I read this in the Metro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(British_newspaper)) (free newspaper, widely read in UK) the other day...
https://www.mediafire.com/?f2yqupozu71tgia (https://www.mediafire.com/?f2yqupozu71tgia)
"the majority of vinyl is purchased by under 25s" - thankfully there's no claim that people are buying it for the sound quality.
For all the excitement, vinyl is still less than 1% of the market - but that's 1% more than many people expected.
I wonder if most of these new vinyl fans are also downloading the same tracks?
Cheers,
David.
P.S. sorry for the poor quality image - it's 4x larger than my scanner so I just took a photo of the newspaper - you can still read it, so it didn't seem worth faffing around stitching 4 scans together.
P.P.S. the trend that annoys me most (also noted in the stats accompanying this article) is the death of the CD single. This makes it impossible to get lossless digital versions of many remixes. I guess CD albums are safe for a few years yet.
Sad news for digital audio and Hydrogenaudio.
Here's the article on their site: http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/07/strictly-on-...-album-4251516/ (http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/07/strictly-on-the-record-the-rebirth-of-the-vinyl-album-4251516/)
Enjoy.
I believe it's a fashion thing.
I'm >25, and most Vinyls I get, are used. I rarely get new ones but I do if it's an interesting artist.
When getting a new Vinyl from Amazon or something, you usually get a code to download the album as FLACs, MP3s, and M4A respectively.
It is not the Vinyl ripped and stored to those files, mind you. They're mastered differently, you can hear that, but both the files and the Vinyl sound "right" for the lack of a better term.
I always download the digital album as well. It is part of the package after all, and it makes sense, I think.
For all the excitement, vinyl is still less than 1% of the market - but that's 1% more than many people expected.
I was thinking of submitting related news article the other day but didn't get to it. There's clearly a huge vinyl revival going on over the last few years. Growth rates particularly of vinyl album sales have been spectacular. Not just in the UK, but in mainland Europe and the US as well.
For example, Billboard reported (http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/5855162/digital-music-sales-decrease-for-first-time-in-2013) just a few days ago that in the US, vinyl album sales rose against a negative trends for albums overall (total figures include CD and digital sales).
From the source I linked:
Overall, album sales suffered an 8.4% decline, dipping to 289.4 million units from nearly 316 million units in 2012. The CD declined 14.5% to 165.4 million units, down from 193.4 million in the prior year, while vinyl continued its ascension rising to 6 million units from the 4.55 million the format tallied in 2012. That means vinyl is now 2% of album sales in the U.S; digital albums comprise 40.6% and the CD is 57.2% and cassettes and DVDs 0.2%.
(EDIT: nothing about the demographics of buyers in the article I linked.)
Sad news for digital audio and Hydrogenaudio.
You make it sound like "digital audio" (whoever that is) (and hydrogenaudio in particular) is somehow anti-vinyl.
There's clearly a huge vinyl revival going on over the last few years. Growth rates particularly of vinyl album sales have been spectacular. Not just in the UK, but in mainland Europe and the US as well.
There is also a huge digital download boom going on. The CD is dying, and albums sell less because younger people don't download albums, but individual songs. So it might well be possible that while vinyl is 2% of album sales, it might still be only 1% of all music sales.
I read this in the Metro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(British_newspaper)) (free newspaper, widely read in UK) the other day...
https://www.mediafire.com/?f2yqupozu71tgia (https://www.mediafire.com/?f2yqupozu71tgia)
"the majority of vinyl is purchased by under 25s" - thankfully there's no claim that people are buying it for the sound quality.
No? From tinpanalley's link: "There are qualities to a vinyl release that certainly can’t be found on other things
in terms of the audio quality, the visual quality, the added content."
[emphasis mine]
Yes, I'd skipped over that - though it doesn't say it's better
Cheers,
David.
though it doesn't say it's better
Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but I interpret "the added content" as more musical content on the material. :\
They're mastered differently, you can hear that, but both the files and the Vinyl sound "right" for the lack of a better term.
How do you know this is due to different mastering and not differences due to media and playback equipment?
Maybe you could upload some samples?
If you would like to discuss beyond uploading, I can split the topic.
News like this makes wonder how many times XIX century's artisans were promised (by luddites, perhaps) power looms would be just a fad and they would eventually get back to doing their antiquate jobs for a living - as long as they kept making a lot of noise!
