
Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 - ValentineC
https://www.nme.com/news/music/vinyl-set-outsell-cds-first-time-since-1986-2545781
======
tzs
Is anyone working on a reasonably priced turntable to play vinyl discs without
degrading them? In the mid '80s, Finial Technology announced such a turntable,
and had a working unit at CES in 1986.

It had a stylus that contained laser interferometers that could very
accurately and precisely measure the distance from the stylus to the grove
walls. It kept the stylus near, but _not_ touching, the groove, getting the
audio signals from the variations in the distance to the groove.

In addition to not causing any wear, I remember reading an article back then
in one of the audiophile magazines that said it also made records that had
already been played many times on regular turntables and were degraded sound
new, because the Finial could use a part of the groove farther down than had
been used by the regular stylus, and so was not worn.

It was going to be pretty expensive, around $8000 at today's prices, so was
probably only going to be affordable to radio stations, archivists, and high
end audiophiles. Then they got hit with the double whammy of a major recession
and the rapid replacement of a large chunk of the vinyl market by CDs.

Finial was liquidated in 1989, and their patents ended up at a Japanese
company. Development continued in Japan, and eventually resulted in a product
[1]. They seem to be around $15000.

The Library of Congress and a couple of other places have a system that can
recover the sound for vinyl records and old wax cylinders what works by
photographing the grove through a confocal microscope. The thousands of
photographs are then analyzed to figure out the audio signal. This is still
research level stuff, I believe, not aimed toward producing a commercial
product, and so would be even farther out of reach for consumers than the
laser interferometer turntables are.

[1] [http://www.elpj.com/](http://www.elpj.com/)

~~~
renlo
My very limited understanding after talking to someone who was interested in
this stuff, is that people are concerned with quantizing of the signal, which
will happen with that laser solution. I’ve heard this is why audiophiles also
use magnetic tape. To be clear I heard this second hand and am not directly
familiar.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
A completely analog laser scanning solution is entirely practical. There's no
reason to sample it digitally.

But honestly, this seems like insane overkill. Vinyl has a ridiculously
limited dynamic range, and digital recording at 24/48 is practically
transparent even with low-end prosumer equipment. At the high end you have to
work quite hard to spend more than $4k on a spectacularly clean and neutral
studio-grade ADC/DAC. (You can spend more on madly expensive super-fi, but
it's not going to sound any cleaner than a good Burl, Lynx, or Metric box.)

So if you spend $4000 on the turntable/arm/pickup another $4000 on studio
grade converters, you can capture recordings that will be absolutely
indistinguishable from the vinyl source. And your precious plastic disks can
stay in their wrappers.

~~~
electrograv
As far as DACs are concerned, you’d be surprised: A few hundred dollars (e.g.
Topping D50) can get you drastically better performance than many multi-
thousand dollar “audiophile DACs”:

[https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/m...](https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/master-
sinad-distortion-comparison-graph-for-dacs.4814/)

Now as far as speakers are concerned, yes, you’ll need to spend at least a few
thousand for a stereo pair capable of doing justice to this level of precision
and dynamic range.

~~~
lagadu
Ah yes, ASR. The place where a DAC or amp having a -100db SINAD means it's a
terrible piece of hardware despite it being well below the threshold of human
listening and the noise floor of the best recording and tube amps, who have
significantly higher distortion, are considered terrible because of it despite
the vast majority of people who actually listen to them liking them far more
than some of the most beloved hardware at ASR (I'm looking at you THX and
Topping hardware).

I belived in their swansong and bought into it up until recently, then I tried
"terrible" hardware and dear God it sounds so much better.

------
jarjoura
I think there’s some confusion in here that everyone buying vinyl is repeating
the habits of our parents and grandparents. I think there’s this misconception
we’re buying records of whatever the latest hit band is with only 3 good songs
and mostly filler.

Vinyl today is very much about the collecting of good music and taking part in
the physical ness of that collection. The b-side is just as good as the
A-side, even if the sound quality isn’t as perfect as the original studio
recording. It doesn’t need to be, and it has its own unique sound.

What I most love about the experience of owning vinyl is that it’s annoying to
pick one song. So you almost have to expect to put it on the first track and
listen to the entire set. It’s listening in the moment, since you can’t skip
and you have to be ready to flip the album over. I love it.

Also the experience of going to second hand stores to chat with fellow music
lovers and discover new artists feels very human to me. Even if Spotify can
recommend with precision, it mostly acts as background music since I don’t
have to pay attention.

Not saying this is everyone’s cup of tea, but as a music nerd, I’m happy with
my hobby.

~~~
rhcom2
> Also the experience of going to second hand stores to chat with fellow music
> lovers and discover new artists feels very human to me.

It's really fun to buy .50 cent records because you like the cover. I've
discovered some good music that way.

