Vinyl's Comeback - featured NYTimes article
Harry Lavo
Sunday's edition. The following is just a partial quote from the article:
"Rachelle Friedman, the co-owner of J&R, said the store is selling more
vinyl and turntables than it has in at least a decade, fueled largely by
growing demand from members of the iPod generation.
'It's all these kids that are really ramping up their vinyl collections,'
Ms. Friedman said. 'New customers are discovering the quality of the sound.
They're discovering liner notes and graphics.' In many instances, the vinyl
album of today is thicker and sounds better than those during vinyl's heyday
in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years,
tromping on the notion that the rebound was just a fad. Through late
November, more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an
increase of more than 35 percent in a year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
That total, though it represents less than 1 percent of all album sales,
including CDs and digital downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in any
year since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991. "
--NYTimes, December 6, 2009
--
Harry Lavo
Holyoke, MA
Dick Pierce
> Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years,
> tromping on the notion that the rebound was just a fad. Through late
> November, more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an
> increase of more than 35 percent in a year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
> That total, though it represents less than 1 percent of all album sales,
> including CDs and digital downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in any
> year since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991. "
The same source quotes 2008 CD album sales at 428 million units, and
song downloads at 1 billion units. So, attempting to compare 2008
apples to 2008 oranges, that's 428 million cd album sales vs 1.6
million vinyl record sales, making vinyl sales account for 0.37%
of the total album market.
Put it in a slightly different perspective, that's about 1.43 CDs for
every person in the United states, vs. one vinyl LP for every 188
persons.
Another perspective: assume $5 per CD and $10 per LP, that's 2.1G$
for CD, and 0.024G$ for LP.
How their data, as revealed, suggests that this is fueled by purchases
of the "iPod generation," is certainly a stretch. Where's the breakdown
by age, for example?
Further, there's no breakdown on how many of those sales constitute
new vs resale/preowned product (in either case, to be fair).
But the noise in the CD data is larger by a lot than the total LP
sales.
--
+--------------------------------+
+ Dick Pierce |
+ Professional Audio Development |
+--------------------------------+
Robert Peirce
Dick Pierce <dpi...@cartchunk.org> wrote:
> Harry Lavo wrote:
> > Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years,
> > tromping on the notion that the rebound was just a fad.
>
> The same source quotes 2008 CD album sales at 428 million units, and
> song downloads at 1 billion units. So, attempting to compare 2008
> apples to 2008 oranges, that's 428 million cd album sales vs 1.6
> million vinyl record sales, making vinyl sales account for 0.37%
> of the total album market.
I think the point is that sales of LPs keep growing, which is a
surprise. CD sales, last I heard, were declining. I'm not sure about
downloads, but they are probably growing as well.
The number of units clearly is very low, but I think most people
expected them to disappear by now.
bob
> I think the point is that sales of LPs keep growing, which is a
> surprise.
"Keep growing" is overstated, What we have here is a couple years of
growth after decades of decline and stagnation.
The interesting question is, Why? I don't think this is audiophile-
driven. Their demand for vinyl was being met in the late stagnant
years. I suspect the article is right about vinyl now appealing to a
younger cohort, as sort of a retro fad. Nothing wrong with that, but
fads have limits, too, and we may well see vinyl sales plateau fairly
soon.
Just as an aside, the quality of the gear these records are being
played on is very depressing.
bob
Harry Lavo
news:7o4jk8F...@mid.individual.net...
Dick, I'm not sure you know who Rachel is. She is the owner of J&R, and
works actively at the store....she gets this knowledge by seeing and talking
with the customers and with her department heads, who know their customers
well. J&R is a very well-run retailer. They know their customers.
[ excess quotation removed -- dsr ]
Harry Lavo
news:7o5n3gF...@mid.individual.net...
Did you miss, or simply choose to ignore her comment about it not being a
fad? See my comments to Dick Pierce for more on this.
Scott
> Robert wrote:
> > I think the point is that sales of LPs keep growing, which is a
> > surprise.
>
> "Keep growing" is overstated, What we have here is a couple years of
> growth after decades of decline and stagnation.
Not really sure how a fact stated as a fact can be an overstatement.
vinyl sales have been in fairly constant growth for the past decade.
But there has been a substantial spike in the last couple years.
>
> The interesting question is, Why? I don't think this is audiophile-
> driven.
No doubt the constant growth over the past decade has to some degree
been driven by audiophiles. One need look no further than the huge
increase in audiophile vinyl titles available today compared to 10 and
15 years ago to see that. But the recent spike in the last couple
years I suspect has been more about vinyl becoming cool.
> Their demand for vinyl was being met in the late stagnant
> years.
Not the audiophile demand.
> I suspect the article is right about vinyl now appealing to a
> younger cohort, as sort of a retro fad. Nothing wrong with that, but
> fads have limits, too, and we may well see vinyl sales plateau fairly
> soon.
One can only hope. This fad has actually had some ill effects on vinyl
for audiophiles.
>
> Just as an aside, the quality of the gear these records are being
> played on is very depressing.
Which records?
bob
>
> Did you miss, or simply choose to ignore her comment about it not being a
Just because a New York Times reporter says something is not a fad
does not mean that it is not a fad. My guess is there's a retro
coolness thing going on here, which may or may not last. It may
plateau, it may fade away again, we just don't know yet.
bob
> On Dec 7, 5:05=3DA0pm, bob <nabo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > "Keep growing" is overstated, What we have here is a couple years of
> > growth after decades of decline and stagnation.
>
> Not really sure how a fact stated as a fact can be an overstatement.
> vinyl sales have been in fairly constant growth for the past decade.
> But there has been a substantial spike in the last couple years.
A fact is something you don't just make up. "Vinyl sales have been in
fairly constant growth for the past decade," doesn't qualify as a
fact.
bob
Dick Pierce
> "Dick Pierce" <dpi...@cartchunk.org> wrote in message
> news:7o4jk8F...@mid.individual.net...
>>new vs resale/preowned product (in either case, to be fair).
>>
>>But the noise in the CD data is larger by a lot than the total LP
>>sales.
>
> Dick, I'm not sure you know who Rachel is. She is the owner of J&R, and
> works actively at the store....she gets this knowledge by seeing and talking
> with the customers and with her department heads, who know their customers
> well. J&R is a very well-run retailer. They know their customers.
So one of the things you might be pointing out is that this Rachel
is deeply involved in the business and could potentially be either
influenced by her own self interests or even engaged in a bit
of business development. You wouldn't deny that that possibility
exists, I suppose.
But regardless of where she gets her knowledge and what her
motivations may or may not be, some her conclusions are not
supported by the the data she provides, simply because the
data isn't provided. In the section you quoted, there's not
a shred of data to suggest the age breakdown that's claimed.
She claims that "these kids that are really ramping up their
vinyl collections," and provides no age-based breakdown of
sales.
The data may indeed support her assertions. but she fails to
provide that data.
Arny Krueger
> Harry Lavo wrote:
>> Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for
>> several years, tromping on the notion that the rebound
>> was just a fad. Through late November, more than 2.1
>> million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an increase
>> of more than 35 percent in a year, according to Nielsen
>> Soundscan. That total, though it represents less than 1
>> percent of all album sales, including CDs and digital
>> downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in any year
>> since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991. "
> The same source quotes 2008 CD album sales at 428 million
> units, and song downloads at 1 billion units. So,
> attempting to compare 2008 apples to 2008 oranges, that's
> 428 million cd album sales vs 1.6 million vinyl record
> sales, making vinyl sales account for 0.37%
> of the total album market.