It's the same story on photography websites and magazines: whenever they need a blatant edition-filler of a report, they come up with gems like 'film is alive and kicking', 'discontinued emulsion X is to be put in production again by a third party' - sometimes a few editions away from one which showed just another big emulsion manufacturer/dealer going into administration or totally busted - whereas these are obviously the big guys who are the real decision makers - not the Hungarian garage artisan manufacturing a discontinued British emulsion for a few hundred film lovers - far from me to being disrespectful to his job, bless him.
I have nothing against neither vynil nor film stock, but Metro? Are you serious!? If there's something I quickly learned when living in London, was the reason why Metro is a free paper - its content usually makes one conclude you get what you paid for it.
Sad news for digital audio and Hydrogenaudio.
I know it won't happen but sometimes you do long for a 'like' option at HA.
I have nothing against neither vynil nor film stock, but Metro? Are you serious!? If there's something I quickly learned when living in London, was the reason why Metro is a free paper - its content usually makes one conclude you get what you paid for it.
It's hardly just Metro - google
vinyl sales increase - it's everywhere (as most "news" stories are).
Cheers,
David.
There is also a huge digital download boom going on.
At least for the US, this isn't true. 2013 was the first year in history in which digital download sales FELL. In difference to that, vinyl sales rose sharply.
Nobody disputes that in absolute terms, vinyl is a niche. But it's a niche that's been growing sharply for roughly five or six years. 2% market share is nothing to sneeze at.
EDIT: streaming is growing, though.
I predict a similar CD revival in 2028. I did think of several reasons why this wouldn't happen, but heck, it's the last major physical audio format - some demographic will return to it when it's nearly dead.
I'm not so hopeful for MiniDisc I don't think VHS stands much of a chance either.
Cheers,
David.
They're mastered differently, you can hear that, but both the files and the Vinyl sound "right" for the lack of a better term.
How do you know this is due to different mastering and not differences due to media and playback equipment?
Vinyls being mastered differently has been a "rule" for a long time, like centering the bass frequencies to make the needle stay in the groove better. If most pressing plants and mastering enginners do that now a days I don't know BUT vinyls usually ARE mastered differently than CDs.
Based on the examples submitted to this forum, I have not seen much evidence of this "rule," so I hope you aren't offended that I don't just take your word for it.
Here's a major thing about buying vinyl: there are indie labels releasing limited pressings of vinyl-only records, which are relatively cheap when ordered from the label upon release but their price drastically increases as time passes and the records go out of stock. There are people who literally hoard such releases only to resell them later. This is also the case with some cassette-only releases. Have a look at this (http://www.discogs.com/Lunar-Aurora-Paysage-DHiver-A-Haudiga-Fluag-Schwarz%C3%A4-Feus-Schwarz%C3%A4s-Isa/master/367090) to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Yes, I'd skipped over that - though it doesn't say it's better
Cheers,
David.
What I'm curious about is if the kids have been duped by their peers? or by the audiophile press?
If you poll the people actually walking out of a store with LPs in their bag I suspect the "it's better" contingent is
much higher, but this is the closest thing I could find to a poll:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-gener...playback-18160/ (http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/poll-folks-digital-and-vinyl-playback-18160/)
It's not just a "niche" group, I'm afraid.
Based on the examples submitted to this forum, I have not seen much evidence of this "rule," so I hope you aren't offended that I don't just take your word for it.
Well you have to look outside of this forum to get some answers but here are some sites that mention it among other things.
http://www.saemastering.com/VinylMasteringFAQs.php (http://www.saemastering.com/VinylMasteringFAQs.php)
http://totalsonicmastering.com/vinyl.htm (http://totalsonicmastering.com/vinyl.htm)
Both talk about excess sibilants/high frequencies and centered bass. Other claim you can use a CD master to cut a vinyl record. If I am not wrong I think Bob Katz talks about it in his mastering book about centering bass frequencies.
Both talk about excess sibilants/high frequencies and centered bass. Other claim you can use a CD master to cut a vinyl record. If I am not wrong I think Bob Katz talks about it in his mastering book about centering bass frequencies.
I think it's a stretch to describe these cutting techniques as constituting a different master. Cutting masters for vinyl have always been tweaked to compensate for the limitations of the format. But they can easily be derived from the same master as the CD. Or not, in some cases. There is no rule - any specific vinyl release may or may not use the same source master as the CD.