Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Reply #30 – 2017-07-25 19:14:18
Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that? http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player You might expect that they are looking for a turntable on craigslist of suitable quality. A friend on mine collected LPs for years before he finally bought a high end machine. This seems as good a place as any to drop this link:http://brooklynradio.com/vinyl-recorder-t560/ If the LP were really on the way out, seems unlikely that a product like this would exist. ...But maybe now’s the ‘moment’ for this previously-outlandish market niche. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's an obscure toy, which I accept would probably give its owners lots of pleasure. Vinyl on the way out. On a scale of ubiquitous to Museum Piece, then, where would you place "vinyl" now? Very much closer to the latter than the former. Just try, today, to find a street with a turntable in the living room of every music listener who lives there. OK, so it is not dead and gone yet. It, and its associated equipment, has a following that is going to keep it alive for a while yet. But, give or take a bit of waxing and waning, it is never again going to be a mainstay of the mass music market. I don't know why some of its enthusiasts have a need to "prove" otherwise. Who cares how many albums and turntables were sold last year, this year... it is not even a particularly interesting statistic to people who buy albums and turntables. Yes, LP/Vinyl is on the way out. And yes, there may be years to go before it finally ceases to exist, and even then, some hobbyist somewhere will be producing some niche item and people will still be listening to existing collections on existing equipmet. More power to their pick-up arms. It's great fun, playing LPs, to those who can still be bothered. But enough of the album sales double stuff. Who cares. Vinyl is on the way out... One day.