The executive summary is that "A rising tide lifts all boats".
> Put it in a slightly different perspective, that's about
> 1.43 CDs for every person in the United states, vs. one
> vinyl LP for every 188 persons.
> Another perspective: assume $5 per CD and $10 per LP,
> that's 2.1G$
> for CD, and 0.024G$ for LP.
Considering that many of us can remember when the LP had close to 100%
market share, 0.37% seems like a massive fall from "grace"
> How their data, as revealed, suggests that this is fueled
> by purchases of the "iPod generation," is certainly a
> stretch. Where's the breakdown by age, for example?
One irony is that there seems to be amazing amounts of interest in LPs among
people in their late 30s and early 40s. For many of us older folk, we
remember when the LP was all we had, and that can be amazingly effective
aversion therapy.
> Further, there's no breakdown on how many of those sales
> constitute new vs. resale/preowned product (in either
> case, to be fair).
Given how often we see gleeful posts about "Amazing LP Finds" found at the
local Goodwill store, it seems like recycled product is a bigger segment of
the LP market. One of the keys to any market for used product is people who
want to discard the product in question. Listening to LPs surely makes me
want to discard them if I have a viable alternative.
> But the noise in the CD data is larger by a lot than the
> total LP sales.
One irony is that not too long ago, Vinyl was more like 1% of the total
market. Now its 0.37%. Where I come from, that's a 63% loss of market share.
Even though the actual numbers of product sold go up, the market share
appears to be continuing to all off a cliff.
Harry Lavo
The Times reporter didn't say it wasn't a fad -- the ower of J&R said it
wasn't a fad. Who's better to judge....you, or she who talks to and caters
to her customers?
Harry Lavo
news:7o75ulF...@mid.individual.net...
>snip opinion to get to factual basis<
>
> One irony is that not too long ago, Vinyl was more like 1% of the total
> market. Now its 0.37%. Where I come from, that's a 63% loss of market
> share.
> Even though the actual numbers of product sold go up, the market share
> appears to be continuing to all off a cliff.
>
Uh, Arny....CD and total market sales are falling; LP sales are rising. You
don't have to be a genius at math to know that means that LP's share is
increasing.
Harry Lavo
Okay, that I can buy....neither did the Times reporter. Nonetheless, this
was a Times-reported story, subjected to the usual controls newspapers put
on their stories....which is somewhat this side of none, I suspect.
As to the charge of bias...it is always a possibility....but since J&R is
seeing their CD sales slide I would think her bias would be towards
supporting CD sales, not vinyl. I really don't think there is a bias at
all....I think a NYT reporter was sent to do a story on a vinyl resurgence
that every music-loving reporter (or musician) in their 20's or 30's is
aware of, and he/she simply chose J&R as the prime source because it is the
largest music retailer in NYC.
Dick Pierce
> The Times reporter didn't say it wasn't a fad -- the ower of J&R said it
> wasn't a fad. Who's better to judge....you, or she who talks to and caters
> to her customers?
Well, without her supplying the data from which she drew
her conclusions, the rest of us are excluded from any
ability to judge. Not only can't we draw any reasonable
comclusions of our own due to the absence of data, we
have nothing to evaluate the veracity of hers.
I, for one, am not willing to accept her assertions,
given that she is making statements that are directly
influenced by and could influence her business without
some skepticism.
She could well be right: but there's NO data to suggest
that. She could just as well be wrong, and there's no
data to suggest that either.
There's no data.
Scott
You might want to check the facts before making such a claim about
what is and is not a fact.
"The booming trend became apparent in 2003. Nielsen SoundScan
announced that ?formats classified as ?Other? (largely vinyl, but
including a small number of DVD audio- albums) showed an increase of
more than 30 per cent in the period 2000-2003.? (Hayes 2006) That same
year The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM)
reported that sales of new and used vinyl records combined had
increased by more than 300 percent since 2000, bringing in $67
million. New CDs alone brought in more than $12 billion. The
mainstream was obviously in the digital domain, but vinyl replay as a
subculture was definitely on the rise. (Manez, 2003) The owner of
independent reissue label Sundazed in New York commented: ?I don't
consider it a small niche anymore. At Sundazed, we did half a million
in sales in vinyl in 2003. That's not small potatoes. "It has become
so much more mainstream that even the lay person knows something's
going on.? (Petrick, 2004) Yet the biggest boom was still to come. 6.4
Vinyl is back in the (youth) mainstream Last year, Virgin Megastores
UK announced it would re-arrange its stores to better accommodate
vinyl records. According to the company, ?up to 70 percent of sales of
new releases are vinyl.? (Glover, 2006). In 2007, in the UK Virgin
Megastores, vinyl outsells CDs 80% to 20% for albums available on both
formats. (Lindich, 2007) Even the 7? vinyl single has returned.
According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), ?annual sales of
vinyl singles in the U.K. rose sixfold, accounting for 14.7 percent of
all physical singles sales in 2005, up from 12.2 percent in 2004.? Of
course this applies to customers actually coming into stores to buy
music on a physical carrier. However, Virgin Megastores UK predicts
that digital music downloads "will account for no more than 10 percent
of the overall market by 2009. The company hopes its vinyl strategy ?
will offer consumers enough added value to head off growing
competition from cut-price supermarket CD offers and internet download
services." (Glover, 2006) Also chain store HMV agrees that vinyl is
back and the company has been rapidly expanding its record racks to
meet rising demand. (Allen, 2007)"
http://web.mac.com/dobbelsteen/iWeb/Headroom/Thesis_files/Thesis-final.pdf
Sonnova
(in article <7o75ulF...@mid.individual.net>):
But this renewed interest, though small and certainly a niche market by any
stretch, does show that there is life left in the LP and it's far ffrom down
for the count.
>
>> How their data, as revealed, suggests that this is fueled
>> by purchases of the "iPod generation," is certainly a
>> stretch. Where's the breakdown by age, for example?
>
> One irony is that there seems to be amazing amounts of interest in LPs among
> people in their late 30s and early 40s. For many of us older folk, we
> remember when the LP was all we had, and that can be amazingly effective
> aversion therapy.
I remember, and I don't see it as "aversion therapy" at all. I have no bias
against vinyl and I regard it as just another viable source of music. In some
cases, I prefer it, in some I'd rather have the CD or other digital source.
>> Further, there's no breakdown on how many of those sales
>> constitute new vs. resale/preowned product (in either
>> case, to be fair).
>
> Given how often we see gleeful posts about "Amazing LP Finds" found at the
> local Goodwill store, it seems like recycled product is a bigger segment of
> the LP market. One of the keys to any market for used product is people who
> want to discard the product in question. Listening to LPs surely makes me
> want to discard them if I have a viable alternative.