------
thinkmassive
By revenue, not by units sold.

Still interesting, and not really surprising based on my anecdotal experience
of artists I follow. Streaming audio is good enough for most sound systems
commonly in use.

Vinyl serves as a better collectible from a favorite artist for a few reasons.

    
    
      - more room for cover art
    
      - physical analog medium (superficial, but has value to some)
    
      - requires more care than CDs (proves the owner’s dedication to maintaining the collection)
    
      - limited production runs make it more scarce than easily copied CDs

~~~
reaperducer
I think the "good enough" phrase you used really touches on the reason vinyl
still exists.

Streaming is "good enough." But physical media is a different experience. It's
more intimate. You can touch, feel, and examine the music and the packaging.
Some bands (REM is one) even put Easter Eggs in their physical media that
can't be reproduced by digital.

Streaming is fine for when you want to fill your space with sound. Physical
media is for when you want to really enjoy the music. Read about what you're
listening to, see the artwork and photographs, and experience an album of
music on the order it was meant to be heard.

As one of many examples, a streaming service can play "Home by the Sea" by
Genesis. But I've never encountered one smart enough to then follow that with
"Second Home by the Sea," which is how the music was made to be heard. Some
services will even play "Second Home" on its own, which is jarring.

Music is one of the increasing number of areas where people are figuring out
that abdicating human curation for machine selection just isn't the same
thing.

~~~
cbdumas
> Physical media is for when you want to really enjoy the music.

Wow this is some condescending, pretentious nonsense. Also, every streaming
service I've ever used is perfectly capable of playing an album in order.

~~~
tomc1985
You're discounting the value of physically experiencing the media you're
consuming. Pretentious or not, it really is a different feeling, something
that streaming can't replicate.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I don't care about physically experiencing musical media. I grew out of that
in the 80s when I moved around a lot and had to keep moving multiple boxes of
vinyl up and down multiple flights of stairs.

If my FLAC collection was on vinyl I'd have to buy it a house of its own.
Moving would require a military budget and a series of strategic planning
meetings.

That would rather more physical experience than I care for.

~~~
tomc1985
I'm not saying one should listen to vinyl _exclusively_ , I agree that's
ridiculous. But it is important to maintain and curate a physical collection
of music -- wthether it's vinyl, CDs, FLAC, or MP3, and that is something that
streaming makes impossible.

~~~
haihaibye
Important to you. Not me

------
habosa
Vinyl is one of those old-school technologies that seems like it's from the
future. Somehow we turned sound into a disk. You can see and feel the sound
and then a tiny needle will reproduce the original sound just by touching the
disk. And in very high quality!

Blows me away every time I think about it. And we could have kept going:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc)

~~~
ofibrvev
Could have kept going...

The CED offers one hour of VHS quality per side that rapidly degenerates. I
own a sizeable collection of them, and while sorta neat, it’s also sorta
terrible.

The vinyl offers quality superior to most consumer tape equipment rivaled only
by 11 ips reel to reel. CED had no quality advantages, decays rapidly and is
non recordable. It was a non-starter.

The fact is that CED was in the works since the 50s when it may have had a
short successful life, but RCA couldn’t get off their ass. In fact CED was the
last consumer product ever released by RCA. (The RCA of today is just a badge
on various crap after being divested by Thomson Consumer Electronics)

Also even though CED uses a stylus, the similarities end there. You can
literally run your nail in a phono groove and hear the sound. It is a literal
imprint of the sound wave. Video cannot be encoded in such a straightforward
manner, NTSC and PAL are not trivially. Also the CED is not vibrating the
stylus. Rather the stylus sits on ridges and the signal is depth encoded
(therefore varying the capacitance, hence the name). It is much closer to a
crappy laser disc in operation (which also encodes in analog.. not digital)

~~~
dbcurtis
An old boss of mine worked on that beast! From the sounds of it, it barely
worked in the lab. He told a story of getting so frustrated one day that he
literally shoved his ‘scope off the back of the bench in frustration and
walked out for the day. In his opintion, it is a good thing that it is dead
and buried.

~~~
ofibrvev
I have dismantled the players. Truly a marvel of electromechanical design. So
many hand soldered and assembled parts. It is incredible they made it work
mass produced. Too bad it was 20 years too late.

------
tripzilch
So I've been thinking a lot about this video recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ2czFuIYmQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ2czFuIYmQ)

It talks about, demonstrates and measures the air quality around vinyl.
Apparently the things are leaching dangerous compounds into the air
constantly, especially when being played. It made his air quality measuring
device give an alarm, instead of just reporting the number of particles or
something.

