Records Outsell CD !

[Robin L]

CD probably still outselling vinyl but you can overcharge a lot more for vinyl and the cd has to be cheaper if US pricing is anything like the UK. That said I don't think vinyl revenues are as large outside US. Probably the most profitable for the industry per unit though.

Vinyl discs sold still far lower than 8 track and even cassette tapes sold in vinyls heyday.

During the mid-eighties, when cars had cassette players and Walkmen became a thing, the cassette was the dominant media for recorded music. As of 1986, Cassettes were 53% of the market, CDs were 28% and LPs were 18%. Check out the animated chart of music sales by media, 1976-2020

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/anim...-sales-by-format-share-1973-to-2020-mid-year/

Read the fine print:

" . . . the modest but perhaps temporary comeback in vinyl records from an all-time market share low of 0.2% between 2005-2007 to a market share above 1% in 2013 for the first time since 1991 before rising to 5.1% in 2015 (highest since 1988) and then falling below 5% in the last five years and dropping to 4.1% this year . . . "

My emphasis.

 

[Robin L]

This is the key thing for me too.
I was an early adopter of file based music almost 20 years ago now.
I worked away from home a lot and was looking for a way to take music with me that didn't involve a heavy flight case full of cassettes and a walkman.
The tagging systems have always been unsuited to classical music with primacy having been given to artist rather than composer so whilst auto tagging worked after a fashion I had to come up with my own system just so I could reasonably conveniently find what I want to listen to.
After 10 years of re-tagging every rip so it wasn't useless I gave up in a fit of pique and went back largely to CDs. The length of time it took to re-tag every rip is about 10 to 15 times longer than it takes me to get the CD from its shelf and play it.
Sadly classical music is an extreme minority interest overall.

The cheap DAP I'm using [Fiio M3K] makes tagging easy. I've got folders inside of folders. I ripped the Bruckner Symphony Cycle into I-Tunes [Apple Lossless], with a folder for each. So I don't have to type in the metadata. These folders are 0 through 9, each "CD" marked numerically. The main folder is "Riccardo Chailly", it's in the folder "Bruckner". The Bruckner folder is inside the "Romantic" folder, inside the "Classical" folder. With the tiny display of the tiny DAP, one wants the important data in the front, the ballast in the back. I can add JPEGs for album covers if I want too, but I'm usually too lazy for that sort of thing.

 

[Robin L]

I think you misunderstood me. Equipment has nothing to do with it. There are hundreds of recordings of, say, Beethoven's symphonies. Although they are all slightly different, most of them provide, for me, a roughly equivalent musical experience unless they are objectively bad performances in some way. A few are probably special, whether through unusual arrangements or exotic recording locations. Such recordings can be interesting, but for the most part, I'm quite happy listening to a "standard" performance, and there is no need to scour the used CD market for those.

Yeah, I'm with Frank on this one. I'm the one with the Benedetti tapes, Furtwängler's Stockholm "Ein deutsches Requiem", the one with the terrible audio engineering. It's all about the performance, I've got multiple Beethoven cycles on purpose, they all sound different to me.

 

[Taddpole]

During the mid-eighties, when cars had cassette players and Walkmen became a thing, the cassette was the dominant media for recorded music. As of 1986, Cassettes were 53% of the market, CDs were 28% and LPs were 18%. Check out the animated chart of music sales by media, 1976-2020

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/anim...-sales-by-format-share-1973-to-2020-mid-year/

Read the fine print:

" . . . the modest but perhaps temporary comeback in vinyl records from an all-time market share low of 0.2% between 2005-2007 to a market share above 1% in 2013 for the first time since 1991 before rising to 5.1% in 2015 (highest since 1988) and then falling below 5% in the last five years and dropping to 4.1% this year . . . "

My emphasis.

I like this chart though it's touch out of date.

Though think it's picked up this year from last few, vinyl sales still pretty dismal overall, though high value per unit sale.

 

[mansr]

Yeah, I'm with Frank on this one.

With him how? In concluding that I'm an "equipment fanatic"? I'm not. My equipment is quite modest, and I very rarely mess around with it. I am also not a performance fanatic, which is what you and Frank appear to be. I simply derive no pleasure from always chasing after something slightly better, be it equipment or performances.

Of course all performances sound different. They're just not _sufficiently_ different for me to find any value in chasing down every last variation and studying them in minute detail.

Of course a great performance can make up for technical deficiencies in the recording. Within reason. If the only available copy of a specific performance has been recorded to cassette tape from a poorly tuned FM radio, then played back over a phone line using an old Walkman with nearly dead batteries, then I'll probably give it a pass. There's always going to be a much better recording of one that's just as good, even if subtly different.

Jazz is another matter. There various takes on the standards can be wildly different, the performers imparting much more of their own signature. That is (one reason) why I find jazz rather more interesting than classical.

 

[Jimbob54]

Edit, no idea what the mansr quote was doing in there.

I don't even know what this is.

Amir's second best creation ..... Windows own built in itunes rip off player

(I jest- I suspect he was well out of MS by then)

 

[watchnerd]

The recording, rack-mount version of that deck in the thumbnail (Studer A807) is what I have on the way to me from the Netherlands right now.