And Interview I saw on the local news last night with the owner of three
stores in the SF Bay Area dedicated to vinyl (but also selling CDs) indicated
that there was a LOT of new vinyl available. Certainly the latest catalogue I
received from "Music Direct" has page after page of new LPs. There is a store
near me that sells nothing but vinyl and record-playing equipment, he has had
to move into larger quarters to accommodate the increased vinyl catalogue. I
realize that all of this is simply anecdotal "evidence", but when a local TV
news program in a market as large as this one takes notice, it certainly seem
s that something is happening in this market.
But as I said in another post, I doubt seriously if I'll be buying much vinyl
from now on. I have thousands of records, mostly everything I want
(classical, film scores and some jazz), and when I buy music these days, it's
almost entirely CD/SACD.
>
>> But the noise in the CD data is larger by a lot than the
>> total LP sales.
>
> One irony is that not too long ago, Vinyl was more like 1% of the total
> market. Now its 0.37%. Where I come from, that's a 63% loss of market share.
> Even though the actual numbers of product sold go up, the market share
> appears to be continuing to all off a cliff.
Not really important. It's the sales numbers that represent profit, not
market share. And with CD sales tanking the way that they are (in favor of
MP3 downloads, I suspect) I'll bet that market share vis-a-vis CD will see an
increase. Vinyl, the music source that refuses to go away. I'm happy about
that because it means that I will have sources of turntables, arms,
cartridges and phono stages as far into perpetuity as I'll need.
Arny Krueger
news:7o7ovvF...@mid.individual.net
Harry, you haven't dealt with the fact that Vinyl's market share was far
more, about 3 times more just a few years ago. OK, maybe the sales of vinyl
went up in the past statistical period, compared to the previous one. That
doesn't make it a meaningful trend.
Back a couple-3-4 years back when vinyl's market share was around 1% I
suggested that it might due to media being sold to dance clubs and DJs for
scratching. Interestingly enough, a digital alternative to mechanical
scratching was developed, and now vinyl's market share is more like 0.37%.
Hmmmm.
That begs the question of why vinyl's sales went up just lately. The most
recent relevant technological advance was the under-$200 USB turntable.
Think that might be it - people picking up some new media to see what their
newly-hyped cheap LP playback hardware actually sounds like?
Hmmmm.
Harry Lavo
> Harry Lavo wrote:
>> The Times reporter didn't say it wasn't a fad -- the ower of J&R said it
>> wasn't a fad. Who's better to judge....you, or she who talks to and
>> caters
>> to her customers?
>
> Well, without her supplying the data from which she drew
> her conclusions, the rest of us are excluded from any
> ability to judge. Not only can't we draw any reasonable
> comclusions of our own due to the absence of data, we
> have nothing to evaluate the veracity of hers.
>
> I, for one, am not willing to accept her assertions,
> given that she is making statements that are directly
> influenced by and could influence her business without
> some skepticism.
>
> She could well be right: but there's NO data to suggest
> that. She could just as well be wrong, and there's no
> data to suggest that either.
>
> There's no data.
>
That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she is well positioned
to judge as opposed to many other of us. I just found it another in an
interesting string of antecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably well-positioned source.
Not directly related, but I have a young son (age 25) who is a musician and
has his own band, and he was telling me of the vinyl resurgence five years
ago (we never talked about it, so he didn't know that I already knew
something about it although he did know I still had a lot of records, many
of which I played from time to time). He asked me at that time for a
turntable, and as a result, received a Dual 704 with Shure cartridge that I
had bought and was planning to resell on ebay. My daughter (age 29) came in
one day about two years ago with a bag containing seven used LP's that she
had bought....mostly early '70's rock. She currently does not have her own
apartment, so her stereo is in storage. She asked me to transfer them to CD
so she could play them in her car. Her comment: I wish cars still came with
cassette decks...I liked them better.
Peter Wieck
brass stick-pin of approximately 1mm in diameter.
Vinyl has a place in the audio repertoire. That place appears (in
quantity) to be increasing in size as measured at one particular
moment recently. As compared to all other possible source media, it
may be decreasing in relative percentage. So what? It is still
increasing.
It remains a viable medium and is sought after by a sufficient
proportion of the general public as to continue its viability and
create continuing opportunities for those that use it.
Further discussion of aspects of the continuing survival and
continuing viability of the medium would require delving into the
somatic characteristics of the various angels - something we might
agree to be a rather silly endeavor.
Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA
Scott
> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:7o7ovvF...@mid.individual.net
>
> > "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
> >news:7o75ulF...@mid.individual.net...
> >> snip opinion to get to factual basis<
> >> One irony is that not too long ago, Vinyl was more like
> >> 1% of the total market. Now its 0.37%. Where I come
> >> from, that's a 63% loss of market share.
> >> Even though the actual numbers of product sold go up,
> >> the market share appears to be continuing to all off a
> >> cliff.
> > Uh, Arny....CD and total market sales are falling; LP
> > to know that means that LP's share is increasing.
>
> Harry, you haven't dealt with the fact that Vinyl's market share was far
yl
> went up in the past statistical period, compared to the previous one. Tha=
t
> doesn't make it a meaningful trend.
>
> Back a couple-3-4 years back when vinyl's market share was around 1% I
r
> scratching. =A0Interestingly enough, a digital alternative to mechanical
> scratching was developed, and now vinyl's market share is more like 0.37%=
.
>
> Hmmmm.
market share is really irrelevant. The actual sales of vinyl has gone
up consistantly for many years and has enjoyed a substantial spike in
the last two years. The people selling it don't worry about market
share, they worry about actual sales. If you are in the business of
making records business is really good right now. pretty cool given
this econemy.
>
> That begs the question of why vinyl's sales went up just lately. The most
> recent relevant technological advance was the under-$200 USB turntable.
The question has been pretty much answered. Many causes are at work
but the unsal recent spike is largely due to the cool factor.
> Think that might be it - people picking up some new media to see what the=
ir
> newly-hyped cheap LP playback hardware actually sounds like?
>
> Hmmmm.
I doubt that has had that big an impact.
Harry Lavo
> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:7o7ovvF...@mid.individual.net
>
>> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
>> news:7o75ulF...@mid.individual.net...
>
>>> snip opinion to get to factual basis<
>
>>> One irony is that not too long ago, Vinyl was more like
>>> 1% of the total market. Now its 0.37%. Where I come
>>> from, that's a 63% loss of market share.
>
>>> Even though the actual numbers of product sold go up,
>>> the market share appears to be continuing to all off a
>>> cliff.
>
>> Uh, Arny....CD and total market sales are falling; LP
>> sales are rising. You don't have to be a genius at math
>> to know that means that LP's share is increasing.
>
> Harry, you haven't dealt with the fact that Vinyl's market share was far
> more, about 3 times more just a few years ago. OK, maybe the sales of
> vinyl
> went up in the past statistical period, compared to the previous one. That
> doesn't make it a meaningful trend.
>
> Back a couple-3-4 years back when vinyl's market share was around 1% I
> suggested that it might due to media being sold to dance clubs and DJs for
> scratching. Interestingly enough, a digital alternative to mechanical
> scratching was developed, and now vinyl's market share is more like 0.37%.
>
> Hmmmm.
Hmmm, please read Scotts post corraborating the rise in vinyl sales over
this decade. You are getting yourself further and further out on a bias
limb. The main vinyl aversion around here seems to be yours.