I'm not sure, maybe it's just one of those thousands of every day life things
which are technically carcinogenic, or not. It made me pause personally
though, having recently lost a friend, who worked at a record store, died at a
young age to cancer, had otherwise always been a strong healthy man. I'm
actually more comfortable talking about this here, semi-anonymously, I don't
think it'd be wise to bring this up IRL with anyone, on account of it possibly
not having to do with anything. I kind of half-wish I hadn't seen the video.

~~~
skohan
I lost my dad to cancer last year, and I think it can be maddening to try to
unwind the causes. I think when you lose somebody, the natural impulse can be
to reach out for a cause, at least so you can understand it, and there's a
tendency to seize on any evidence or theory, no matter how weak, just to have
somewhere to lay down the blame.

So you might be right that vinyl records are dangerous, or maybe that had no
impact. In my opinion it's best for one's mental health to trust scientific
inquiry to tell us what's dangerous or not, and to leave everything else as an
open question.

~~~
consumer451
I just watched the GP video, and science does seem to support that vinyl
records are likely dangerous.

The video creator uses an air pollution meter[0] to find out that his records
are causing very high PM 2.5, VOC, and formaldehyde. The vinyl records seem to
only need to be taken out of their sleeves.

The results look shocking. There have to be some HN users who have the
knowledge and equipment to attempt to replicate this experiment. Please do
that and share!

[0] [https://youtu.be/aZ2czFuIYmQ?t=553](https://youtu.be/aZ2czFuIYmQ?t=553)

------
parsimo2010
CDs are dying, but they are mostly being killed by streaming services, not by
vinyl. Digital music formats are still the king by far. The vast majority of
people don't even care that their streamed music is lossy and they lose out on
high frequencies that their ears can't hear and their headphones can't
reproduce.

Vinyl appeals to hipsters and dumb audiophiles (there are smart audiophiles,
but they aren't buying vinyl), both communities that are prone to buying into
hype. Hipsters move on as soon as something becomes mainstream, and dumb
audiophiles will move on as soon as there is a more expensive option with
newer/cooler buzzwords attached to it. Cassette tapes could replace vinyl
someday as the hip alternative to digital music- it's retro and analog, plus
they are portable and don't skip/lose track during heavy movement (which a
record player would do if you could go jogging with one).

~~~
Aaronmacaron
Your conception of vinyl buyers is very negative. I think there's another
category of people that buy vinyl. If you really love an album and want to
support the artist you can purchase the vinyl version of the album. Apart from
supporting the artist you often get additional treats like a nice booklet with
the lyrics or additional art/imagery.

I really think there's extra value in buying vinyl apart from it being hip.

~~~
mytailorisrich
If you want to buy a physical medium then CDs are the obvious option because
objectively they are superior to vinyls in every aspects and they can also
come with nice booklets.

I think that the hip-value of vinyls is extremely important.

I write that as someone who had no choice but use vinyls and tapes until I got
a CD player...

~~~
aibara
CDs are just... awful. Nice booklets? You mean small booklets with tiny
pictures and even tinier text. And they come in what I consider one of the
most horrible containers of all time: the ugly and easily-broken jewel case.

Like vinyl, CDs can be scratched, but they sure don't degrade gracefully: the
nice pops of vinyl becomes jarring skips on a CD up to the point where the CD
just becomes unplayable.

Nowadays I have all my music on my computer, as files on the drive or from a
stream. But when it comes to wanting something physical, something I can hold
and look at (from the cover and extra material that comes with an LP to the
wonderful spinning of a record as the sound emerges), vinyl easily wins.

But maybe I'm weird, because even in the mid '90s as a teenager I thought
vinyl looked cool and was fun and fascinating to interact with. I hated CDs
and their cases so much I even converted all my CDs to minidisc! Happily I
kept them around until I ripped them to FLAC files.

~~~
filmor
Unless you happen to have scratched your CD really deeply to actually damage
the data layer (which requires grooves of 1mm in depth), it's fixable though,
a scratch in a vinyl is not.

Also, the last few albums that I bought did not come as jewel cases but
instead "fancy" cardboard cases.

~~~
Lio
When I worked as a DJ back in the 1990s I observed that if a 12” or LP skipped
you could momentarily turn off the tone arm bias and the extra inward force
would usually ride over the scratch as of it wasn’t there. With CDs you were
toast.

If a CD skipped then there was nothing you could do except stick another on
ASAP.

CDs are a very fragile medium. Especially so if you scratch the top printed
surface.

These days you’d do it all off a laptop with no moving parts and no skipping.

Protip number 2: always run your club system in mono. You can’t hear stereo in
a club and combining the L+R channels cancels out most feedback coming through
the stylus. Happy days.

------
stephencoyner
Vinyl is one of the best ways to feel like you actually "own" music in today's
streaming first world.

It's also a way to support underground artists who make art you appreciate -
from the music itself to the cover art and the arrangement of the tracklist.

In hip-hop there's been a few small vinyl producers making super high quality
vinyls for underground artists. They've gained a cult like following and can
continuously sell out of 1500-2000 records at $60 per within an hour of
release.

Those interested should check out...

Daupe [https://daupe.bandcamp.com/music](https://daupe.bandcamp.com/music)

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.factmag.com/2018/02/08/daup...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.factmag.com/2018/02/08/daupe-
westside-gunn-mf-doom/amp/)

De Rap Winkel
[https://derapwinkelrecords.bandcamp.com/music](https://derapwinkelrecords.bandcamp.com/music)

------
oe
Vinyl's growth is somewhat limited by the world's pressing capacity. Old
pressing machines are being brought back online where possible:
[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/dec/10/record-
demand-...](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/dec/10/record-demand-vinyl-
sales-exceed-supply-lps) [2017].

