For those seeing vinyl a hipster fad they can use to impress their friends, sure. It's a fad... I don't see vinyl dying as a high quality audiophile source despite issues with new production of vinyl, but I can see a niche growing for higher quality pressings as there always has been. The pricing is going to be an issue for some though, the cost involved to get a vinyl setup that beats decent value-oriented digital in the $2-5k range + the cost of vinyl it's self is a bit excessive imo.
I agree with DaveC, old farts like me have been into analog for well over fifty years, why anybody would start today makes zero sense to me. Those that do, I'd bet 80% are out of it in less than 5 years, nothing but fad / ego trippers ..........
“What people do nowadays is take a digital file and just run vinyl off that,” says Mr. Rawlings, a lanky musician who plays a 1935 Epiphone Olympic guitar.
In some of my local music stores the average price for a brand new CD is between $10 and $20 ($13-15 average).
In contrast a brand new LP's average price is between $25 and $45 ($30-35 average). And those are taken from digital files, and the turntables are of the cheap variety ones (plastic) and with the cartridges with loose screws and out-of-alignment by as much as 45°! And I kid you not. They are simply taking advantage of the low level customers.
* LPs are better in second-hand stores and the like, and for much less money.
I'm not saying that Tidal is best; if it suits some people the more power to them.
I don't encourage distortion, extortion, corruption, exploitation, abuse, greed and bad people running crooked businesses. Tidal is no angel in that department.
And Tidal doesn't come in analog vinyl.
Vinyl's boom over? No way, because there are billions of LPs out there from yesteryears that just need to be unearthed. Some people are willing to fight for them.
Hi Ron. I do not subscribe to the WSJ, so I could not read the article but I would take the article's title with a big grain of salt. They go from complaints to loss of sales to the boom is over. Uh-huh. Apple, Samsung, Firestone and many other major corporations have had complaints followed by loss of sales and they are still thriving. Besides, I just read another article a couple of weeks ago that informed its readers that two new LP plants are being built or had just been built because they could not keep up with demand and to address quality concerns from other plants. FWIW
I strongly disagree with several of you. If one isn't lazy you can hunt down decent used vinyl playback parts and make/modify a little. I think it costs way more to make digital sound good.
Its true that the qualtiy of vinyl can be... well eh. And even worse the local stores don't take returns on totally warped garbage, because distributors don't hold pressing plants liable for trash.
I doubt it is over. But the sad fact is basically only vintage pressings are worth a damn. There are occasionally some good new ones, but even many of the supposid high quality ones are mastered like crap, and not immune to coming with a warp.
Hi Ron. I do not subscribe to the WSJ, so I could not read the article but I would take the article's title with a big grain of salt. They go from complaints to loss of sales to the boom is over. Uh-huh. Apple, Samsung, Firestone and many other major corporations have had complaints followed by loss of sales and they are still thriving. Besides, I just read another article a couple of weeks ago that informed its readers that two new LP plants are being built or had just been built because they could not keep up with demand and to address quality concerns from other plants. FWIW
Right the WSJ simply reads "boom is over, time to sell investments in vinyl" not "vinyl is dead for sure, this time, all the other dozens of dead calls were false this one is not"
Hi Ron. I do not subscribe to the WSJ, so I could not read the article but I would take the article's title with a big grain of salt. They go from complaints to loss of sales to the boom is over. Uh-huh. Apple, Samsung, Firestone and many other major corporations have had complaints followed by loss of sales and they are still thriving. Besides, I just read another article a couple of weeks ago that informed its readers that two new LP plants are being built or had just been built because they could not keep up with demand and to address quality concerns from other plants. FWIW
Google the first line of the article and you will find copies of it elsewhere.
I gave up buying new vinyl some years ago - I found that when music interested me most of the time I would be buying digitally processed music. Most modern cutting facilities do not have tape machines with look ahead capabilities and must introduce digital delay lines in the path of signal before the cutting head.
I never realized I was enjoying the salad days of thrift vinyl shopping. I just thought that nobody wanted them but I did. That has pretty much dried up except for the old moldy mass produced vinyl horrors.
I still remember my student days wanting to buy records but not being able to afford but a couple. I thought success meant being able to go the movies and buy records whenever I wanted without worrying about the money. I loved the smell of the record shops in New Orleans, some kind of combo of incense, vinyl and cardboard with the records being played over horn speakers on the ceiling.
I managed to get about 2000 thrift records, anyway, during the hunting days but seldom even bother to look any more because everything is so picked over by young people.
Indeed, I don't bother to thrift really. The people willing to get up and be there at store opening, make friends with all the employees... they earned it, I'll just buy it at the record store they sold it to or on discogs. Besides 99% of collections worth more than toe nail clippings are sold to record stores, craigslist, auction, etc... the rarity of them going to thrift stores is pretty high anymore. Most people seem to understand some value and the internet helps when its so accesible to check.
Well I still want to resurrect my vinyl rig someday. I doubt this medium will lose favor,only if digital becomes better sonically and is accepted as such. I buy records mostly on eBay but mostly a certain type...no big deal.
If you haven't got a vinyl rig already and your goal is SOTA , I wouldn't consider vinyl. Digital is a far better buy and considering the trade offs involved it' a no brainer.
Depends. Mixing and mastering in classical and jazz is mostly at least decent, and quite often good to excellent. Pop and rock, that's another story perhaps, even though you can get good sound there too.
Well for digital to be tolerable it starts with power conditioning. And that isn't easy since few are really worth much. Its complicated in that there are lots of compatibilty issues.
Next you need a DAC or CD player with a good one. The DAC can be fed by an Oppo or a slew of computer stuff, you're in for at least $500 no matter what. The DAC is tough, I can't think of anything under $2k worth much. Even then I don't have any good answer for something I recommemd off the top of my head besides high end MSB maybe. Many things need mods to really be worth it.
Vinyl you can get a table used for $400, do a little dampening, get a power conditioner like SurgeX, and lots of phono preamp options that sound pretty good at nearly any price. Results will be very nice if chosen wisely. Its cheap to do stuff like stacking some plywood or whatever, lots of ways to add mass etc.
There are lots of bad masterings for vinyl, true. But the difference is there are often good ones of the same album. I rather enjoy finding the right pressings. Also I think a lot of vinyl albums are more appealing as they really do sound unique and offer more information, or at least a presentation of it.
No one is saying one trumps. But I think it is easier to get great sound with vinyl. And more than not more avaliabilty of nice masterings (even if you have to track thrm down, they exist). But vinyl has zero convenience factor, that is for sure, so I wouldn't ever pry someone to choose it.