> That begs the question of why vinyl's sales went up just lately. The most
> recent relevant technological advance was the under-$200 USB turntable.
> Think that might be it - people picking up some new media to see what
> their
> newly-hyped cheap LP playback hardware actually sounds like?
Don't be rediculous....people without vinyl don't buy a turntable (even a
cheap one) and THEN buy something to play on it, if they don't have
intention to use it. No the cheap turntables are for older folks like you
and I who are not into quality sound particularly, and just want something
to get their vinyl onto a computer as you've been urging them to do. The
kids are buying direct-drives and lower end belt drives in order to play
their vinyl. They might copy it onto a cd for the car or an iPod for
personal use, but they often play the vinyl at home.
And you are completely overlooking the substantial sales of
medium-to-higher-priced turntables and sales of $25-35 per disk premium
vinyl that is selling to reasonably well-heeled audio enthusiasts.
Arny Krueger
> That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
> is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
> us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
> antecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
> five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
> well-positioned source.
I question the logic. The management of a single retail store or a small
retail chain is basically just one small data point.
Furthermore, anybody whose making money selling a certain kind of product is
obviously biased.
Let's face it, only a miniscule percentage of all retailers of media or
audio electronics even bother with vinyl any more.
When you see a news story about LPs, ask yourself - would this be news if it
wasn't about LPs? What makes it news is how improbable it is, all other
things considered.
> Not directly related, but I have a young son (age 25) who
> is a musician and has his own band, and he was telling me
> of the vinyl resurgence five years ago (we never talked
> about it, so he didn't know that I already knew something
> about it although he did know I still had a lot of
> records, many of which I played from time to time). He
> asked me at that time for a turntable, and as a result,
> received a Dual 704 with Shure cartridge that I had
> bought and was planning to resell on ebay.
Letsee, like father, like son?
> My daughter
> (age 29) came in one day about two years ago with a bag
> containing seven used LP's that she had bought....mostly
> early '70's rock. She currently does not have her own
> apartment, so her stereo is in storage. She asked me to
> transfer them to CD so she could play them in her car.
That makes sense, and just shows how unusable LPs are by modern standards.
> Her comment: I wish cars still came with cassette
> decks...I liked them better.
She obviously never saw the many cassettes, twisted tape hanging out like a
long skinny banner, that ended up on the sides of many a busy road, thrown
there in fits of absolute frustration.
Harry Lavo
> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
>
>> That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
>> is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
>> us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
>> antecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
>> five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
>> well-positioned source.
>
> I question the logic. The management of a single retail store or a small
> retail chain is basically just one small data point.
Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be the largest music
retailer in NYC.....not exactly podunk, Iowa.
> Furthermore, anybody whose making money selling a certain kind of product
> is
> obviously biased.
J&R sells everything electronic, everything music, everything photo,
everything kitchen, every.....man, that's a lot of biases!
> Let's face it, only a miniscule percentage of all retailers of media or
> audio electronics even bother with vinyl any more.
More and more every year...even Barnes and Noble, about as conservative a
music retailer as there is, is experimenting. And I daresay there are many
more doing so today than ten years ago.
> When you see a news story about LPs, ask yourself - would this be news if
> it
> wasn't about LPs? What makes it news is how improbable it is, all other
> things considered.
Certainly is improbably....after all, "Perfect Sound Forever" was supposed
to do in vinyl. It was buried by the press and by engineering types like
yourself....and flowers planted on it. Funny thing happened though. The
ground heaved, and up she came again.....not quite her old self, but living
and breathing. What's not to marvel over/do a story about?
>
>> Not directly related, but I have a young son (age 25) who
>> is a musician and has his own band, and he was telling me
>> of the vinyl resurgence five years ago (we never talked
>> about it, so he didn't know that I already knew something
>> about it although he did know I still had a lot of
>> records, many of which I played from time to time). He
>> asked me at that time for a turntable, and as a result,
>> received a Dual 704 with Shure cartridge that I had
>> bought and was planning to resell on ebay.
>
> Letsee, like father, like son?
Quite possibly, but the impetus seemed to come from a musician friend who
had started amassing his own vinyl collection. He had never shown much
interest in my vinyl or record playing gear.
>> My daughter
>> (age 29) came in one day about two years ago with a bag
>> containing seven used LP's that she had bought....mostly
>> early '70's rock. She currently does not have her own
>> apartment, so her stereo is in storage. She asked me to
>> transfer them to CD so she could play them in her car.
>
> That makes sense, and just shows how unusable LPs are by modern standards.
Do you understand the definition of "non-sequitor"?
>
>> Her comment: I wish cars still came with cassette
>> decks...I liked them better.
>
> She obviously never saw the many cassettes, twisted tape hanging out like
> a
> long skinny banner, that ended up on the sides of many a busy road, thrown
> there in fits of absolute frustration.
Neither have I, and I lived through the cassette period. She simply
expressed a preference....I didn't grill her to find out why. I assumed
nostalgia for when she was a little girl and used to bring her cassettes
along on trips. But who knows, maybe she's just another budding, totally
irrational audiophile, out to annoy you.
Keith
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
> news:7oa2v4F...@mid.individual.net...
>> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
<snip>
>> Let's face it, only a miniscule percentage of all retailers of media or
>> audio electronics even bother with vinyl any more.
>
> More and more every year...even Barnes and Noble, about as conservative a
> music retailer as there is, is experimenting. And I daresay there are many
> more doing so today than ten years ago.
Not around here they (meaning the *many* dealers) aren't (Phoenix area).
I can say that LP's are a much higher *percentage* of the music
available for sale than at any time in recent memory. An artifact of a
small resurgence in vinyl, and primarily a massive decrease in the
numbers and variety of CD's being stocked. Barnes & Noble may be
experimenting with vinyl on-line, but I don't look for any in the stores
here. Borders no longer even sells music - in any format - here in the
Phoenix area. They dumped the lot this year; it's on-line only now.
>> When you see a news story about LPs, ask yourself - would this be news if
>> it
>> wasn't about LPs? What makes it news is how improbable it is, all other
>> things considered.
>
> Certainly is improbably....after all, "Perfect Sound Forever" was supposed
> to do in vinyl.
And, it basically did. Just as streaming and digital downloads (or
their as yet undeveloped successors) will eventually do in CD. But, as
with riding horses, driving Model T's or Stanley Steamers, there will
likely always be niche hobbyist markets for both vinyl and CD. As long
as that niche is commercially viable for a few fringe players, the media
will continue to be available. But, they will, nonetheless, be legacy
technologies relegated to niche constituencies.
In fact, the apparently unavoidable slide from brick and mortar
storefront to non-stocking e-tailers is likely vinyl's best friend (and
will be CD's as well) since it creates availability, albeit not very
timely, without a retailer having to stock slow/no moving inventory.
> It was buried by the press and by engineering types like
> yourself....and flowers planted on it. Funny thing happened though. The
> ground heaved, and up she came again.....not quite her old self, but living
> and breathing. What's not to marvel over/do a story about?
