Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[deweydm]

Watched this, Squaring The Circle (The Story Of Hipgnosis), on Netflix last night. Re album covers, “the poor man’s art collection“. Not an important factor for me, but a factor in their popularity.

 

[Sal1950]

Ha, I was actually going to ask if you were at the disco demolition! I wasn't far off!

Nope, Steve Dahl and his WDAI radio station were my main listen back then, besides WVON for Blues, Motown, etc.
I did know Steve personally and we hired him and his band "Teenage Radiation" for a New Years Eve concert-party one year.
He was a bit of a jerk but his on-air partner Gary Meyers was cool.
It was amazing how quickly it became un-kool to be a disco-duck after the demo night on a near nationwide basis. LOL

 

[Newman]

Someone inspired someone...!

 

[deweydm]

“The demand from the consumers comes as a reaction to ephemeral nature of digital files.” — Vinyl, the perfect medium for the digital age.

 

[Robin L]

“The demand from the consumers comes as a reaction to ephemeral nature of digital files.” — Vinyl, the perfect medium for the digital age.

Except that CDs are not ephemeral.

 

[deweydm]

Except that CDs are not ephemeral.

Right, so where’s the CD renaissance? Art work is too small, often as brick walled as streaming can be, unpleasant to shop for, not “cool”. But man, are they cheap.

 

[MattHooper]

It was amazing how quickly it became un-kool to be a disco-duck after the demo night on a near nationwide basis. LOL

Even from Canada I remember the Steve Dahl record blow up well! And yes, as stated in the documentary I linked, it seemed to create a real before and after point for disco.

For me, if I get to heaven and they are playing ABBA and Bee Gees...I'll be ok with that given many alternatives.

If the gates open and they are playing Grateful Dead (or Tom Waits, or...), I'll presume I was sent to Hell.

(Recognizing that many people would feel the reverse...)

 

[MattHooper]

“The demand from the consumers comes as a reaction to ephemeral nature of digital files.” — Vinyl, the perfect medium for the digital age.

The author identified an aspect that rings true for some vinyl enthusiasts.

For me, purely subjectively/experientially, playing vinyl is more like fine dining, whereas playing digital is more often used like fast food.

 

[drewdawg999]

Someone inspired someone...!

Whoa, nice symmetry.

This record sounds fantastic, loves me some left-wing socialist punk rock and roll. My copy is clean, really nice clarity and fun to play.

This inspires me, beautiful packaging and color variant. Sounds good and different on vinyl, nice workout for the sub.

 

[Robin L]

Right, so where’s the CD renaissance? Art work is too small, often as brick walled as streaming can be, unpleasant to shop for, not “cool”. But man, are they cheap.

The local library sells used CDs for $1 each, the thrift store for $3 and the local record store for $1 and up. A lot of the boxed sets I'm lusting after on Amazon go for around $2 a disc. I'm buying classical, so brickwalling isn't an issue. The type for liner notes is usually too small for an old fogey like me and the cover art is usually nothing to write home about. But in any case, there's a mammoth backlog of old classical titles I've yet to hear, so CDs can stay uncool for as long as they like. I suspect the only folks who complain about "brickwalling" are that miniscule segment known as "audiophiles". Everyone else just wants to turn it up to 11.

 

[Audiofire]

Except that CDs are not ephemeral.

Then again, CDs in the microwave on YouTube take the meaning of ephemeral more seriously. Have audiophiles incorporated vinyl survivalism in their marketing yet? We could use the entertainment on ASR.

 

[Robin L]

Then again, CDs in the microwave on YouTube take the meaning of ephemeral more seriously. Have audiophiles incorporated vinyl survivalism in their marketing yet? We could use the entertainment on ASR.

They're plenty ephemeral, considering that leaving them out in the sun ruins them.

 

[Galliardist]

The LP revival began around 2007 and has not slowed down, so these two phenomena don't compare in the slightest.

I'm not so sure that even that is true.

You see, I ditched vinyl in 2005, partly for space reasons, partly because my turntable was burning through motors and I had cartridge issues.

