The cost of LP's and CD's - an observation

orpheus10,
"Comparing an ordinary record player to "high end analog" is like comparing a hot dog to porterhouse steak".

Very true; and young hipsters buying low fi turntables to get with the trend should be made to realize this before they jump in.

Comparing an ordinary record player to "high end analog" is like comparing a hot dog to porterhouse steak.

"But digital rules, no question."
For you. Not for everyone.

"The Earth is round."
For you. Not for everyone.

Which is more asinine? Discuss among yourselves, digiphiles.

I find nothing nostalgic about something I never had or heard before, and that’s high end analog.

Right, impossible to be nostalgic about something you never experienced. A dazzling display of logic. Unbelievable, even.

audio2design

No, you think it sounds better to you. That is completely meaningless to other people.

If he thinks it sounds better to him, then it does sound better to him. No one here should have to justify or alter his preferences to suit the sensibilities of measurementalists such as yourself. And his preference has at least the same value to others here as yours, and perhaps much, much more.

I find nothing nostalgic about something I never had or heard before, and that's high end analog.

@rtorchia"
"To me the LP popularity is based on pure nostalgia because messing with a Thorens TT, an SME arm, and a fine cartridge is very pleasurable."
Careful there with that broom you're using for the sweeping generalization. I'm not sure what you find very pleasurable, but for me it's the sound of vinyl, not messing with the components.

"But digital rules, no question."
For you. Not for everyone.

Given a good price, I'll buy the Revox A77; digital can't touch it.

Many people, like me, still love their CDs and they can be had very cheaply. Used LPs are ridiculously expensive and prone to defects characteristics of vinyl. Many of the domestic LP pressings were simply awful (Westminster, Angel, Columbia, RCA, etc.) and back in the 70s and 80s we preferred imported pressings like DG, EMI and many exotic import labels. The remasters CDs of these old recordings are vastly superior played on a modern digital system. To me the LP popularity is based on pure nostalgia because messing with a Thorens TT, an SME arm, and a fine cartridge is very pleasurable. I know people who still swear by Telefunken 78s, and with good reason. I am trying to resist a Revox A77 open reel deck, which is really silly but they are great things to have. But digital rules, no question. 

But the truth is that most people, no matter their generation, simply don't care enough about fidelity to go further than a good sound bar. The idea of sitting down for a listening session without talking is the purview of what we do on this site, not the masses.

It's like a neighbor I once had who was completely into the video aspect of home theater and who was gushing about a new projector he had installed and interfaced with some complex software. I mean, i enjoyed watching movies and appreciated the picture at his place, but was just as content watching blue-ray on my home system.
Also, there are many, many millennials who have gotten into vinyl; however, even though many intro rigs sound decent, they're going to show their limits. And choosing between Spotify and a sub-$200 vinyl set-up thus becomes a no-brainer.

Speaking of which, how many people under 30 still buy cd's?

We are speaking of made up terms and euphonics.

When we are talking about "High end analog" as compared to routine CD, it sounds better to most people.

A bunched of aged audiophiles who grew up with vinyl is not "most people". (I fall somewhat into that group).

Presented with well mastered versions of both, most who did not grow up on vinyl will take the digital version.

"No, you think it sounds better to you. That is completely meaningless to other people.."


When we are talking about "High end analog" as compared to routine CD, it sounds better to most people.


In "high end analog" we are speaking of depth of "sound stage", we are speaking of "air" around the instruments, we are speaking of a "holographic sound stage"; that's what I'm speaking of that sounds better to most people, and not just me. But maybe that wouldn't sound better to you.

@orpheus10 Its all good. I stream. I got CDs. I got CDs ripped on a server. No reason other than cash to limit ourselves. For me, cash and complexity are the barriers that keep me from vinyl. Not some notion that the other options are better or worse. Its all good.

No, you think it sounds better to you. That is completely meaningless to other people..

For those who are claiming analog sounds better; yes it does, but at a much higher price.

n80, I've been around awhile, I was at the Dead Sea when it died, and I was at the Red Sea when they dyed it Red. CD's are the best thing to come along since.......you name it.

Having said that I'm currently into "analog", but my cartridge costs as much as my CD player, plus you need a TT, plus phono Pre, plus expensive NOS tubes, and we ain't even got into the high price records to hear some music. And if you don't have all that stuff set up perfectly, you still ain't got squat.


