The young hipsters driving sales are not in it for the finer audio experience and thus can’t be counted on to carry the flame. They will move on to the next “tangible” audio experience...wax cylinders?
Is the Vinyl Revival well and growing?
I never gave up on vinyl. October 1988, I bought my LP12. We were being told CDs were perfect sound forever. People were dumping their vinyl. Thankfully, I cleaned the best that I could find. Now, TTs at all price points are coming on the market. Is the the vinyl revival real and where will we end up?
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Seeing a common LP (one that I own) priced at $60 in who knows what condition, lead me to conclude my LP collection (somewhere around 3500-4000 titles) is worth a fair chunk-o-change. My CD's (around 3500), not so much. In preparation for my major move a couple years back, I went through my Classical CD's, pulling out 1,000 titles I decided I could live without. Amoeba Music didn't want them, at any price. I then took them to Atomic Records in Burbank (a great little two-brother-owned record shop), who gave me a buck apiece for them. And they were good titles! |
I'm dabbling in it now. Not real sure why. Nostalgia maybe? One reason that compels me a little toward vinyl is that the quality of CDs by newer artists can be poor while the vinyl seems to have better production quality. For the first time in probably 35 years I recently bought a couple of used albums. One was $20 and the other was $30. Both were listed as VG+....for what that's worth. Anyway, both have audible clicks and pops. Very mild and not constant. I don't know enough about vinyl to know if this is acceptable or not. When all we had was vinyl some of that was to be expected at the level of equipment I had available so I never thought anything of it. (Would cleaning help that? I don't know.) My point in all this is that if that is not acceptable I would be reticent to buy more used vinyl at those prices as it seems like a gamble. As a side note, my wife picked up two LPs out of the discount 80's bin for $10 each. They have fewer clicks and pops but they are newer than the ones I bought (early 70s) and look like they were never played. |
As bdp24's reflected, the low-hanging fruit of quality 50s/60s/early 70s vinyl have been mainly picked over. I'm constantly searching for 1st pressing jazz LPs (mono especially) from mainly the 50s/60s in near-mint or better condition. Not so easy to find anymore, and when you do it's priced at a hefty premium. |
The good news is there are a lot of used LP's out there. The bad news is many of them are damaged beyond repair. I was in Music Millennium last week, and the sounds of a familiar late-60's/early-70's album (try as I might, I just can't recall which one) came over the store's system. I went up to the counter and saw that it was an LP being played, a used one priced at $60. I didn't ask to look at the LP to evaluate it's condition, but it was being played on a not-so-hot turntable, possibly to it's detriment. |
Vinyl sales are still growing at double-digit pace more than 10 years after they started rebounding. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/10/01/vinyl-records-2018-sales/ |
