Why do hipsters prefer analog?

Because it sounds better. 

The only possible explanation is that analog is hip.   It’s also groovy baby,  yeah!!!

@cpr267 + 1

Ive heard this one before.
 

1. To get to the other side?

2.  Because it's ironic?

Hey you kids get off my lawn!

It's not a "hipster" thing; it's a sound quality thing.

Hipsters?

Is it 2009 again?

Mostly style and image.  If you look at the gear most of them are using, it is not for great sound quality.  

Because they are hip.

Oh relax folks if you can't make fun of hipsters who can you make fun of? I consider myself to be tragically unhip so none of this is about me. 😉

I was a teenager in the 70's and grew up listening to records/cassette tapes...wtf is a  "hipster"?!....lol....

As the father of at least one hipster (he liives in Bushwick, so it's official!) and after spending time with his delightfully unexpected friends, I get the impression that the tactile experience has value for them. Many of my sons friends are musicians, and making music using a physical thing (guitar, piano, sackbutt, ondes Martinot...) is part of their lives and physical medium for reproducing music makes sense to them.

I love the ritual of playing records, everything about it. I have three turntables and they delight me. Thousands of records, thousand of CDs, streaming... it's all good. And I currently looking for a R2R! 

Because it's fun? Yes.

Though the resurgence of the cassette is a little baffling. I suppose it's like pet rocks. Does some of it come down to wearing vintage clothing and buying midcentury modern furniture? I don't know...

Something I've wondered about too.

Have fun! Now I'll think I'll slip in a Minidisc and listen to Hot Tuna. Or maybe an Elcaset...

Peace

I guess I’m an almost former Hipster. I mostly listen to CD or CD ripped to the Nas, but there are a few vinyl disks that get spun from time to time.

What a dumb thread, even by the almost unimaginably low standards of this forum.

What’s the matter with kids, today?
--Paul Lynde from Bye Bye Birdie

You guys are all becoming Paul Lynde.

All the best,
Nonoise

Hipsters do not do it because of the way it sounds.  They like the cool brand of athletic clothing,  they like vinyl or cassettes because retro is cool, they need to do cool stuff, so everyone can see how cool they are.  Cool!

A whole lotta Judgement going on here...

Mirror anyone...?

kingharold

 " I don't care why hipsters are listening to vinyl.  I am just glad they are since it helps keep a very good format alive"

I guess in the end I agree with kingharold. These guys/gals are keeping the format alive. They are saying, "this older stuff is cool, worth having, worth spending money on, worth enjoying". They are taking a piece of history and preserving it their own way. I can appreciate that.

It's sad when they rip the gears and drop bars off a perfecly good bike and singlespeed it

I dunno - why do old audiophiles like such terrible music?

The point being, the question was doomed from the start. It takes a generalization (hipsters) and leads into a unfalsifiable claim of preference (prefer analog). This is covered in Philosophy 101.

The real answer is that they are hipsters because they prefer analog. Any discussion past this statement is just insulating, quite frankly, to the group of people this community needs to survive. Sure, a lot of young people will treat analog as a fad and move on, but such is life. Some will not, and they are the Audiogoners of the future. Nowadays, they will happily take that old tape deck off your hands.  Also, as others have pointed out, the resulting reissues due to the popularity are a welcome relief to the incredibly high prices of some originals. This is a win win. 

This is all coming from a 50 year old often referred to by my peers as a hipster - so take it for what its worth.

Modern hipsters have been around long enough to no longer be hip.

@rdk777 , well, one of the original responses used to be "Because someone told him not to...."  That got applied to the 'hippies', which I got accused of being periodically...

Never quite fit that 'groove', but it was a fun era to grow through...

...what I remember, anyway. *L*

Analog was all we had, and I went through all the formats like most.

Had a helluva good time making a lot of relentless noise.

My landlady just north of Eureka came over one afternoon and  mildly complained that she couldn't hear her stereo in her house over mine 20 yards away in our rented  house of hers.....  Same noted that she could hear the bass line walking to & from the mailboxes 100 yards away.

Another likely reason I wear aids now...;) 😎

@tony1954 

The Urban Dictionary describes "hipsters" as people that try too hard to be different (and genuinely do think that they're being different), by rejecting anything they deem to be too popular.
Ironically, so many other people also try too hard to be different that they all wind up being the exact same, so hipsters aren't actually different at all, they are just people that are snobbier and more annoying about their taste in "alternative" things, which are all popular now thanks to the other hipsters.
Hipsters pride themselves on liking things that no one else likes, and normally only really like them because they think no one else likes them and that they are being unique. This is being delusional because all the other hipsters also like the same things.

Very good explanation....explains the joke, "Why the hipster burn his mouth when eating pizza?  Because he ate it before it was cool." 