Don't let nobody BS you, unless you come into a lot of loose change, you keep on doing watcha doing because I still do what you're doing.

@orpheus10 "All the people I knew were impressed..."   Possibly because you hung with other people who cared about the sound? Most of the people I knew during the cd-days of the 90's didn't care. I liked them because they were easier than tapes AND because they didn't have that tape hiss and muffle, but that was a baseline preference.

I don't know what generation you are, but most of my Gen X'ers who came of age with cd's liked them for their mechanical benefits, like convenience and that they wouldn't get eaten or tangled. Yes, there was some acknowledgment of their superior sound quality, but as most of us didn't have amazing systems, that was secondary.

When I went to college we had records and cassette tapes. Records were a problem in dorm rooms. My roommate had a B&O turntable with its own suspension but it was still not enough for the bouncy floors in our 70 year old dorm rooms. We even suspended it from the ceiling using webbing. It worked in terms of isolation but it swung around in a gentle circle which was disconcerting.

So we waited until we could be still and quiet and dubbed the vinyl onto cassette tape. We had a nice Nakamichi tape deck (but not the Dragon). We obsessed over which "metallic" tape to buy and then we obsessed about the settings on the tape deck even though we had very little idea what we were doing.

The end result was decent cassette tape recordings.

When CDs came out and became affordable that’s all I wanted and even though no longer in a dorm room, I had no desire to go back to vinyl and or cassette tapes.

In regard to price; that "see-saw" thing has little to do with the cost of production, but the simple law of supply and demand; all of a sudden records are in demand. When CD's came out they were overpriced because CD's were in demand; capitalists got to make money.

Simao, all the people I knew were impressed with the "noise less" fidelity; which was far superior to "mid-fi". The convenience was just icing on the cake.

Even today, while vinyl is being pushed, CD's are still better than "Mid-FI" and all these thing people hear with "Lo-Fi" vinyl are things we didn't hear during the 50 years preceding CD, but people are convinced that they hear what we didn't hear during all those years.

The only thing different today is the "expensive Hi-end" analog rig, which was also available back in the day, but few people had them. Not until CD did the masses become interested in "expensive analog rigs". Only after the "high enders" began to preach that vinyl was better than CD did they want to discover.

I feel sorry for people buying cheap record players and looking for something special because they got a vinyl record.

@orpheus10 Idk - I believe the convenience of a cd - being able to skip and select tracks at a whim - was a big factor in people moving over to that medium. Add to that their portability (who here once had a Discman of any iteration?) and it's no surprise they became so popular.

I imagine most were not playing them on systems with any real fidelity, either.

Plenty of great music and recordings available on CD, Streaming and Vinyl. Ever since switching to Streaming five years ago, I became very selective in what I buy on CD or Vinyl. My current collection of CD’s and Vinyl are under 200 each and they represent some of the finest recordings available on both formats.

Enjoy the music and STOP worrying about which format is superior or their price of admission :-)

My uncle was the first audiophile I ever knew. He was a neurologist in New Orleans. I remember a lot of McIntosh and Klipsch gear. I also remember visiting there when I was a child and one entire wall of his dedicated listening room was vinyl albums floor to ceiling. All classical.

When I went back maybe 10 years later that wall was full of CDs. No vinyl in sight.
He knew someone at Sony and they sent him pre-release CDs for his review.
Was he a discriminating listener? Did he have golden ears? I don’t know. I do know that he knew classical music. And it was very clear that the CD suited him just fine.

As far as 80’s recording quality? Steely Dan. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea in terms of production characteristics but it was clear that it was well and meticulously done and pretty much exactly what they intended.

True Orpheus10. I said this before, and it should be a given. If we are talking about analog versus digital front ends, we need to realize that an entry level analog setup is not going to soar above a top tier digital rig and vice versa.

There is one very important fact that has eluded everyone's assessment of this "CD, Record" thing. Everyone assumes that everyone else saw this thing from where they were positioned. People in the "high end" of analog, had an entirely different perspective than people in the "low end" of analog. What was fact for one person, was fiction for another person.