As such, I'm entirely aware of what the situation was like before 2007. There was a definite vinyl subculture then - in fact two of them - among people like me who didn't leave. There was pent up demand for second hand records in good condition. In Australia, there were definitely people importing records (online was a thing by then) and ordering records through specialists. There was a market in second hand record players of all sorts - I know part of the market then for example was 1950s/60s "mid century modern" radiograms, and there was a "vintage hifi" market for Japanese turntables. (In turn, there was a Japanese enthusiast market that was also buying these and advertised in UK and Australian mags to buy them, right through the lean years). These markets all in all were fairly small, but they added up. Not forgetting collectors who are a different breed.

I could and did also audition a lot of turntables and cartridges in the early 2000s. In fact most of the larger turntable brands active in Australia today (give or take Clearaudio and Technics) were active then. The difference was that you had to ask, back then - now if you want something else, the talk is pushed towards vinyl.

A lot of the revival in LP buying is not "new" as part of a "renaissance", but suppressed demand from these subcultures that were always there.

What happened in 2007 was important for vinyl in that more money appeared for turntables and vinyl, and some entrepreneurs saw potential and invested in pressing new vinyl. This relates to the redundant executives from the GFC in part, as I recall it.

Part of the reason for vinyl not being a fad is that actually it was always there.

 

[Robin L]

I'm not so sure that even that is true.

You see, I ditched vinyl in 2005, partly for space reasons, partly because my turntable was burning through motors and I had cartridge issues.

As such, I'm entirely aware of what the situation was like before 2007. There was a definite vinyl subculture then - in fact two of them - among people like me who didn't leave. There was pent up demand for second hand records in good condition. In Australia, there were definitely people importing records (online was a thing by then) and ordering records through specialists. There was a market in second hand record players of all sorts - I know part of the market then for example was 1950s/60s "mid century modern" radiograms, and there was a "vintage hifi" market for Japanese turntables. (In turn, there was a Japanese enthusiast market that was also buying these and advertised in UK and Australian mags to buy them, right through the lean years). These markets all in all were fairly small, but they added up. Not forgetting collectors who are a different breed.

I could and did also audition a lot of turntables and cartridges in the early 2000s. In fact most of the larger turntable brands active in Australia today (give or take Clearaudio and Technics) were active then. The difference was that you had to ask, back then - now if you want something else, the talk is pushed towards vinyl.

A lot of the revival in LP buying is not "new" as part of a "renaissance", but suppressed demand from these subcultures that were always there.

What happened in 2007 was important for vinyl in that more money appeared for turntables and vinyl, and some entrepreneurs saw potential and invested in pressing new vinyl. This relates to the redundant executives from the GFC in part, as I recall it.

Part of the reason for vinyl not being a fad is that actually it was always there.

Of course, the older discs became more worn and damaged over time, so there was a built-in demand for replacements. I was still frequently buying LPs 1990 through 2007, there were plenty of discs in good shape in the 1990s as the rush for CDs started out. I will have to admit that the increasing cost of new vinyl drove me away from the format, not to mention the rapid decline in the cost of CDs.

 

[mhardy6647]

Upwards and Onwards...still renaissancing...

Vinyl sales up nearly 15 per cent in 2023​

Vinyl sales up nearly 15 per cent in 2023

Artists including Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Blur have aided the sales

www.nme.com

Dude. Verbing weirds language.

ahem.
On topic. I recently got a new record from Mrs. H for my birthday - the Cowboy Junkies album Lay it Down (from ca. 1995, and only recently available in the licorice pizza format).

 

[HammersRocco]

Whatever the current fads are or general populace believe, vinyl hasn't been a relevant medium
as a High Fidelity source for over 30 years any more than a cassette or 8 track player.
Just a bunch of silliness and a waste of investment capital if top flight audio is your goal.
If what you really want is an expensive toy to play with, fine.
Otherwise you might as well throw your money down the toilet.
Those are the facts of the "vinyl revival".
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I have been wondering , as a thought exercise what is the purpose of continuing this conversation - sure, it is fun to argue and quite frankly, I started arguing in internet forums during the pandemic! Started doing it instead of watching TV!

BUT, again, as merely an opinion, what is the end game/goal here? Please let's look at the facts: myself, @MattHooper, we are here, we are ASR Members. I have said it many times before and will say again, I (and probably Matt) are under no delusions - I have never argued Sound Quality, Platform Superiority, or anything like that. That would be dumb. I am technically proficient enough to know that is not the case.I JUST LIKE IT. PERIOD. SIMPLE. I know Matt have posted stuff along the same lines.