The point is, it's not much of a story IMO. There are a number of
factors that can influence such minor upticks in vinyl sales (e.g.
e-tailing as mentioned previously). Good vinyl playback equipment is not
cheap, so having a listener base that has invested heavily in equipment
(and that has the concomitant disposable income) and likes vinyl sound
supplies a stable buyer base. As more titles are made available - or
higher quality pressings / recordings/ etc. - that same base will likely
buy more, stimulating more variety of production. That is not, however,
sustainable as a method of long term growth unless the base is increased
significantly. However, having that stable base, when even a modest
"fad" of younger folks getting into vinyl occurs (of which I have
personally met exactly *none*) will appear as significant.
I mean, look at the album numbers from 2007-2008:
LP's - increased by 1.6M units - which is well more than double;
CD's - decreased by 126.4M units
Downloads - increased by 14.4M units
The *story*, IMO, is that overall album sales dropped by 108.6M units!
And the uptick in downloads (excluding singles, and DVDs) is almost 9
times the increase in LP's. And that 'massive' increase in LP's is still
only 0.36% of the total sales (for a total LP sales of 0.66%). I mean
let's face it, when the overall album market (comprised of 3 basic media
types) drops 20%, a <0.4% relative change in one medium is statistically
insignificant.
<snip>
>> She obviously never saw the many cassettes, twisted tape hanging out like
>> a
>> long skinny banner, that ended up on the sides of many a busy road, thrown
>> there in fits of absolute frustration.
>
> Neither have I, and I lived through the cassette period.
Wow - you obviously didn't get out much then. They were rather
ubiquitous in the 70's around these parts.
Keith
bob
> The Times reporter didn't say it wasn't a fad -- the ower of J&R said it
> wasn't a fad. =A0Who's better to judge....you, or she who talks to and ca=
ters
> to her customers?
Check again, Harry. The sentence has neither quotes nor attribution.
It's the reporter's words.
Dick Pierce
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
> news:7oa2v4F...@mid.individual.net...
>
>>"Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
>>
>>
>>>That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
>>>is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
>>>us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
>>>antecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
>>>five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
>>>well-positioned source.
>>
>>I question the logic. The management of a single retail store or a small
>>retail chain is basically just one small data point.
>
> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be the largest music
> retailer in NYC.....not exactly podunk, Iowa.
But it's but one data point, and missing data at that.
> J&R sells everything electronic, everything music, everything photo,
> everything kitchen, every.....man,
So? How is that relevant?
>that's a lot of biases!
Yes, it is. Are we to think that people are incapable of holding
more than a small handful of biases and opinions at once? Indeed,
I might even suggest that people are quite capably of not only
holding a multitude of biases simultaneously, but that many of
them may contradict and conflict, as irrational as that may seem.
> Certainly is improbably....after all, "Perfect Sound Forever" was supposed
> to do in vinyl.
Harry, if you have problems with the "perfect sound forever"
slogan, take it up with the *marketing* genius who came up
with it. The ongoing attempts to lay that at the feet of
the technical people invilved in the medium might feel good,
but such attempts are quite misdirected and, frankly, are
getting very tiring.
> It was buried by the press and by engineering types like
> yourself....and flowers planted on it. Funny thing happened though. The
> ground heaved, and up she came again.....not quite her old self, but living
> and breathing. What's not to marvel over/do a story about?
Gee, sounds like a zombie movie to me! Where's my nerf gun
bag of tube socks?
bob
> I mean, look at the album numbers from 2007-2008:
>
> LP's - increased by 1.6M units - which is well more than double;
> CD's - decreased by 126.4M units
> Downloads - increased by 14.4M units
>
> The *story*, IMO, is that overall album sales dropped by 108.6M units!
>
> And the uptick in downloads (excluding singles, and DVDs) is almost 9
> times the increase in LP's. And that 'massive' increase in LP's is still
> only 0.36% of the total sales (for a total LP sales of 0.66%). =A0I mean
> let's face it, when the overall album market (comprised of 3 basic media
> types) drops 20%, a <0.4% relative change in one medium is statistically
> insignificant.
These are RIAA shipment figures, if anyone cares. They understate the
download side, which is predominantly singles and rose by 200M units,
equivalent to about 20M albums' worth. Add in the, um, "unofficial"
downloads, and vinyl's market share looks even more puny.
bob
Harry Lavo
I stand corected, Bob, thank you. In fact it was the reporters conclusion.
Whether or not she may have influenced that conclusion we don't know....but
apparently some facts did, as he said in full "Sales of vinyl albums have
been climbing steadily for several years, tromping on the notion that the
rebound was just a fad."
He might have been looking at something like the list of evidence that Scott
published here just a few days ago, which if I may quote in full, was as
follows:
Let's see....2003 to 2009....does that constitute a trend?
bob
> He might have been looking at something like the list of evidence that Sc=
ott
> published here just a few days ago, which if I may quote in full, was as
> follows:
>
> =A0"The booming trend became apparent in 2003. Nielsen SoundScan
> announced that ?formats classified as ?Other? (largely vinyl, but
> including a small number of DVD audio- albums) showed an increase of
> more than 30 per cent in the period 2000-2003.?
That also includes SACD, which was introduced in that period and, with
DVD-A, likely accounts for the totality of the increase.
> (Hayes 2006) That same
> year The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM)
> reported that sales of new and used vinyl records combined had
> increased by more than 300 percent since 2000,
For every person who buys a used LP, somebody gets rid of one. So
that's evidence of disinterest as well as interest.
Look, there's no question that there's been an uptick, and the data we
have isn't good enough to tell us exactly when it started. The NYT
cites only an increase from 2008 to 2009, according to Nielsen
Soundscan. RIAA shipments began rising in 2007. And, let's face it, if
this had been a trend that had been going on for years, the NYT
probably wouldn't have been interested in writing about it. This is a
man-bites-dog story precisely because the turnaround is so recent.
bob
Harry Lavo
> Harry Lavo wrote:
>> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
>> news:7oa2v4F...@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>>"Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
>>>
>>>
>>>>That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
>>>>is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
>>>>us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
>>>>antecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
>>>>five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
>>>>well-positioned source.
>>>
>>>I question the logic. The management of a single retail store or a small
>>>retail chain is basically just one small data point.
>>
>> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be the largest music
>> retailer in NYC.....not exactly podunk, Iowa.
>
>But it's but one data point, and missing data at that.
Yep, so clearly it is anecdotal....but based on her own multiyear statistics
and experience in a city that is often a forerunner of trends elsewhere.
>
>> J&R sells everything electronic, everything music, everything photo,
>> everything kitchen, every.....man,
>
>So? How is that relevant?
Because she has no apparent commercial reason to be biased towards vinyl and
against other forms of music and machines to retrieve it, which she also
sells.
>
>>that's a lot of biases!
>
> Yes, it is. Are we to think that people are incapable of holding
> more than a small handful of biases and opinions at once? Indeed,
> I might even suggest that people are quite capably of not only
> holding a multitude of biases simultaneously, but that many of
> them may contradict and conflict, as irrational as that may seem.
Yes indeedy, they can (I was a student of behavioral psychology back in
business school). But I suspect commercial biases are a bit more rational
than that.
>
>> Certainly is improbably....after all, "Perfect Sound Forever" was
>> supposed to do in vinyl.
>
> Harry, if you have problems with the "perfect sound forever"
> slogan, take it up with the *marketing* genius who came up
> with it. The ongoing attempts to lay that at the feet of
> the technical people invilved in the medium might feel good,
> but such attempts are quite misdirected and, frankly, are
> getting very tiring.
