Is the Vinyl Revival well and growing?

YES!

I got more heavily back in to vinyl around 1 year ago, and especially about 9 months ago when I bought a really nice high end turntable for the first time.  

I had been using a micro seiki turntable that I'd had for years, bequeathed to me by my father-in-law, and I'd play some of my old albums now and again and enjoy my visit to vinyl-land for what it was.

But then I started becoming aware of ever more new vinyl releases.  These weren't just re-masters of old albums, but just new albums.  And they kept coming...more and more BRAND NEW albums on vinyl.  I was especially smitten by many of the soundtrack releases, many of new movies, or first time releases of older soundtracks (or re-mastered).   I couldn't help but purchase some of those and receiving them was a complete thrill.  It wasn't just the fact I was actually receiving shiny, pristine new vinyl....whereas before all I'd ever played was my old dusty, well-played records with all their hiss and scratches.  But the packaging and aesthetics were just fantastic.  They really did feel like special objects in of themselves to just hold, open, look at.

But listening to pristine new vinyl also helped hook me.   And when I saw that the floodgates were opened and I could spend my days as much listening to new music on vinyl as old, it pushed me towards updating my vinyl system - new turntable, phono stage.  And now vinyl sounded incredible!  I was never one to pooh-pooh digital, and I still don't.  But I surprised even myself by the fact that I was buying so many records that just to keep up it became my main source of listening.  (And I won't even go in to the rabbit hole I've gone down in terms of Library music - my new obsession - and getting in to buying on discogs...)

This has also made me take notice of all the record shops popping up in my city and there are so many now.   Within a mile or two of my own house there are 4 record stores.   And all seem to be thriving.  There are far more throughout the city now.  A number of my son's (16) friends who see my turntable mention they, or their family, have a turntable and LPs as well.   

Beyond personal anecdote, for whatever reason I've also developed the habit of just searching the news on the vinyl revival over the past 10 months or so.  And it certainly seems to be continuing upward.  Literally every single day there are new stories about the vinyl revival, about vinyl records, vinyl record production, and new record stores opening up.
Almost every story is positive on growth for vinyl.

This was one recently form Forbes:

"Vinyl Is Bigger Than We Thought. Much Bigger."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrosenblatt/2018/09/18/vinyl-is-bigger-than-we-thought-much-bigger/#...

For me, personally, I frankly doubt I'd have anything like the vinyl fever...and fun and collection I've gathered...if it weren't for the vinyl revival.   Just playing my old records could feel a bit too much of a dated activity before, like going back to the graveyard of an old format.  But vinyl has been revitalized for me as something exciting and "new," and with so much music offered on vinyl it's now my preferred format.
When a new vinyl LP arrives at my door I'm giddy.  When a (very rare now) CD shows up, I just get no kick at all.  It's just something to rip to my hard drive and put away.   It just doesn't offer all the things that make vinyl an "experience" for me.

Anyway, that's my take.

terry1229

Hm...What advertising will do to the young and impressionable! All this vinyl rage is the latest fad and advertising scam.

That is merely naive cynicism masquerading as insight.  And it already puts you as out of touch.  Cynics were yelling "fad, it won't last" 10 years ago.  And it has only grown for 12 years straight, often by double digits, with still more pressing plants opening up, and planned to open.
The time is long past to be able to call it a mere "fad."  

I have used digital as my main delivery system since CDs came along, and continue to use a digital server, so I'm quite familiar with digital sound quality.  I also have a great turntable and a lot of old and new vinyl, and vinyl can offer not only superb sound but also a different ownership and interaction experience that many find valuable.   
When I receive a vinyl album, beautifully designed in terms of feel and artwork, and which produces sound quality that I absolutely love, that is hardly being "scammed."  It's actually getting something I value for my money.


To think that the only options are your view on sound reproduction...or that someone is falling for a "scam" is to say the least, blinkered and unreflective thinking.   

But I know many people like to think this way as it is ego-stroking; it casts themselves as "seeing behind the veil" and others as mere sheep being fleeced.

 

I personally think this resurgence of interest in analogue is a passing fad.

Why do people keep throwing around the word "fad" so loosely?

What, I wonder, would actually, reasonably constitute a "fad?"

Take DVD.  It only became available around 1997.  It finally overtook VHS in 2002.  And then it hit peak in 2005 or so and declined afterward.  That's an upward trend of only about 8 years.

Were DVDs a "fad?"  No, of course not.  They were a viable medium and simply went through a technology cycle.  

Vinyl has been on an upward trend for twelve years!   And it's predicted to continue that trend.  It seems to seriously stretch the meaning of "fad" to apply it to a medium that has been selling more every year for 12 years and seems to be gathering only more steam in terms of releases, investments in new manufacturing plants, and sales.  

"Niche" may be an applicable word.  But "fad?"  That boat sailed quite a while ago.

@terry1229

You my friend have a nostalgia for an older technology.