~~~
aodin
When Jack White (of the White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and more) opened Third
Man Pressing in 2017, he had the first vinyl pressing machines built in over
35 years. The machines were build by NEWBILT in Germany [1].

Third Man Pressing's about page also has a great video about the process:
[https://thirdmanpressing.com/about](https://thirdmanpressing.com/about)

[1] [https://newbilt-machinery.com](https://newbilt-machinery.com)

------
echelon
As much as it pains me to say this, I think I'm a hipster.

I put a lot of attention and care into my audio and vinyl setup, but now that
you can find albums at Walmart, the hip factor has been sucked out of it like
a vacuum.

I've recently been downsizing, and this might be something that doesn't stay
with me. I'll keep my signed albums, but maybe not the rest.

~~~
Tempest1981
How long until future "hipsters" start seeing CDs as nostalgic? Although I
kind of doubt we'll see a CD revival in 2035 or 2040.

~~~
criddell
I just got back into CDs :)

My daughter got a turntable and when I took her to the record store (Waterloo
Records in Austin) to buy some records I felt like I had stepped out of a time
machine. The experience was exactly as I remembered it when I was a kid. It's
awesome.

I ended up buying some CDs then realizing I didn't have a CD player. So I
bought one, hooked it up to the home theater receiver and was blown away by
how good it sounded.

I ended up buying a desktop stereo system for my office and I listen to CDs as
I work. The playing time is just about perfect as a reminder to get up,
stretch, take a short walk, make a coffee or get some water, put on a new
disc, and get back to work.

So now I'm buying CDs again and couldn't be happier. They are very inexpensive
these days.

------
rwmj
Here I am listening to Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven Piano Sonatas spread over
24 sides of vinyl, purchased for under a tenner in a charity shop. A CD would
be more practical, but the set of records is a real experience, even the
getting up to skip the occasional scratch and turn over the records.

Edit: downvotes over 20 minutes. Do you doubt that I'm really listening to it
(I am, before I read this news)? Or that vinyl is a real experience? Or that
I'm some kind of "hipster" (I have thousands of records, and an equal number
of CDs, collected over 30 years). Please reply, I'm interested what you have
to say.

For the doubters, here's a photo:
[http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/20190908_183833.jpg](http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/20190908_183833.jpg)

~~~
Freak_NL
These are good years for listeners of classical music picking up the
occasional vinyl in charity shops and flea markets. In my experience, classic
big name rock records get cherry-picked from everywhere by the proprietors of
upmarket vintage stores, but classical music is left alone.

Demographically speaking, lovingly collected vinyl collections are steadily
entering the market due to the generation that bought them dying of old age.
Lots of great recordings available for bargain prices.

~~~
rwmj
Yes exactly! I've also been collecting prog rock on vinyl for many years, but
that is usually so expensive that getting CDs or youtube rips is far more
practical. However classical/operatic box sets are the sweet spot of well
preserved (incredible sound quality) and cheaply available. For example I have
a second hand box set of Verdi's Aida which has probably bought me more joy
than virtually anything else I own, and I'm not even really a huge fan of
opera.

------
klingonopera
A CD, and a FLAC-rip for me, please. I'd pick it over vinyl or any digital
stream any day.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
If you really just want a FLAC rip of a CD to play over a media center, then
consider simply downloading the FLAC rip from a filesharing community, but
then buying the vinyl release for the sake of owning the physical artifact.
That way, you both get high-quality digital audio and you financially support
the artist, but the vinyl release has larger artwork and is more satisfying as
a collector item.

~~~
klingonopera
I buy the music, because I want to support the artists.

I buy the CD-format, because in theory, I can do that anonymously (cash at the
store). I _don 't_ buy the vinyl, because I explicitly _want_ the digital
format (see my reply to another comment on this thread as to why).

I rip the CD, because, well, my phone doesn't have a CD-drive (wow, that would
be _weird_...).

At this point... I'd actually throw away the CD, because I hate having stuff.
I don't care about showing off my collection to anyone, nor do I care about
collectibles, but having stuff is just... cumbersome. But alas, I don't throw
away the CD, somewhat because of sentimentality and also because if you have a
physical copy of digital data, that's not a bad thing to keep, just in case,
so ok, it stays.

Considering a vinyl is analog and also more cumbersome, I think it's pretty
clear why I prefer the CD.