I fail to see above where I singled out engineers or technical people...I
was simply referring to the great "brainwash" that took place upon CD's
birth courtesy of SONY. I think you are a bit sensitive to this, although I
can assure you there were any number of technical folk who were happy to
dring the cool aid, as noted below:
>> It was buried by the press and by engineering types like yourself....and
>> flowers planted on it. Funny thing happened though. The ground heaved,
>> and up she came again.....not quite her old self, but living and
>> breathing. What's not to marvel over/do a story about?
Press = marketing releases = marketing folk, whom you don't want to be
associated with
Engineering types = sales support engineers = those who try to snow the
customer/press in support of the marketing types
I am happy to say I know you were not among either group.
> Gee, sounds like a zombie movie to me! Where's my nerf gun
> bag of tube socks?
:-)
Left them on campus, did you?
Arny Krueger
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
> news:7oa2v4F...@mid.individual.net...
>> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
>>
>>> That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
>>> is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
>>> us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
>>> five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
>>> well-positioned source.
>> I question the logic. The management of a single retail
>> store or a small retail chain is basically just one
>> small data point.
> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be
> the largest music retailer in NYC.....not exactly podunk,
> Iowa.
So what? The NYC area is an important market, but it is only a tiny
fraction of the US market.
>> Furthermore, anybody whose making money selling a
>> certain kind of product is obviously biased.
> J&R sells everything electronic, everything music,
> everything photo, everything kitchen, every.....man,
> that's a lot of biases!
At this point vinyl is a sort of an exclusive product for them. Most of
their competition wisely abandoned it decades ago.
>> Let's face it, only a miniscule percentage of all
>> retailers of media or audio electronics even bother with
>> vinyl any more.
> More and more every year...even Barnes and Noble, about
> as conservative a music retailer as there is, is
> experimenting. And I daresay there are many more doing
> so today than ten years ago.
But nothing at all like they were doing 30 years ago.
Reality is a series of ups and downs, with the
current numbers appearing to be highly anomalous.
RIAA vinyl sales (millions of units):
1991 29.4
1992 13.5
1993 10.6
1994 17.8
1995 25.1
1996 36.8
1997 33.3
1998 34.0
1999 31.8
2000 27.7
2001 27.4
2002 20.5
2003 21.7
2004 19.2
2005 14.2
2006 15.7
2007 22.9
2008 56.7
> Certainly is improbably....after all, "Perfect Sound
> Forever" was supposed to do in vinyl.
You mean Harry that you haven't noticed that the CD knocked vinyl from 100%
of the consumer recording marketplace to less than 0.4%?
bob
> >"Dick Pierce" <dpie...@cartchunk.org> wrote in message
> >news:hfph1...@news5.newsguy.com...
> > Harry Lavo wrote:
> >> J&R sells everything electronic, everything music, everything photo,
> >> everything kitchen, every.....man,
>
> >So? How is that relevant?
>
> Because she has no apparent commercial reason to be biased towards vinyl =
and
> against other forms of music and machines to retrieve it, which she also
> sells.
Oh, come now. A reporter calls her up wanting to write a story about
the vinyl "resurgence." Do you really think she's going to talk about
how much better and more popular CDs are? How does it help J&R's
overall business if she talks the reporter out of doing the story? If
the NYT is going to write about vinyl, she wants to use that as a
platform to promote the impression that J&R is where all the kool kids
go to get theirs.
And in a few years' time, when the NYT decides to write a story about
whether CD is dead yet, she'll be happy to tell that same reporter
that it's not, at least not her her store=97and I bet she doesn't even
mention vinyl.
That doesn't mean anything she says is wrong, and most of what she
says sounds pretty plausible to me. But unbiased? Please.
bob
bob
> Reality is a series of ups and downs, with the
> current numbers appearing to be highly anomalous.
>
> RIAA vinyl sales (millions of units):
>
> 1991 29.4
.
.
.
No, Arny, those are dollar values, not units shipped. Units shipped
bounced around in the high 2 millions in the last half of the 1990s,
then declined monotonically in this decade until 2007. The 2008 figure
matches the 1999 figure, 2.9 million units.
bob
Jenn
"Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
> news:7oa2v4F...@mid.individual.net...
> > "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
> >
> >> That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
> >> is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
> >> us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
> >> antecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
> >> five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
> >> well-positioned source.
> >
> > I question the logic. The management of a single retail store or a small
> > retail chain is basically just one small data point.
>
> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be the largest music
> retailer in NYC.....not exactly podunk, Iowa.
Yes, the largest music retailer in the largest city in the country.
Anyone who has visited the store knows that shelf space is at a premium.
J&R wouldn't give an inch of space to any product that they didn't think
was going to sell. Their job is to make money. The same is true, of
course, for all of the companies that are making LPs, including the
"majors". If there was no money in it, there would be no LPs, no CDs,
no bottles of Coke.
The present thread is, IMV, a very tired argument. Some people would
like to buy some LPs. In the view of some here, that makes them "vinyl
bigots". Oh well. The space that the largest music retail chain (brick
and mortar) on the west coast devotes to new and used LPs is further
testimony that there is a market for the product, and that market has
grown.
Arny Krueger
Right. My apologies. The table of information was first put into a post that
somehow never got posted on RAHE. When I cut and pasted the data to a new
post from the lost post in my sent folder, the headings got scrambled.
Here is the correct information for LPs (millions of units).
1991 4.8
1992 2.3
1993 1.2
1994 1.9
1995 2.2
1996 2.9
1997 2.7
1998 3.4
1999 2.9
2000 2.2
2001 2.3
2002 1.7
2003 1.5
2004 1.4
2005 1.0
2006 0.9
2007 1.3
2008 2.9
What we see is several cycles of boom and bust with local minimums in 1993
and 2006. Sales on the order of the boomlet in 2008 were previously
achieved in 1991 and 1997. The sales data for the LP in the past 20 years
has been up and down and generally noisy. It is hard to find a reliable
trend.
The total number of recordings sold rose far more steadily from 801 million
in 1991 to 1,852 million in 2008. Thus LP market share has generally
trended downward from miniscule to very miniscule.
Keith
> Yes, the largest music retailer in the largest city in the country.
> Anyone who has visited the store knows that shelf space is at a premium.
> J&R wouldn't give an inch of space to any product that they didn't think
> was going to sell. Their job is to make money. The same is true, of
> course, for all of the companies that are making LPs, including the
> "majors". If there was no money in it, there would be no LPs, no CDs,
> no bottles of Coke.
>
> The present thread is, IMV, a very tired argument. Some people would
> like to buy some LPs. In the view of some here, that makes them "vinyl
> bigots". Oh well. The space that the largest music retail chain (brick
> and mortar) on the west coast devotes to new and used LPs is further
> testimony that there is a market for the product, and that market has
> grown.
Well hopefully you don't equate the label "vinylphile" with "vinyl
bigot", at least in my usage. Thermophiles are attracted to heat,
vinylphiles are attracted to vinyl sound, no more, no less. That's all
that -philic means.
My point was that vinyl is a niche market and has been for some time,
and due to the myriad factors discussed previously, will continue to be
a niche market. And it appears that CD is headed that way as well.
