Posted on 09/07/2019 9:08:03 AM PDT by fidelis
Sales of vinyl records have enjoyed constant growth in recent years. At the same time, CD sales are in a nosedive. Last year, the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) mid-year report suggested that CD sales were declining three times as fast as vinyl sales were growing. In February, the RIAA reported that vinyl sales accounted for more than a third of the revenue coming from physical releases.
This trend continues in RIAA’s 2019 mid-year report, which came out on Thursday. Vinyl records earned $224.1 million (on 8.6 million units) in the first half of 2019, closing in on the $247.9 million (on 18.6 million units) generated by CD sales. Vinyl revenue grew by 12.8% in the second half of 2018 and 12.9% in the first six months of 2019, while the revenue from CDs barely budged. If these trends hold, records will soon be generating more money than compact discs.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
Go real old school - Victrola.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT5DzQVBeuY
It looks nice in the living room.
My understanding of reel to reel is that the tapes degrade with time, whereas with vinyl, if kept cool, will last indefinitely.
With vinyl, it's a whole wonderful experience. Good sounds, artwork, poetry, liner notes about the musicians. The best of it is cultural treasure.
I do think that is one of the appeals of vinyl records, the issue of sound quality aside. Handling the album and playing the record on the turn table is a tactile experience and the album covers and liner notes add to the experience-- more so than on a tiny CD, let alone a bodiless digital version.
I guess you can compare it to the preference that many people have for physical books over e-books. It is part of the experience.
A few years ago my cousin showed me the difference between digital and vinyl and daaamn, the difference was incredible. Two copies of the same song “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon, he had the CD copy and the vinyl record copy and both went through the same system to speakers and the CD did not even compare to the insane fidelity of the vinyl. It was like the difference between hearing the band live and hearing it recorded. It’s a real shame vinyl went out
throw in some glowing tube amps and you have old school experience.
Buyback stores do a thriving business: Half-Price Books, CD Exchange, etc.
After selling all my LPs before I went to college in ‘84, then moving to CDs after graduation, then moving to MP3s and on to lossless FLAC, I’ve started buying my old LPs again. Might not sound quite as clean, definitely requires a lot more space and more careful handling, but there’s nothing like sitting in front of my turntable with my headphones on, looking at the large format album art and lyrics, and watching the vinyl spin.
Or go to Youtube and download them from videos for free using a video to mp3 converter like this.......
Millions of people do this every day, it’s blatant copyright infringement by Google (which owns Youtube) but the Rat/RINO uniparty of treason doesn’t care as long as Google pays them off.
Google makes BILLIONS in ads every year from this from the millions of copyrighted songs and copyrighted movies that are illegally uploaded to THEIR website that anyone can download for free and nobody does anything about it.
If Trump wants to break up Google, that’s the way to do it. Go after them for massive copyright infringement then let’s see just how eager Google will be to “influence the election”.
My thoughts exactly. I've spent many happy hours doing this very thing.
Digital is for people who cannot handle reality....
...or don’t like hearing hissing, static skipping and pops in their reality
One of my professors had a great analogy for analog vs. digital. He said imagine you’re planning a wedding and you want to have the finest cake made by a renowned French bakery. The problem is how to get the delicate cake to the USA. You basically have two choices. The French bakery can bake it in France and then you fly it over on the Concord. Or you have the French bakery mail their recipe to a local USA bakery and have it baked here. Both methods have their plusses and minuses as far as putting a cake on the table that’s true to what would come out of the oven in France.
Our graduation gift to our son was a record player. His guitar teacher helped us find a find a good one.
There's plenty of tube receivers and tube phono preamps to choose from these days and at all price points from <$100 cheap Chinese to $8k McIntosh systems. There's a lot of boutique builders cranking out tube receivers at the $1000 or so price point.
If the difference was dramatic then it was probably because the recordings were mastered differently.
I have an RCA console from the early 60’s. Speakers left and right with AM/FM Turntable. 33-45-78.
It was Moms.
I did. And experts also.
BLIND tests also confirm you are wrong.
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