According to the RIAA, It doesn't look good for physical media


The RIAA mid-year 2020 report is out and physical media, CDs or LPs, are not doing well. CDs still ship more units (10.6 million to 8.8 million), but LPs have surpassed them in $ amount shipped (CD - $130 million to LP - $232 million) for the first time since the 80s.

CD units shipped fell 45% from the mid-year 2019 report. LP units shipped gained 2.3%. Downloads also fell. Total Streaming revenues were up 12%. Total revenues for all categories were up 5.6%.

https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Mid-Year-2020-RIAA-Revenue-Statistics.pdf

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Showing 2 responses by big_greg

Hopefully LP's keep going up in value! My collection seems to be growing in value also.  On the other hand, a lot of out-of-print items are becoming ridiculously priced in the used market.
One thing with new vinyl is usually there is also a hi-rez digital download included.
I don't recall ever getting anything but MP3 download cards in the new vinyl I buy.  I rarely ever use them.  MP3 is not what you're calling "hi-rez" is it?

New vinyl often sucks.  Warped, noisy, poor sound quality... there are some releases that sound fantastic, but for the most part I've started to avoid new releases or current pressings of old releases and do research on Steve Hoffman about what some of the best older pressings are.  That can be a rabbit hole.  Like here, there are varying and directly conflicting opinions.  It can also be detrimental to the wallet, especially if a particular pressing has really been talked up and is out of print.  It can also be much more rewarding than listening to a brand new record that sounds like it's been played 50 times on a Fisher-Price turntable.