Like markets for any vintage product, vinyl sales will likely continue
around some low baseline level for the forseeable future. But minor
oscillations around an essentially zero baseline shouldn't be seen as
indicative of any resurgence unless the 2009 data is clearly shown as an
inflection point. Something that will require several additional data
points. For example, compare the vinyl sales trend from 1993 to 1996 below:
1993 1.2M
1994 1.9M
1995 2.2M
1996 2.9M
Looks familiar no? From 1993 to 2009, vinyl sales have oscillated
between 0.9M and 3.4M, the same range they inhabit now. That's not a
new "story", just indicative of the nature of niche markets.
While I don't, personally, mourn the passing of vinyl from the
mainstream (although I too listen to LP's of music not available on CD,
I don't buy any new albums), I certainly will mourn CD's passage, and it
appears that demise is also inevitable. But so be it, I'll continue on
in the niche world undaunted :-)
Keith
Arny Krueger
news:7ocrgnF...@mid.individual.net
>>> I question the logic. The management of a single retail
>>> store or a small retail chain is basically just one
>>> small data point.
>> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be
>> the largest music retailer in NYC.....not exactly
>> podunk, Iowa.
Not exactly proof of a trend or even support for such a claim.
> Yes, the largest music retailer in the largest city in
> the country.
The largest music retailer in the US is iTunes.
http://gizmodo.com/375816/apple-confirms-1-music-retailer-status-with-four-billion-songs-sold
"Apple's just confirmed the morning's news on them being the number one
music retailer in the US."
I have it on good authority that iTunes sells no vinyl. ;-) Something about
it being technically impossible to download LPs...
The largest music store in NYC is the Virgin Music Store on Union Square:
The article says that when Virgin closed down their Times Square Store,
their Union Square store became the largest in NTC.
Therefore your claims about J&R are completely falisifed, and there no
reason to answer any false suppositions based on the idea that J&R are "The
largest music retailer in the US".
> The present thread is, IMV, a very tired argument.
Of course. I've shown that every once in a while sales of LPs spike up, and
then they settle down again.
> Some people would like to buy some LPs.
There is no problem with people liking to buy LPs.
The problem is false suppositions based on false claims.
> In the view of some
> here, that makes them "vinyl bigots".
No, it makes people who base false claims on false data look like they are
very passionate, but also wrong.
Harry Lavo
> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:7oafacF...@mid.individual.net
>> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
>> news:7oa2v4F...@mid.individual.net...
>>> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:7o8h0oF...@mid.individual.net
>>>
>>>> That's a reasonable position, Dick. All I am saying she
>>>> is well positioned to judge as opposed to many other of
>>>> us. I just found it another in an interesting string of
>>>> anecdotes re: the pickup in this market over the last
>>>> five or so years. She struck me as a reasonably
>>>> well-positioned source.
>
>>> I question the logic. The management of a single retail
>>> store or a small retail chain is basically just one
>>> small data point.
>
>> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be
>> the largest music retailer in NYC.....not exactly podunk,
>> Iowa.
>
> So what? The NYC area is an important market, but it is only a tiny
> fraction of the US market.
It and the two California cities are the trendsetters in the US.
>
>>> Furthermore, anybody whose making money selling a
>>> certain kind of product is obviously biased.
>
>> J&R sells everything electronic, everything music,
>> everything photo, everything kitchen, every.....man,
>> that's a lot of biases!
>
> At this point vinyl is a sort of an exclusive product for them. Most of
> their competition wisely abandoned it decades ago.
And your factual basis for this is......? It has a reputation for being one
of the better vinyl markets in the country....new and used.
>
>>> Let's face it, only a miniscule percentage of all
>>> retailers of media or audio electronics even bother with
>>> vinyl any more.
>
>> More and more every year...even Barnes and Noble, about
>> as conservative a music retailer as there is, is
>> experimenting. And I daresay there are many more doing
>> so today than ten years ago.
>
> But nothing at all like they were doing 30 years ago.
Did I say they were doing that? Arguing off the point.
>
> Reality is a series of ups and downs, with the
> current numbers appearing to be highly anomalous.
>
> RIAA vinyl sales (millions of units):
>
> 1991 29.4
>
> 1992 13.5
>
> 1993 10.6
>
> 1994 17.8
>
> 1995 25.1
>
> 1996 36.8
>
> 1997 33.3
>
> 1998 34.0
>
> 1999 31.8
>
> 2000 27.7
>
> 2001 27.4
>
> 2002 20.5
>
> 2003 21.7
>
> 2004 19.2
>
> 2005 14.2
>
> 2006 15.7
>
> 2007 22.9
>
> 2008 56.7
We've chatted here many times about the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the
RIAA numbers. Even so, let's look at them.
We can probably agree that 1993, ten years after introduction of CD,
represented the low point for vinyl, both in sales and in distribution.
After that, it appears we've had four broad patterns:
* A sharp rise in sales from 1993 to 1996 representing compound growth of
50% per year. This coincided with the rise of catalog mail-order companies
such as Music Direct and Audio Advisor, and the concurrent rise of
audiophile vinyl through these specialized distribution channels.
* A broad plateau from 1997 until 2000-2001 at 30.0 +/- 10%, while CD sales
peaked. This most likely reflected a mature audiophile vinyl market.
* A substantial decline from 2001 until 2005 at an annual compound rate of -
9.7%. This coincided with similar overall decline of the total music market
for "hard product" as computer downloading (both illegal and legal) and Home
Theatre gained prominence. CY2001 was peak sales year for CD's, if I recall
(or maybe it was 2000). During this decline bricks and mortar retailers
(particularly the smaller ones) as well as audio retailers (who also handled
audiophile recordings) went out of business and bigger chains retrenched and
reduced their floorspace for music. Vinyl being a minority product if it
was distributed at all was among the first to go and the decline in audio
retailers definitely hurt audiophile vinyl sales.
* An increase since 2005 at a compound annual rate of 41.5% due to....what
we are arguing about.
I would suggest that this hardly suggest a moribund market for vinyl. Now
that catalog and internet distributors assure easy purchase even of niche
products, industry changes in technology and distribution no longer affect
sales as severely as in the past. So long as a substantial portion of the
market for well-recorded audio continues to eschew the complexities of tying
musical servers into their audio systems, conditions are ripe for continued
rise of vinyl with audiophiles forming a base and new young users
discovering the medium as an alternative to CD (which they've already ruled
passe').
>
>
>> Certainly is improbably....after all, "Perfect Sound
>> Forever" was supposed to do in vinyl.
>
> You mean Harry that you haven't noticed that the CD knocked vinyl from
> 100%
> of the consumer recording marketplace to less than 0.4%?
Yep, and McDonald's continues to make the best hamburgers in the US, right?
Just look at their market share. What does that have to do with the rise of
Red Robin and other premium hamburger chains?
Harry Lavo
I've just written a post to your previous post that I think explains the ups
and downs. It helps to think hard about the numbers, rather than just
reporting them.
Jenn
"Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
> news:7ocrgnF...@mid.individual.net
> > In article <7oafacF...@mid.individual.net>,
> > "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> I question the logic. The management of a single retail
> >>> store or a small retail chain is basically just one
> >>> small data point.