 

[Taddpole]

Amir's second best creation ..... Windows own built in itunes rip off player

(I jest- I suspect he was well out of MS by then)

Always thought of it as poor Windows media player update. On plus side it was better than anything Sony created. Sonicstage remains worst software I've used for anything.

 

[Robin L]

With him how? In concluding that I'm an "equipment fanatic"? I'm not. My equipment is quite modest, and I very rarely mess around with it. I am also not a performance fanatic, which is what you and Frank appear to be. I simply derive no pleasure from always chasing after something slightly better, be it equipment or performances.

Of course all performances sound different. They're just not _sufficiently_ different for me to find any value in chasing down every last variation and studying them in minute detail.

Of course a great performance can make up for technical deficiencies in the recording. Within reason. If the only available copy of a specific performance has been recorded to cassette tape from a poorly tuned FM radio, then played back over a phone line using an old Walkman with nearly dead batteries, then I'll probably give it a pass. There's always going to be a much better recording of one that's just as good, even if subtly different.

Jazz is another matter. There various takes on the standards can be wildly different, the performers imparting much more of their own signature. That is (one reason) why I find jazz rather more interesting than classical.

I'm just a garden variety fanatic. Probably spent too much time working in record stores, reading the "Penguin Guide", getting multiple versions of the same piece, recording orchestras, choruses, usw . . .
I'm a sound fanatic too. I got $700, don't you mess with me.

 

[raistlin65]

Unfortunately for the CD, it inhabits the no man’s land between the nostalgia of the LP and the practicality of the streaming service. It loses on both fronts.

And maybe not. Streaming services are still in their infancy as an industry.

Likely it will eventually settle down to fewer services, where they can block entry from new competitors. If they decide to jack the prices on streaming services or start breaking it into genre content packages (think how Comcast cable works), some people may wish they'd stuck to buying CDs and/or digital file downloads.

 

[Zensō]

And maybe not. Streaming services are still in their infancy as an industry.

Likely it will eventually settle down to fewer services, where they can block entry from new competitors. If they decide to jack the prices on streaming services or start breaking it into genre content packages (think how Comcast cable works), some people may wish they'd stuck to buying CDs and/or digital file downloads.

It's likely to be the usual suspects left standing: Amazon, Apple, and Google, with the addition of Spotify. With the big three in the game, it seems unlikely prices will go up. Music is a value-added service more than a profit center for all three.

I believe it was Walt Mossberg who once asked Jeff Bezos why Amazon moved into movie streaming - his answer? "Tennis shoes." He went on to explain movie streaming wasn't profitable directly but it helped lock people into Prime and the Amazon ecosystem, which in turn helped them sell more tennis shoes and a million other things. Music streaming seems to have a similar function for these companies.

 

[Jimbob54]

It's likely to be the usual suspects left standing: Amazon, Apple, and Google, with the addition of Spotify. With the big three in the game, it seems unlikely prices will go up. Music is a value-added service more than a profit center for all three.

I believe it was Walt Mossberg who once asked Jeff Bezos why Amazon moved into movie streaming - his answer? "Tennis shoes." He went on to explain movie streaming wasn't profitable directly but it helped lock people into Prime and the Amazon ecosystem, which in turn helped them sell more tennis shoes and a million other things. Music streaming seems to have a similar function for these companies.

Here is another doozy. Amazon's biggest profit centre by a long way is AWS-

The biggest customer of AWS- Netflix

So hows about setting up a service in your left hand to take revenues away from the biggest revenue generator in your right hand. And i bet they charge Netflix the same regardless of Prime Video users.

So who loses out? Me- I pay for both services to shit out and eat each other.

 

[Zensō]

So who loses out? Me- I pay for both services to shit out and eat each other.

Yup. And yet, we keep paying and paying...

 

[Jimbob54]

Yup. And yet, we keep paying and paying...

And yet I am still better off then when buying DVD and CDs- What a time to be alive!

 

[Taddpole]

And yet I am still better off then when buying DVD and CDs- What a time to be alive!

Yeah I spent more most weeks than I do every few months now.

 

[Jimbob54]

Yeah I spent more most weeks than I do every few months now.

Exactly.

 

[watchnerd]

Yeah, I'm with Frank on this one. I'm the one with the Benedetti tapes, Furtwängler's Stockholm "Ein deutsches Requiem", the one with the terrible audio engineering. It's all about the performance, I've got multiple Beethoven cycles on purpose, they all sound different to me.

And yet I am still better off then when buying DVD and CDs- What a time to be alive!

I have a three more boxes of DVDs and CDs I'll be trading into the "used media" store for store credit to get more LPs.

 

[Taddpole]

Exactly.

Though maybe we should all keep quiet about that...

 

[Sukie]

Yeah I spent more most weeks than I do every few months now.

Completely agree. Things might change in the future but, at present, streaming services provide me with access to the music that I want to listen to at a fraction of the cost of CDs. I love the fact that I have so much to choose from. Happy days.

 

[Jimbob54]

Though maybe we should all keep quiet about that...

*Hint* they already know exactly what you spent then and now and on what. If you're lucky they arent judging you. At least not as long as you keep paying.