Early 80's music was very good. Seemed to me that music group quality went down at just about the time CDs were becoming popular. Maybe just a coincidence. The Columbia record club were sending out cds for ridiculously low priced groupings trying to get everyone to rebuy all their records onto cds. They hoped everyone would forget to cancel or send the card back declining the next month's overpriced selection. 

You really didn't have a choice for while - they weren't making records.  They cost more to make and sold for less. You don't need an MBA to realize that wasn't desired by the music industry.

As soon as they started making records again, I came back and disconnected my CD player 15 years ago because the sound was lifeless. Still play them in my car and Bose radio while washing the car. Never even tried SACDs. Do they still make them?

Millercarbon,

" The great mass of people abandoned the quality of records for the convenience of CD." (not true)


For the great mass of people, CD was far superior to records, and CD is still far superior to records if you don't have a "high end" analog rig. No, you didn't witness mass insanity, what you saw was reality.

I had a Gerard GT55 and a Shure V15 cartridge, which was in the class of TT's that the masses had, and CD is still far better to that. When "noiseless" CD came out, those in "low fi" (most people) immediately switched over. While those who were in the "high end" said "What's the big deal". No, it wasn't about convenience, it was about superior audio.

When they said "What's the big deal?", I said one of us is crazy. No, both of us were right; it was just that one of us had a high end rig and the other didn't. Today, my cartridge alone, costs twice as much as my entire rig back in the day, and that's not due to inflation. CD still sounds better than a mediocre vinyl rig, and anyone who says different is pushing some kind of agenda.

Supply and demand "always" rules price, not superiority and inferiority; that's the way capitalism works.

I didn't realize that my original post would generate so much discussion. I'm glad. Although I was thinking to respond directly to several posts, I think I'll just add a few extra thoughts:
1) I could have expanded on the comparing the cost between LP, CD to streaming. I'll leave that to some other economist or maths guy.
2) I purposely did not try to also compare quality as that is a whole other discussion, but it's a point well taken regardless of which format each person believes is good, better, best. You get what you pay for.
3) I listen to each type of media depending on my mood, desire/ability to handle a LP, to hear something new, and whether it's background music or a 'serious' listening session. Nope, not gonna tell you which is which as that will open another can of cables.
4) I like having a choice aside from just streaming as there have been many times the internet starts to act up as just as I want to listen. And I live in a city that has good bandwidth.
5) True, when buying used, that money does not go to the artist, but he did get paid for that CD originally. Should he get paid twice, three times? I believe there was a lawsuit long ago that tried to stop the sale of used CD's, video, etc. It failed. Also, in many cases I have brought the same album 2-3 times, and also then brought the CD. Then also streaming. How many times should you pay for one piece of music - another discussion thread perhaps? Now I don't get royalties, so my opinion might be different if I was.
Have a great and safe Thanksgiving all. 

jssmith

...  it holds some kind of status, in-the-know or hip factor, otherwise all LPs would be at the dump with all the other obsolete technologies.

There are reasons to buy LPs other than the status you imagine they possess.

Why else would you spend thousands of dollars on a turntable, cartridge and tens or hundreds of LPs on a technically inferior, inconvenient and space-consuming medium when the same money would give you 10-20 years of streaming millions of albums?

This is the logical fallacy of "begging the question," also known as circular reasoning.

To understand why some still buy LPs, you might consider auditioning a high-end LP playback system at a local dealer. Then you might have an idea of what's possible with LP playback.

@cleeds Obviously not to me. I got rid of (I thought) all my vinyl in 1990. But obviously to a niche of others it holds some kind of status, in-the-know or hip factor, otherwise all LPs would be at the dump with all the other obsolete technologies. Why else would you spend thousands of dollars on a turntable, cartridge and tens or hundreds of LPs on a technically inferior, inconvenient and space-consuming medium when the same money would give you 10-20 years of streaming millions of albums? OK, I get that a few prefer the added distortion of vinyl, but look at all the "pretty" megabucks turntables out there and all the vinyl aficionados who lust for them. That's not about function.

ssmith

... LPs have become a status product. Status products cost more ...

They have ? To whom? Obviously not to you!

I'm glad there are people who still prefer the constraints of LPs and CDs.

The easy answer is that LPs have become a status product. Status products cost more. CDs are not status products.