But really, what is the end game? Specifically what does @Sal1950 want? I mean, my above statement kind of says he is right. But it is not quite enough, is it? what do you want me to do? to apologize for a personal preference? to throw away my vinyl ? Kind of switch sides and start proselytizing against the format? Not gonna do that because an internet handle tells me so.

There are many things that are a waste of investment capital, @Sal1950 and yet we do them we are fortunate to afford them and they are fun TO US. Do you own a luxury car? A waste, and a really dumb IMHO. Same for sports cars. Harleys. Spending money on a ticket for an American Football game. All a waste, IMHO.

Again, notice that, "IMHO" - if you love your Mercedes, Beemer, Caddy, Porsche, Ferrari, Harley or the Dallas Cowboys, knock yourself out - YOU DO YOU!

I beg of the moderators to close this thread.

 

[MattHooper]

There are many things that are a waste of investment capital, @Sal1950 and yet we do them we are fortunate to afford them and they are fun TO US. Do you own a luxury car? A waste, and a really dumb IMHO. Same for sports cars. Harleys. Spending money on a ticket for an American Football game. All a waste, IMHO.

Oh man, don't get me started...

Every spring I have the same experience: The first spring days like most I'm out soaking in the new sun and warmth, having a wonderful walk in the neighbourhood.
And suddenly it's interrupted by the ground shaking, my bones shaking, and a deafening teeth chattering roar that rips through my eardrums and obliterates all other reality. Yup. Some a**hole just drove by on his Harley. And then I remember "Ah, man, it's motorcycle season again."

If anyone wants to start a movement to get owners of obnoxious, loud-*ssed car or motorcycles to trade in their boy-toys for vinyl records, I can get behind that.

 

[Doodski]

the ground shaking, my bones shaking, and a deafening teeth chattering roar that rips through my eardrums and obliterates all other reality. Yup. Some a**hole just drove by on his Harley. And then I remember "Ah, man, it's motorcycle season again."

I think I've been affected to the degree that my vision blurs and goes wonky when a super loud Harley goes tearing past at full throttle. It's that bad sometimes.

 

[MattHooper]

I think I've been affected to the degree that my vision blurs and goes wonky when a super loud Harley goes tearing past at full throttle. It's that bad sometimes.

I suffer from hyperacusis, so a close Harley can literally cause my hearing to be f*cked up for days, weeks, months. South Park got this one right. I've often wondered what a Harley rider would think if someone popped up beside them and blew an air-horn in their ears. "What's the problem? Blowing air horns randomly in public beside people is my hobby! I like it. So what if the noise bothers you?!"

 

[atmasphere]

Money spent on dragging a rock thru a ditch is a big step backward in quality from the modern alternatives.

I'm curious why people talk this way when its not really analogous to what happens in an LP groove.

You may consider the tech to be 'crippled' but it has advanced quite a lot since 1960 Cartridges have gotten a lot better, putting to bed that old saw about lack of bandwidth at the inner grooves. Tonearms have also vastly improved and at least one pressing plant, QRP, has sorted out how to make pressings that are in the -80dB noise floor ballpark, making the playback electronics the noise floor.

I found out serendipitous about 35 years ago that many inexpensive phono preamps generate ticks and pops that sound as if they are on the LP surface. They are caused by a poor high frequency overload margin; the result of the phono preamp designer not taking into account the implication of an inductor (the cartridge) in parallel with a capacitance (the tonearm cable). The resulting resonance causes many phono stages to overload. I've no doubt that many people that say they moved away from analog did so because they were exposed to such phono sections, which were endemic from the 1970s well into the 1990s.

All that aside, if you want to really hear what a recording from the late 1950s through the early 1970s sounds like, you can't do it digital since the tape quality has lost so much energy since originally recorded. Add to that tapes that shed their oxides due to polyester backing and poor storage (more common than you might think), and you have a lot of masters that are no longer playable, plus masters that simply went missing. So many digital reissues are made from a second rate source.

For all of this you need a properly set up turntable to really hear how good some of these recordings really are. And a decent phono section that doesn't have obvious electronics 101 design flaws...