The Vinyl Revival™ has:
caused an increase in prices of older LPs;
invited pikers to offer used records for sale that should be trashed;
inflated grading standards;
in conjunction with the Internet, has provided a vast resource for records outside of the geographic area in which I am located;
stimulated the reissue of many obscure records that would otherwise have remained costly and rare;
encouraged an associated hardware market for tonearms, phono cartridges and turntables, new and vintage, that is probably larger than at any time when the vinyl LP was a mainstream medium;
put even more focus on improved playback quality through separate phono stages, step up transformers, phono cartridge technologies (old and new), turntable design and cleaning processes.
The quality of the pressings remains about the same, the source material for the vast majority of non-audiophile issues is no longer analog, and the sound quality varies considerably.
On balance, I’m happy for the revived interest in the medium, but apart from the reissue of real obscurities at far cheaper prices than rare original pressings in top condition, and the ease of finding records through the Internet, it would not matter to me. I would soldier on, and if that market crashes, would continue to do so.
caused an increase in prices of older LPs;
invited pikers to offer used records for sale that should be trashed;
inflated grading standards;
in conjunction with the Internet, has provided a vast resource for records outside of the geographic area in which I am located;
stimulated the reissue of many obscure records that would otherwise have remained costly and rare;
encouraged an associated hardware market for tonearms, phono cartridges and turntables, new and vintage, that is probably larger than at any time when the vinyl LP was a mainstream medium;
put even more focus on improved playback quality through separate phono stages, step up transformers, phono cartridge technologies (old and new), turntable design and cleaning processes.
The quality of the pressings remains about the same, the source material for the vast majority of non-audiophile issues is no longer analog, and the sound quality varies considerably.
On balance, I’m happy for the revived interest in the medium, but apart from the reissue of real obscurities at far cheaper prices than rare original pressings in top condition, and the ease of finding records through the Internet, it would not matter to me. I would soldier on, and if that market crashes, would continue to do so.