I'm glad there are people who still prefer the constraints of LPs and CDs. I sold off most of my CDs and recently found 40+ LPs in the basement I didn't know I still had that according to Discogs look to be worth at least $250 (using the lowest prices) wholesale in bulk. So now I can take those to my local vinyl store and get rid of them. Next step is to get rid of my old turntables that are wasting space. I was amazed to see that my first real turntable is selling for twice what I paid for it decades ago. Twenty years ago I thought I'd just wind up taking it to the dump. Meanwhile, my former CD and Bandcamp collection now resides on one 512GB flash drive and I have millions of albums to stream for ~ $150/yr.

First CD's I bought in 1984 were $22 each.  I bought 10, plus my first CD player, a Sony CDP-200 for $450.  I was severely price-gouged but was in hog heaven and I didn't care, and I never looked back.  I have zero desire to pay $20-50 for new LP's.  I prefer owning music I love rather than renting it, so streaming remains little more than the new FM for me.

I've been told, here at Audiogon, that vinyl is THE superior format as long as you're willing to go down that long expensive rabbit hole required to play it properly. I have no reason to doubt that but at the same time I have no intention of going down it. I don't need that expense or complication.

I have a modest turntable, a decent cartridge a cheap phonostage and a few albums. I occasionally buy an album on a whim. Rarely listen to them.


I get CD's on eBay. Usually between $3 and $8. I research them on the dynamic range database and buy the best recordings I can find.


These days I mostly stream high res. Easy. Convenient.

But when I hear something really good I find the best CD recording of it that I can find and buy it, rip it and keep the CD. I do the same with books. If its good and worth having I get it in hardback and put it on a shelf. If nothing else I'll leave quite the museum when I'm gone.

As it is, I can access my ripped CD's, Amazon Music and Sonos from my chair with the push of a button.

johnspain, +1
That said, I ruined plenty of CD's by playing them in my car and abusing them back in the days when cars had CD players. No more thankfully. 
Yes, CD's can sound very good with the right gear.

I will never clean, demagnetize or re-sleeve another record not will I clean another stylus. With the right equipment CDs sound amazing, they are easy to store, and require little maintenance..

I personally do like the physical media, a leftover from my days with record albums growing up. It is also very useful for learning the history of a classical piece from the liner notes, and in other music, there are lyric sheets oftentimes, as well as information about hidden collaborators that you would never have guessed if you hadn't had the liner notes. 

As most of us have streaming (not all I realize) I don't see the advantage of a used CD.  It won't sound better. It is not convenient. The artist sees even less revenue than streaming.  I guess if you are attached to physical media, but I long ago let that go.

This is a great time to buy CD’s, at least at the many Goodwill locations here in AZ. Maybe some people donating their collections because they gone to streaming, and I’m sure that in the retirement communities like Sun City they are donated by surviving relatives. Whatever the case, it is an amazing place to get great music of all genres. They have now dropped their prices from $2.29 per CD to $.99. Maybe turnover wasn’t fast enough.
Most CD’s are mint, especially if they are classical. I buy things that I am only vaguely interested in because I can’t leave it behind for the price. I bought three yesterday that would have cost over $110.00 when I checked them out on Amazon for $4.50!

At least with streaming the artist may see some money. A used CD confers 0 money to the artist.

The decline of CD prices and the rise of LP prices are due to lots of factors but here are a few of them.

CD pricing followed a typical pattern for any new technology. At first they were expensive because manufacturing efficiencies hadn't been fully realized and because they were novel. New techy stuff is expensive at first and then comes down in price.

Besides manufacturing prices coming down there is excess capacity in the CD industry. Excess capacity leads to lower margins and lower prices.

Many catalog CDs have a renegotiated royalty formula to help the record label put out the CD at a lower price to attract sales.

Vinyl LPs were mass produced when CDs were a new thing. The plants were turning out zillions of records often at low quality. I've got hundreds of LPs that I bought in the 70's and 80's that are just awful - noisy, clicks, pops, you name it. I tried returning them a few times only to find that the new copy was just as bad. My experience agrees with corelli - I viewed CDs as a definite improvement in SQ when they came out.

Nowadays Vinyl is the boutique format. The records are made with more care and are of much better quality than they were 50 years ago. LPs cannot be mass produced in the same way as CDs so the manufacturing cost is higher. The surviving pressing plants care about the quality of their records and they understand that if they produce garbage they will destroy their market.