~~~
kalleboo
> _my phone doesn 't have a CD-drive (wow, that would be weird...)_

How about a floppy drive?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1l8Dcjb1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1l8Dcjb1Y)

------
sakopov
I'm pretty biased in my thoughts on this. I used to DJ EDM back in my early
20s and still have thousands of dollars worth of equipment and vinyl records
accumulating dust. Every once in a while I'll whip out a record and listen to
it on my Technics. I never find myself playing CDs on my CD decks. There is
something about vinyl that feels like a collectible that you want to take out
of a sleeve and put a needle on. CDs just don't have that and feel like
disposable junk. I'm surprised that vinyl is outselling CDs, but I am not
surprised that it's still relevant.

------
pkorzeniewski
I bought a turntable from the 80s several months ago and I love it :-) I never
had a turntable before so it's actually a "new" technology to me, but I find
the physicality of the whole thing wonderful - choosing a record and setting
up the turntable is like a ritual, you just enjoy the moment.

~~~
mnd999
The novelty factor is a definitely a thing with vinyl. I'm nearly 40 and my
first music (Disney etc.) was on record but we quickly moved on to tape and
then CD. A lot of people not much younger than me will never have seen a
record growing up.

------
jrmg
Note that this is talking about revenue, not unit sales:

 _The new report states that vinyl records earned $224.1 million (from 8.6
million units) in the first half of 2019. This figure is impressively close to
the CD numbers ($247.9 million, 18.6 million units)._

------
kozak
The biggest relevation for me about vinyl was when I realized that it's CAV
(constant angular velocity) and not CLV (constant linear velocity). It means
that audio quality gets progressively worse as you move from outer tracks to
inner tracks!

~~~
Koshkin
Not necessarily worse, though. There could be undesirable mechanical side-
effects from the track moving too fast against the needle as well. (I am sure
there is a huge body of engineering science about this.)

~~~
kozak
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Afikv6k1-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Afikv6k1-c)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
CDs are a nearly-perfect format and it's sad to see them decline. Mainstream
digital music stores don't even offer CD quality, and streaming services are
antithetical to preservation and allow content to disappear overnight.

~~~
phicoh
The thing that got me to stop buying CDs for the most part is how badly they
are mastered.

In past it was some labels that put out badly mastered CDs, these days artists
that once produced excellent albums now seems to accept a final result that
tries to win the loudness war.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Yes, unfortunately mastering is an issue. It's the only reason that new
“superior to CD” formats ever sound better (aside from perhaps extra surround
channels), and entirely not the fault of the format.

------
big_chungus
Would some one please enlighten me as to what on God's green earth is going on
with vinyl? It's less dense, lower-quality, degrades with use, and is more
expensive. It's probably less environmentally-friendly, too (though I'm not
sure what it's target demographic is, so I don't know if that means much). Why
is vinyl popular, all of a sudden? I had to rip all my grandmother's vinyl
records, once, and it was a pain in the be-hind. I'm not sure why any one
would willingly subject himself to that when better alternatives exist. I
thought it was dead as of long ago.

~~~
cptskippy
You are looking at this as a CD vs Vinyl battle. Vinyl found a niche and never
died entirely. Now CDs are dying because of downloads and streaming and you're
saying "why the resurgence vinyl?"

There is no resurgence, perhaps a Renaissance in vinyl, but what you're really
seeing is just the fall of CD down to vinyl's levels.

~~~
skinnymuch
Go to [https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/](https://www.riaa.com/u-s-
sales-database/) and select only LP/EP and vinyl single. Or just LP/EP.

Including both and just looking without inflation, it’s above 1989 levels and
could hit 1988 levels eventually. It’s 5x higher than mid 90s through late
00s. Almost 4x since 2010.

Take out vinyl singles and the increase is absurd. It’s 9x to 40x+ increase
from any year between 1991 and 2007. 8x from 2008. Almost 2x from 2013.

And this is all for 2018 figures. 2019 will bump things up even more. Though
the pace has slowed a lot.

Even if you add inflation, the resurgence is still there. IE for LP/EP, 2019
will beat out 1989. After a low of nearly 25x less in 93 and 05-06.

~~~
cptskippy
> Even if you add inflation, the resurgence is still there. IE for LP/EP, 2019
> will beat out 1989.

I'm having trouble viewing those graphs on mobile but it looks like in 1989
vinyl only had >4% market share and 34.6 million units, where as in 2018 it
had >3% with 16.7 million units.

It's not nothing and it's not a large part of the overall market. It appears
to be smaller than 30 years ago when it was considered a dead format.