The Urban Dictionary describes "hipsters" as people that try too hard to be different (and genuinely do think that they're being different), by rejecting anything they deem to be too popular.
Ironically, so many other people also try too hard to be different that they all wind up being the exact same, so hipsters aren't actually different at all, they are just people that are snobbier and more annoying about their taste in "alternative" things, which are all popular now thanks to the other hipsters.
Hipsters pride themselves on liking things that no one else likes, and normally only really like them because they think no one else likes them and that they are being unique. This is being delusional because all the other hipsters also like the same things.

so you are saying that everybody that listened to vinyl, cassettes and 8 tracks, R2R, were all hipsters ?

what were they suppose to listen to ?

 

how does one even come up with something like this ?

I’m referring to anyone that started listening to analog after the year 2000. There are true users, and then there are hipsters!!!

Maybe because it sounds..."gasp"... *better*.

If a tree falls in the forest, and someone records it, will the hipster prefer to have it on vinyl or cassette?

"these hipsters, with the pants and the hair and their records..." is something people have been saying since 2005. that's almost 20 years ago. grumbling about "hipsters" in 2022 is like somebody in the late 90's still complaining about disco dancers 

rdk777

Next - why did the hipster cross the road?

To get to the other side where the new audio store is.

Oz:

This the only bunboy I've ever cared for (visited a few times while traveling from LA to Las Vegas) but unfortunately it's now history.

It was located next to the world's tallest thermometer (which hopefully survived) in in Baker, CA.

DeKay

Jeep

Reminds me of a line from the BBC program Life on Mars -  "So you drive a military vehicle".

 

@mrteeves That’s when I started buying records also.  Circa ‘05.  This was the all-time nadir of vinyl sales.  Man alive, if I knew then what I know now. 
I would walk out of record stores in Seattle with 10 LPs in my bag, each one for about $1.  Even with my vast uptick in finicky-ness and extensive purging of sub-par pressings for the past 5-odd years, I still have some of those great-sounding pressings I got for $1.  They would command 20x-30x the price now. 

I love those photographs of twentysomething hipsters, in full regalia, on the patio of some cafe or whatever, listening to vinyl on a portable turntable.

That’s hilarious.  It conjures David Attenborough: 

“The hipster congregates in cafes, where his public display of extremely inconvenient but socially advantageous music-listening signals his credentials.  Yes, the hipster could experience far superior audio fidelity through technology of vastly cheaper, vastly more convenient means, and could indeed reserve the turntable for more convenient at-home listening, but then there would be no one there to observe him doing so…”

Yes, I’m referring to all those that started listening to analog format after the year 2000. That was the peak of CDs and the rise of digital downloads and streaming.

Hipsters like Jeeps too. My boss has one. He asked me if I liked Jeeps and I told him I drove one in the Army before they switched to Humvees. I really don’t know if he likes audio equipment. I know he likes the peanut shop store in downtown Akron OH and it’s the oldest store in our city. Because it’s old.... I think he thinks it’s cool.

https://www.downtownakron.com/go/the-peanut-shoppe

Probably because retro is cool. I got back into audio about 15 years ago and started buying records because they were super cheap at the time. Then it became hip and the prices shot up like crazy. Glad I got a collection going before the madness. I prefer CDs though. 8 track and cassettes are crap for fidelity in my opinion and the only folks I know that have any R2R gear are over 60.

One thing that does drive me nuts is when they refer to records as vinyls. They are vinyl records for Pete’s sake not vinyls; at least get the terminology right. I am technically a millennial by the way but do not want to be associated with hipsters in any way.

What is hip today may become passe...

I used to live in the “hipster central” Santa Cruz, CA.

And sold cartridges and such in a record store.

The main behavior of our hipster customers was to listen to their phones all day as the bop along. And to slap on the vinyl as soon as they got home.

It was a pretty good business. 
I will never understand the wool knit hats in the Summer heat!

I'm told many hipsters own many LP's but don't actually own a turntable...

@rdk777 To get a PBR of course. 🤣

Here ya go!

What happened to the  OP?

Beyond audio format, I feel like vintage Marantz receivers have been on the hipsters radar for a while as well - maybe 2-3 years?

However, I just tried to purchase an ugly/plaid light weight cotton short sleeved button front/pocket shirt on Amazon and they were all sold out .

HIPSTERS!!!

Just put your hair up in a man bun, buy some skinny jeans, and carry on...

Hipsters started with vinyl records, then cassettes, then 8-tracks, then R2R.  Where will they stop?

well - you'd have to be hip to know...

I was initially concerned about local Hipsters (mainly from the Los Feliz area) gobbling up all the good vinyl, but it turns out that they only listen to The Dave Mathews Band.

However, I just tried to purchase an ugly/plaid light weight cotton short sleeved button front/pocket shirt on Amazon and they were all sold out .

HIPSTERS!!!

That's true.

I don't care why hipsters are listening to vinyl.  I am just glad they are since it helps keep a very good format alive.

Because part of being a hipster is feigning deep appreciation for some things from a romanticized past. It's part of the uniform, like wearing a heavy knit cap in the summer heat.