First, even IF nostalgia were involved, so what? What’s wrong with nostalgia? And if something is servicing a desire for nostalgia, it is of value not a "scam."

More important: No, you have misread the character of my interest and aren’t in a position to know it in any case.

As I said earlier: although years ago I had only listened occasionally to my old record collection, at this point I’m far more fuelled by the novelty and discovery. My new turntable is far from nostalgic - it’s a very modern, high end turntable of a type that never would have even occurred to me would exist when I was growing up. It speaks to me of new technology as much or more than old. Yes it’s a new take on old technology...but so is every new car and that doesn’t make a new car design simply about "nostalgia" because cars have been around for many years.

The vast majority of the music I’m buying is either new vinyl releases, or old genres of music I never listened to, so we are talking "new experiences" not revisiting old experiences.

And I never, ever experienced vinyl sounding this good as it does now on my system. It doesn’t sound so much nostalgic as revelatory.

As to many of the new albums I’m buying being mastered on digital? So what? I’m quite aware of that and it’s fine by me. There are STILL mastering differences that occur for vinyl and there is STILL a difference between how it sounds played on the turntable vs playing the digital version. Is that an additive character? Sure, likely. Fine by me. I like it.

It’s obvious you’re more impressed with the album covers and liner notes.

More impressed than what or whom? If you mean more impressed than you then...yeah, I guess so. But then, that’s what I’m pointing out - that YOU might not care doesn’t mean others don’t value that aspect of vinyl, and vinyl is serving that desire so it’s not a "scam" just because YOU don’t value the physical aspects of vinyl. (And over and over you will see in reports on the vinyl revival how that IS a big part of the appeal for people).

If you mean I’m "more impressed" by the album covers than the sound, that would be "no." I’m incredibly impressed by the sound. It blows me away.

A CD suffers from no such degradation. There is no physical contact between the laser pickup and the disc. What does this have to offer? A disc that will play without any surface noise for hundred of times. Do to the nature of the format, it offers superior dynamic range and deep rich base response. I won’t go into endless technical issues but the end result is that the CD is a far superior format.

You mean...CDs have no ticks and pops? And a preserved CD will play just as clean years later after many plays? You don’t say! The things we learn on audiogon! You’d think that would have been worth being part of the selling point for CDs, so everyone would be aware of such claims!
But after many decades of owning CDs, I never noticed that. I’ll go play one and see if you’re right! ;-)

As for dynamic range, yes CD is *capable* of storing more dynamic range but as you should know, that dynamic range is being taken advantage of in ever fewer recordings due to "loudness war" type compression. That’s why you can find many LPs scoring higher in the Dynamic Range Database site.

Remember: the master for a vinyl is not simply a transfer of the digital master to the vinyl. It’s usually a re-master specifically for the vinyl, and we are usually talking about starting with high-res digital masters.

I’ve read interviews with mastering engineers who say that - especially because the digital version is what is mostly going to be played for the public - they are bid to compress from the original digital master down to loudness-war-type compression for the digital versions. But they happily have more latitude for the dynamic range for the vinyl mastering.

After five plays, you will begin to notice ticks, pops, clicks, surface noise due to the physical contact of the of stylus in the record groove.

If played with little care on a poorly adjusted lower quality turntable...could be. But that’s not necessarily the case at all for records cared for and played on a good quality turntable. There’s a video on youtube where someone took a record, played it 100 times on a cheap turntable and a good turntable, and recorded the sound and also showed the waveforms to compare from the first play to the 100th play. The cheap table did slightly degrade the sound. But the 100th play on the good turntable was virtually identical in noise and sound quality to the first play.

I just received a second hand album from discogs, from the 70’s, and it’s beautifully quiet, as if it were brand new. I have lots of old second hand albums that sound as fresh as new vinyl.

Turntables are flying off the shelves into customers arms. Why is this so? BECAUSE IT IS SELLING and as long as people are buying EVERYBODY IS SELLING.

Well...yes....of course!

And why are they SELLING? What’s missing is any realistic appraisal from you of why they are selling!

Because people really like playing vinyl records. For all sorts of reasons. Usually though it’s because they like the physical and aesthetic aspects of the media, and very often they really LIKE the sound quality. That vinyl may not be as accurate as CD can be on technical grounds does not get around the fact many LIKE the sound of music on vinyl, and the physical aspects, and when people are GETTING WHAT THEY LIKE AND WANT...that’s not a "scam." That’s people getting what they want for their money.

It’s fine that vinyl is not your choice for any number of good reasons you may value. But what doesn’t work is your attempt to wave away OTHER people’s interest in vinyl on simplistic and false claims that they are simply being suckered and scammed.

Thank you terry.   Sorry if I was brusque. 

I've never really had problems with CDs, myself.  Early on I used a Meridian 508.20 player and it sounded very nice and "analog" to me.
I eventually sold it when I moved strictly to streaming to my Benchmark DAC, and that has always sounded wonderful as well. (Though my CJ tube amps no doubt help with all this).