~~~
skinnymuch
I can be convinced otherwise as statistics isn’t a strength of mine, but those
two numbers are by units.

Unit share doesn’t seem to make sense as a comparison point to me. A single or
ringtone shouldn’t be given equal respect to a full collection of songs.
Downloaded singles are 75% of the unit market share but only 5% of the revenue
market share in 2018. 2018 will be the last year downloaded singles have a
greater revenue share than vinyl.

To me this looks like a resurgence because of how its revenue share has been.
Its collapse of market and revenue share from ~83 to ~92 and being dead by 89
(with 3.3% revenue share, less than the past 5 years if including 2019).
Having a revenue share of 0.1% from 93 to 07. Yeah, for 25 years it’s revenue
share was 0.1%. Then ~1.5% for the next 5-6 years and ~4.5% for the past
couple of years.

It’s not a crazy resurgence, but compared to 93 to ~2012, a 25 year span, it’s
many multiples higher and not looking to let up for now.

~~~
cptskippy
I agree that unit shares don't make sense, I was referencing the volume %
which seems less absurd. The % of volume that LP had in 2018 was similar to
the late % in the 80s. My point was that in the late 80s vinyl was "dead" and
it's still "dead".

~~~
skinnymuch
But it’s not dead in the same way. The resurgence has it stabilized and
growing a bit still. In 89 it was on a 5 year drastic downtrend.

Now it’s on a tear compared to 93 to 07 and beyond.

There’s active communities online and in real life of people who like vinyl
and are buying it. Though there were always enthusiasts. The buying part
wasn’t happening from 93 to 07. If you can run a successful business off
something that isn’t trending down, without the biz being too crazy, then the
thing isn’t really dead. It’s niche sure. But dead wouldn’t make sense.
Cassettes are dead. Paying for ringtones are dead. Those two aren’t close to
vinyl.

------
honkycat
I purchase vinyl to support the artist and the artwork on the vinyl is much
larger and prettier.

Additionally, most vinyl releases these days come with a high-quality FLAC
audio download, so I get the digital music as well.

------
stjohnswarts
Vinyl is 90% nostalgia and 10% logical. Modern recording methods are far
superior and have much better fidelity. I much prefer my flacs on amodern high
end system

~~~
Etheryte
I'm not sure whether this still holds, but for quite a long time, vinyl was a
surefire way to avoid the loudness war [1] — the physical medium simply
wouldn't allow for such extreme transformation and still play well.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war)

~~~
stjohnswarts
Yeah but it's got a bit better over the past decade as more people realized
why that certain something was missing

~~~
monocasa
Has it though? The wiki article (and my experience) implies that it's been
getting worse, not better.

~~~
stordoff
Last line of 2010s:

> Analysis suggests that the loudness trend may have peaked around 2005 and
> subsequently reduced, with a pronounced increase in overall and minimum
> album DR for albums since 2005.

It also hints how we may continue to move away from it:

> With music sales moving towards file-based playback and streaming and away
> from CDs, there is a possibility that the loudness war will be blunted by
> normalization technology such as ReplayGain and Apple's Sound Check. Most
> cloud-based music services perform loudness normalization by default and may
> reduce the market pressure to overcompress material.

------
acd
Recently re-experienced vinyl player with a music library in a hotel. The
experience of vinyl is great you can touch and hold the music you like and
love. The search depth of the music catalog is good its a stack of vinyls vs
all music that was ever created. Carbon foot print from vinyl is lower than
online streamed music due to the co2 foot print of all the servers serving
online music. I think vinyl is a fun form to share and consume music.

Study of co2 emissions from streaming vs analogue music "The research shows
GHGs of 140 million kilograms in 1977, 136 million kilograms in 1988, and 157
million in 2000. But by 2016 the generation of GHGs by storing and
transmitting digital files for those listening to music online is estimated to
be between 200 million kilograms and over 350 million kilograms in the US
alone." source:
[https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_643297_en.html](https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_643297_en.html)

~~~
tyrust
>Carbon foot print from vinyl is lower than online streamed music due to the
co2 foot print of all the servers serving online music.

The quote and article you linked doesn't say or support that. It is more
likely that there are just far more people listening to music now than there
were before. I don't think that switching from streaming to records would
result in fewer GHGs. The article you linked doesn't specify.

------
m12k
Makes sense - streaming has won, so the people buying physical media might as
well go full hipster instead of half-assing it.

------
neallindsay
Audio quality on CDs is better than Vinyl (especially over time), but it’s not
_great_. If you care about quality you’re downloading music anyway.

But if you’re going to get something physical, you want it to look cool, and
Vinyl beats CDs by a mile.

