discs at shows and via mail order that are not available in retail sales (sometimes the artists contract means they can't put these discs in the retail stores). So that's sales and money for the artist, but the record industry auditors may not even know about this. I've read that there are several alt.country acts who ONLY work this way, who never had and do not want a contract with an actual label. They sell, but the accountants and the chart compilers don't know about it at all.

Psean

X-rated Bob wrote

I do think there is a sonic difference - but it's not necessarily about quality. There's physical constraints when you master to vinyl. A while back I posted about the Them Crooked Vultures album and how all the compression made it a most unpleasant listening experience. I bet they didn't add all that loudness to the vinyl - simply because they couldn't. That was a record that I wanted to like, think I could have liked but it was so damn tiring to listen to on CD. Maybe if I'd got the vinyl my experience would have been different.

+1
Same with some White Stripes stuff. Many others too I'm sure.
Then there are others that I've A/B'ed good vinyl pressings against well mastered digital stuff (WYWH 2011 remaster) and my ears tell no difference. I'm sure better trained ears would notice though.

I do think that the experience of listening to music has changed with the transition from vinyl to CD. My mates and I used to carefully remove the disc from the sleeve (we knew how), put it on the turntable. 22 minutes or so later you'd have to flip it. That would be a useful pause for a cup of tea, some comments about the guitar playing or the sax solo... There was more of a ritual to it. We listened harder, I think. Maybe because you knew you had to maintain the concentration for a relatively short period of time. And the records, the good ones, were sequenced to flow pleasingly over two sides - so maybe you got more loud and soft, more fast and slow, more contrast.

Yup.
Also, having the artwork and liner notes so much bigger is a huge bonus to me.

Squonk

Psean wrote
X-rated Bob wrote

I do think there is a sonic difference - but it's not necessarily about quality. There's physical constraints when you master to vinyl. A while back I posted about the Them Crooked Vultures album and how all the compression made it a most unpleasant listening experience. I bet they didn't add all that loudness to the vinyl - simply because they couldn't. That was a record that I wanted to like, think I could have liked but it was so damn tiring to listen to on CD. Maybe if I'd got the vinyl my experience would have been different.
+1
Same with some White Stripes stuff. Many others too I'm sure.
Then there are others that I've A/B'ed good vinyl pressings against well mastered digital stuff (WYWH 2011 remaster) and my ears tell no difference. I'm sure better trained ears would notice though.

I do think that the experience of listening to music has changed with the transition from vinyl to CD. My mates and I used to carefully remove the disc from the sleeve (we knew how), put it on the turntable. 22 minutes or so later you'd have to flip it. That would be a useful pause for a cup of tea, some comments about the guitar playing or the sax solo... There was more of a ritual to it. We listened harder, I think. Maybe because you knew you had to maintain the concentration for a relatively short period of time. And the records, the good ones, were sequenced to flow pleasingly over two sides - so maybe you got more loud and soft, more fast and slow, more contrast.
Yup.
Also, having the artwork and liner notes so much bigger is a huge bonus to me.

Depends on what pressing you get. We have listened to a South African copy of Love over Gold, and to my ear the LP sounds a lot warmer and more distinction of the instruments. But the System we played it through was over 100k

Squonk

Squonk wrote
Depends on what pressing you get. We have listened to a South African copy of Love over Gold, and to my ear the LP sounds a lot warmer and more distinction of the instruments. But the System we played it through was over 100k

We experimented with a couple of old LP's, South African and Imported and some of the SA discs were better quality but generally not as good as the imported ones.

Also listened to Christopher Cross's first Album with Sailing etc, LP definately sounded better. Well to my rather prog rock fried ears ?

But I must stress that the audio setup was High End stuff

Psean

Squonk wrote
Psean wrote
X-rated Bob wrote

I do think there is a sonic difference - but it's not necessarily about quality. There's physical constraints when you master to vinyl. A while back I posted about the Them Crooked Vultures album and how all the compression made it a most unpleasant listening experience. I bet they didn't add all that loudness to the vinyl - simply because they couldn't. That was a record that I wanted to like, think I could have liked but it was so damn tiring to listen to on CD. Maybe if I'd got the vinyl my experience would have been different.
+1
Same with some White Stripes stuff. Many others too I'm sure.
Then there are others that I've A/B'ed good vinyl pressings against well mastered digital stuff (WYWH 2011 remaster) and my ears tell no difference. I'm sure better trained ears would notice though.