Lastly, the bands and labels consider LPs to be a high margin item. Vinyl sales are often a major source or revenue for modern bands. Money from streaming (unless you are Beyonce) is insignificant. If you buy  LPs from your favorite musicians you are genuinely contributing to their survival.

BTW, I have hundreds of CDs that I bought for under $5. There are lots of places to hunt for cheap CDs with urban record stores being a good place to start.

I shop at a local "antique store" for CDs. They were $2.99 when I first started shopping there (about 3 years ago). Then, they were lowered to $1.99, later 99 cents, now 50 cents. That’s not deflation, just supply and demand. Every thrift store in town, even Goodwill Stores, sells CDs for a dollar!

I do most of my used LP buying on eBay for convenience. In my area (Pasco County, Florida) the Goodwills and thrift shops have sparse collections to hunt through. Not like where I previously lived - Fairfield County, CT (wealthiest part of a wealthy state). I hardly ever buy any new (reissue) LPs. Too expensive!

So many CDs were made since 1982 that the ever-increasing amount of used ones has driven down prices as many people switched to the convenience of streaming. Ditto for movie DVDs! I prefer ownership of physical media. And will continue to buy CDs and DVDs at bargain prices.

Check out this graph sgreg1. A lot of younger people do buy vinyl, but keep in mind this graph is bought at least 1 album, not the total bought.  Over 55 are buying more than ever, perhaps a grasp at youth :-).   The group 45-54 bought less in 2019 than 2018.  This would be the first group who grew up with vinyl, but quickly replaced it early into adulthood. They don't have quite the attachment. Younger buyer are buying, but no real growth.


https://www.statista.com/statistics/1008779/vinyl-record-buyers-us-by-age/

This was my exact thought in Best Buy the other day. When cd’s first came out I was still buying albums due the cost difference. Now it has done a 180 and don’t know why. IMO the industry must feel that us old farts who still have turntables must have money and will just pay up. I will guarantee you that not a single person under the age of 50 is buying albums. This is obvious when you look at the titles they are putting to vinyl. I will continue to look through the bins at the antique shops. Still searching for “eat a peach” in good condition.

I have been buying CD's on that auction site for a few months. It is my observation that CD prices are now slowly ascending. The price of vinyl is pulling them up. Slowly, but surely.

I tried playing vinyl in my car, but every speed bump I hit or hard braking I had to do caused the tonearm to jump around wildly. Never again. CDs only in the car, which makes them much more useful than vinyl. 

bimmerman 1000% with you, nicely said!

glupson, yes there actually has been a more fun year than 1983 or 1984, that would be 1985 actually:)

Great topic and great discussion. This just personally hit home for me as I just got my hands on an old Pioneer PD-F908 101 disc cd carousel. Back in the day this exact unit is how I listened to music. I needed the carousel as I have a very wide range of taste so multi disc storage and playback is a necessity! after a 15 year hiatus (divorce forced me to sell all my gear) I just got back into it. So I started as close to where I left off as I could (in my current system Dynaudio Audience has been replaced by Evoke, Rotel RMB1095 has been replaced with Simaudio Moon Titan 5 channel). However they don't make carousels anymore. So my cd collection did me no good. Streaming just isn't for me, so I used my iPhone connected to Audioquest Cobalt to try to get "cd quality" sound. It was great sound but not like I remembered. Could the difference be the cd player, could that be what was missing? YES!!! Since connecting this unit it has brought back what was missing! I am smiling like a little boy every time I listen to all my old cd's (and some new ones)! So for me I don't care what any new piece of gear states the only way to get "cd quality" sound is with a cd player!!!

Well I just bought 650 CDs in pristine condition for.30 each Telarc, Sony Classic, Deutch Gramophone, London, recordings of all the classical big guns performed by the big guns.
I Have had a similar event with Jazz CDs picked up 100 CDs at a dollar each from a guy who owned a music store.
All I know the CDs sound great to me. Some day I'll get into streaming not yet I gotta catch the "A train".  

I have records bought in early eighties as a young man and none of them have developed more pops and clicks, that is a bunch of bull. It is all in how they are stored and cared for....those records are as pristine as when I bought them all those years ago.