~~~
benj111
Pah, tapes are cooler than vinyl. _My Dad_ has vinyl, plus only popular bands
can justify a vinyl print run. You can release a tape album even if you can
only count your fans on one hand, including the band members.

~~~
rwmj
If you were a tiny band why would you release a cassette tape album instead of
an MP3 or digital stream?

~~~
benj111
Because tapes are cool.

Or for a longer answer. Bands don't need to release vinyl. Fans appreciate the
physicality, and will pay for it. But tiny bands probably don't have the
resources for a vinyl pressing. I was also making reference to back in the day
when your options were vinyl/cd or tape. If you wanted to release an album,
tape was your only choice unless you were likely to sell at least X hundred
units. And as I said, tapes are cool :)

------
mrdobelina
We’re looking for a tech co-founder for a project about vinyl records. The iOS
MVP app has been launched, got over thousands of paid downloads, reached
second on App Store top paid music app, gathered interest from major magazines
about music (Resident Advisor, DJ Mag and many more) and a couple of
accelerators. Now we’re looking to add features and improve it to start
monetizing. If you’re passionate about vinyl records and have exceptional
skills on iOS, Firebase Suite and React, we’d love to discuss.

------
vr46
I was in the local record shop on Saturday, picking up the latest Bat For
Lashes and Brand New Heavies albums. CDs are still selling more units, but
vinyl is up to 3 times the price of a CD, so no wonder it can make up the
shortfall. Vinyl packaging is just nicer. Back in the 1980s and 90s, vinyl and
cassettes were the same price. I wish I'd bought fewer tapes during my Walkman
years and instead recorded the vinyl onto tape. Those tapes are all shot now,
but my record collection is still here...

------
magoon
CDs were supposed to eventually be cheaper than tapes, but the industry kept
raising prices. Even Blu-ray discs were grossly overpriced before people
turned to digital sales.

------
mudlus
Makes perfect since, in the virtual age collectables will have more value than
the thing anyone can access. Reminds me of an article I can't find about the
lack of middle road anymore for many goods, you either care a lot or don't
care at all about what you're getting. McDonalds vs Wagyu. Where's the bespoke
Coke? (actually my wife enjoys elderflower syrup in her soda water)

------
nine_k
With CD being in decline, and vinyl on the rise, it's natural for vinyl to
overcome CDs.

But I'd say it's mostly because CDs have all but disappeared from mass sales
channels. E.g. this chart says a lot:
[https://www.statista.com/chart/12950/cd-sales-in-the-
us/](https://www.statista.com/chart/12950/cd-sales-in-the-us/)

------
mikorym
Not really on topic here, but I've been trying this for a while and maybe
someone can point me in the right direction. What are the preferred
synthesisers / synth emulators that one can (or should) install on Linux? My
quest is also one of audio fidelity; I am looking for specific sounds on
proprietary DAWs that I can reverse engineer from first principles.

------
RickSanchez2600
We used to have a turntable stereo that was mono with one speaker built into a
console that had a wooden lid on it on top so it could be closed and we used
it as a computer monitor holder. My nephews stole my vinyl records inside of
it. It was damaged in a flood and we never replaced it.

Turntables these days are expensive, but worth it for the vinyl experience.

------
aguzzi94
So interesting! I think that on a philosophical level it matches the trend
that, while the world keeps on being more and more caught by fakeness and
mediocrity, there's a counter culture and counter sentiment that yearns for
something authentic again. There's still hope guys!

------
sebastianconcpt
_With vinyl revenue growing by 12% in the second half of 2018 and first half
of this year, and CD rates barely changing at all, it could see vinyl revenue
overtake that of CDs by the end of the year.

If it does happen, it’ll be the first time that vinyl has generated more
revenue than CDs since 1986._

------
agumonkey
Can't wait for CEDs to outsell DVDs

------
BurningFrog
This is mostly about CD sales shrinking.

------
baud147258
Or the sales of CDs have declined so much that they are going to get outsold
by a niche product.

------
amelius
Is there a service where I can transform my (rare) CDs into vinyl, including
the artwork?

------
wodenokoto
What really surprises me is that CDs were that big in the mid 80s.

If I had to guess, I would have said CD beats vinyl in early 90s. Or maybe I'm
just not taking cassettes into account.

------
enqk
On the toxicity and environmental impact of vinyl records
[https://youtu.be/aZ2czFuIYmQ](https://youtu.be/aZ2czFuIYmQ)

~~~
stemcc
Seems like the author of this video has gone silent after being asked for the
references he used to make his claims.

~~~
nitrogen
There was a documentary years ago about the hazards of working in a vinyl
chloride chemical plant along the lines of nerve damage and dissolving bones
in the fingers.

No idea where to find it again, but I'm sure processes have improved
considerably.

------
Pulletwee12549
I am getting the feeling that this has less to do with vinyl sales surging and
more to do with CD sales plunging.