I do think that the experience of listening to music has changed with the transition from vinyl to CD. My mates and I used to carefully remove the disc from the sleeve (we knew how), put it on the turntable. 22 minutes or so later you'd have to flip it. That would be a useful pause for a cup of tea, some comments about the guitar playing or the sax solo... There was more of a ritual to it. We listened harder, I think. Maybe because you knew you had to maintain the concentration for a relatively short period of time. And the records, the good ones, were sequenced to flow pleasingly over two sides - so maybe you got more loud and soft, more fast and slow, more contrast.
Yup.
Also, having the artwork and liner notes so much bigger is a huge bonus to me.

Depends on what pressing you get. We have listened to a South African copy of Love over Gold, and to my ear the LP sounds a lot warmer and more distinction of the instruments. But the System we played it through was over 100k

Yeah, I've unfortunately never had much opportunity to listen through such high end kit.

And +1 on the different pressings. Jeez, there are some flimsy discs out there.

Gearhead

Psean wrote I'm sure better trained ears would notice though.

Having done quite a bit of double blind A/B with high end stuff and (unfortunately for my wallet) having been given ears that can consistently pick up the difference between the one audiophile cable and the other, I can testify that one can pick up vinyl tone from a mile away, blindfolded, with cheese in one ear, gum in the other and two blankets over the speakers. Not necessarily bad, just noisy and much better than MP3 at whatever bitrate.
Maybe the people who buy vinyl these days just want to improve over their cellphone download into R120 earplugs. Good idea.

Psean

Must have cheese in my ears then. Either that or the systems I've listened on don't show up the differences. Although they're not audiophile quality, they're not crap. Planning on some more A/B'ing again to see if the cheese has dislodged in the last year or so,

Jayhell

I like the idea of some bands like Queens of the stone age that if yo buy the vinyl you get a free download voucher. then you got the awesome vinyl and the mp3s on your phone/computer/whatnot.

I personally haven't owned a vinyl in my life, I am from the CD generation that said goodbye to tapes and welcomed mp3s. I would like to own some, just all my favorite albums and I'll probably mount them on my wall.

Psean

Jayhell wrote I like the idea of some bands like Queens of the stone age that if yo buy the vinyl you get a free download voucher. then you got the awesome vinyl and the mp3s on your phone/computer/whatnot.

Yup. Most new vinyl pressings that I've bought came with a download code. Can't listen to a vinyl record in the car, and most cars don't have tape decks anymore so it makes a lot of sense.

singemonkey

And don't underestimate the awesomeness of the record sleeve. No other music format quite has the same sense of being a package - a little box of treasure. You wander around reading the album notes and grokking the cover as you listen. Covers could be elaborate because of the large format. Now everything has to be visible at 500x500 on your phone or ipod, so details are lost.

Vinyl isn't just about audio quality. It's also about the experience.

Note: The word hipster has become meaningless when it refers to people buying Van Halen albums... ?

Psean

singemonkey wrote And don't underestimate the awesomeness of the record sleeve. No other music format quite has the same sense of being a package - a little box of treasure. You wander around reading the album notes and grokking the cover as you listen. Covers could be elaborate because of the large format. Now everything has to be visible at 500x500 on your phone or ipod, so details are lost.

Vinyl isn't just about audio quality. It's also about the experience.

+1
It's a big reason I like vinyl.

Bob-Dubery

singemonkey wrote And don't underestimate the awesomeness of the record sleeve. No other music format quite has the same sense of being a package - a little box of treasure. You wander around reading the album notes and grokking the cover as you listen. Covers could be elaborate because of the large format. Now everything has to be visible at 500x500 on your phone or ipod, so details are lost.

Vinyl isn't just about audio quality. It's also about the experience.

Well yes. Unless you buy box sets now there's nothing like getting your hands on and then opening FOR THE FIRST TIME a copy of Yes Songs or Thick as a Brick. Even if it's a box set the booklets are pretty skinny.

Album sleeves presented all sorts of fun and interest. Sometimes the packaging was more interesting than the contents.

I think CD packaging has improved, but the size constraints mean that it will never be as good as we used to get.

Downloads.... sometimes you get quite good packaging with them, but often you get somewhere between zero and zilch.