------
madengr
All these comments and no one has mentioned reel-to-reel tape decks. That will
be the next hipster craze.

------
dylanler
Is likely a cycle when people are scrambling to collect things that are going
out of style.

------
moorsc0de
I like Vinyl - CD's not so much.

------
linuxftw
Vinyl is for hipsters. Objectively inferior capability to reproduce sounds.

~~~
rcoveson
> Objectively inferior capability to reproduce sounds.

Maybe when it comes to something like music, that's not the most important
thing. In fact, most music listeners would say it's not really important at
all.

Vinyls have great UX. The LP format encourages you to listen to an
uninterrupted, un-shuffled 23 or 46 minutes of music. Album artwork and lyrics
are presented at a scale where it doesn't hurt the eyes to look at them.

Your statement reminds me of whiskey drinkers who only drink out of one type
of glass which is olfactorily optimal. It totally misses the fact that our
senses are so easily tricked into enjoying things more if we enjoy the hints
that surround the experience. Music is better on vinyl because you spent that
much longer picking out the record and placing the needle. Whiskey is better
in rocks glasses because it looks cinematic. It has next to nothing to do with
being "objectively inferior" or superior.

~~~
linuxftw
> The LP format encourages you to listen to an uninterrupted, un-shuffled 23
> or 46 minutes of music

You can do this on a CD with superior audio quality.

> Album artwork and lyrics are presented at a scale where it doesn't hurt the
> eyes to look at them.

There's nothing stopping someone from celling a CD in a vinyl-sized case.

> Maybe when it comes to something like music, that's not the most important
> thing. In fact, most music listeners would say it's not really important at
> all.

I'm pretty sure almost every single fan of vinyl will tell you it 'sounds
better.' What they really mean is they like the typical mix of a vinyl
recording, but CDs can be mixed to sound exactly like vinyl. If you want the
same sound as live music, vinyl cannot compete.

~~~
rcoveson
I don't think you're understanding the gist of what I'm saying. Of course it's
_possible_ to recreate the exact _audio_ experience of vinyl with a higher
fidelity medium like a CD. But it's not about just the audio. It's the
tactile, visual, and cultural experience around the audio. Just like food
isn't just about the flavor.

And with your closing comment, I don't think you're describing as great a
percentage of vinyl fans as you think you are. Sure, if you read audiophile
forums you'll find such individuals. And if you encounter such an individual,
they'll likely be extremely vocal about their opinions. But we're talking
about vinyl outselling CDs here. That's a lot of people. If you asked most of
them which format had higher fidelity, they'd certainly reply, "the one that
doesn't pop and scratch."

~~~
linuxftw
> But it's not about just the audio. It's the tactile, visual, and cultural
> experience around the audio. Just like food isn't just about the flavor.

I see what you're saying, but I don't buy it. Nobody has a record player just
laying around unless you're 'into' vinyl. It's like saying it's more fun to
watch videos on VHS because the tapes look cooler. It's just nonsense.

------
gnusty_gnurc
During EE undergrad I learned about DSP, math and other theory involved in
digital audio reproduction and it's clear to me that it's technically
superior. There's some truly marvelous engineering behind digital audio. And
the best part is that it enhances life: now playing an album isn't "a ritual",
I can do it anytime without needing physical, wasteful storage for a degrading
format.

I'm absolutely baffled how people (the same trendy hipsters who in my
experience are disgusted by capitalism and luxury consumerism) shell out for
vinyl when they'd be better off spending more money on something that's
usually much more important and will make a significant, audible difference:
nice speakers.

~~~
mulmen
I'm not a hipster but I have a vinyl record collection. So do my friends, we
trade records and each have very different collections. I enjoy "the ritual",
it allows me to recollect who gave me an album or the night I went to the
show. None of my friends organize our records the same way. Some are
chronological by release. Some simply alphabetical. Some chronological by
acquisition date. Some combine an element of genre, whatever that means to
them. It's a deeply personal thing but we can still share parts of it.

In life we get to have different tastes, having a record collection is one of
the ways to celebrate that.

I don't appreciate being talked down to about my personal choices or how I
derive enjoyment in my own time. I'm also not impressed by your straw man
argument against these "hipsters", why are they so bad anyway? Is it because
you perceive hypocrisy in how some hypothetical person lives their life?

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
It's cause I know how little time I have to do stuff in my life already, and
the idea that I'd spend my already scant time cataloguing bulky records and
having to worry about them whenever I move is pretty stressful.

~~~
mulmen
That's your choice and nobody is criticizing you for that. Nobody is telling
you to go buy records. Other people are allowed to spend their time and money
how they see fit. That does not make them "hipsters" or wrong.

------
xbiitx
most of them should end up framed

------
michalnet
lol