>
> >> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be
> >> the largest music retailer in NYC.....not exactly
> >> podunk, Iowa.
>
> Not exactly proof of a trend or even support for such a claim.
You've messed up the attributions; I didn't write what you're replying
to above.
>
> > Yes, the largest music retailer in the largest city in
> > the country.
>
> The largest music retailer in the US is iTunes.
>
> http://gizmodo.com/375816/apple-confirms-1-music-retailer-status-with-four-bil
> lion-songs-sold
>
> "Apple's just confirmed the morning's news on them being the number one
> music retailer in the US."
>
> I have it on good authority that iTunes sells no vinyl. ;-) Something about
> it being technically impossible to download LPs...
>
> The largest music store in NYC is the Virgin Music Store on Union Square:
>
> http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Virgin_Megastores_Annouces_Biggest_Sale_i
> n_Music_Retail_History_Starting_Thursday_at_Times_Square_Store_20090218
>
> The article says that when Virgin closed down their Times Square Store,
> their Union Square store became the largest in NTC.
No, it doesn't say that at all. Please check the article.
>
> Therefore your claims about J&R are completely falisifed, and there no
> reason to answer any false suppositions based on the idea that J&R are "The
> largest music retailer in the US".
I thought that it was clear that we were discussing brick and mortar
stores. And again, it is you made a false claim concerning Virgin.
>
> > The present thread is, IMV, a very tired argument.
>
> Of course. I've shown that every once in a while sales of LPs spike up, and
> then they settle down again.
>
> > Some people would like to buy some LPs.
>
> There is no problem with people liking to buy LPs.
>
> The problem is false suppositions based on false claims.
IIRC, the claim is that LP sales are up. Clearly, they are.
>
> > In the view of some
> > here, that makes them "vinyl bigots".
>
> No, it makes people who base false claims on false data look like they are
> very passionate, but also wrong.
Then you shouldn't call people "vinyl bigots" because they like to buy
some LPs. Seems reasonable, doesn't it?
bob
> What we see is several cycles of boom and bust with local minimums in 1993
> and 2006. Sales on the order of the boomlet in 2008 were previously
> achieved in 1991 and 1997. The sales data for the LP in the past 20 years
> has been up and down and generally noisy. It is hard to find a reliable
> trend.
Actually, I think there's pretty clear story here. After the
introduction of CD, vinyl went into a decline, bottoming out in 1993.
Then we have a little boomlet through the rest of the decade, another
depression, and now we have the *second* vinyl revival. To me, this
data doesn't look particularly noisy. But it does show that we are not
at A Uniquely Momentous Moment in the History of Audio Reproduction.
> The total number of recordings sold rose far more steadily from 801 million
> in 1991 to 1,852 million in 2008. Thus LP market share has generally
> trended downward from miniscule to very miniscule.
This is misleading, because downloads are predominantly single tracks,
not albums, so comparing units over time is apples-to-oranges. Figure
10 singles per album, and there's clearly been a decline in album
sales over the past decade.
bob
bob
> We can probably agree that 1993, ten years after introduction of CD,
> represented the low point for vinyl, both in sales and in distribution.
> After that, it appears we've had four broad patterns:
>
> * A sharp rise in sales from 1993 to 1996 representing compound growth of
> 50% per year. =A0This coincided with the rise of catalog mail-order compa=
nies
> such as Music Direct and Audio Advisor, and the concurrent rise of
> audiophile vinyl through these specialized distribution channels.
>
> * A broad plateau from 1997 until 2000-2001 at 30.0 +/- 10%, while CD sal=
es
> peaked. =A0This most likely reflected a mature audiophile vinyl market.
>
> * A substantial decline from 2001 until 2005 at an annual compound rate o=
f -
> 9.7%. =A0This coincided with similar overall decline of the total music m=
arket
> for "hard product" as computer downloading (both illegal and legal) and H=
ome
> Theatre gained prominence. =A0CY2001 was peak sales year for CD's, if I r=
ecall
> (or maybe it was 2000). =A0During this decline bricks and mortar retailer=
s
> (particularly the smaller ones) as well as audio retailers (who also hand=
led
> audiophile recordings) went out of business and bigger chains retrenched =
and
> reduced their floorspace for music. =A0Vinyl being a minority product if =
it
> was distributed at all was among the first to go and the decline in audio
> retailers definitely hurt audiophile vinyl sales.
>
> * An increase since 2005 at a compound annual rate of 41.5% due to....wha=
t
> we are arguing about.
No, no, no. You're assuming that the minuscule audiophile market is
responsible for any of this. It isn't. Anyone paying attention to the
culture over the last two decades could see that the prime mover of
the vinyl market was the DJ/dance phenomenon. That's why vinyl sales
grew in the 1990s. The availability of digital tools for that market
may have contributed to the drought of the past decade.
As for the very recent increase (which started in 2007, not 2005, if
you're going to use RIAA numbers), if the people buying records at J&R
are also buying their turntables at J&R, they aren't audiophiles.
While J&R does sell Music Halls, the overwhelming majority of its
sales is cheap plastic with USB ports. I'm not knocking it, but it's
not audiophile gear by any stretch of the imagination.
bob
Steven Sullivan
> On Dec 10, 6:42=A0am, "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >"Dick Pierce" <dpie...@cartchunk.org> wrote in message
> whether CD is dead yet, she'll be happy to tell that same reporter
> that it's not, at least not her her store=97and I bet she doesn't even
> mention vinyl.
> That doesn't mean anything she says is wrong, and most of what she
> says sounds pretty plausible to me. But unbiased? Please.
> bob
The NY Times has been reporting the imminent comeback of vinyl since at
least 1994
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/08/arts/music-lovers-are-voting-for-vinyl.html
We need an experiment -- start selling LPs with just CD-sized cover art.
If it's mainly about the sound, sales shouldn't slump much.
;>
--
-S
We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine
Harry Lavo
Bob, you have always asserted that the DJ market was much bigger than the
audiophile market, but it is simply your supposition....hardly a proven
fact. Nor is my opposite supposition a proven fact...let's just say that
that may have been an additional factor I overlooked that worked in
approximately the same direction as the audiophile market at a similar time.
And nowhere did I say that the people buying records were also buying
turntables from J&R....there are a lot of used turntables around, several
online outlets for reasonably inexpenseive turntables (in addition to the
Music Halls), and lots of hand-me-downs.
Harry Lavo
news:7odnejF...@mid.individual.net...
The NYTimes article coincided with the first years of the rising market of
the mid-90's....which was a real (not a fake) boom according to the RIAA
numbers Arny published. So you can say that the NYT caught that boom early,
can't you.
BTW, Bob, the article reminds us that the DJ segment perhaps was the
sustaining factor for LP's in the late '80's and very early 90's but
suggests that was not what was at work by 1994....what they quote is the
beginning rise of the audiophile LP as I speculated.
Arny Krueger
> In article <7od4bmF...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
>> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
>> news:7ocrgnF...@mid.individual.net
>>> In article <7oafacF...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I question the logic. The management of a single
>>>>> retail store or a small retail chain is basically
>>>>> just one small data point.
>>>> Agreed to the single point, but this does happen to be
>>>> the largest music retailer in NYC.....not exactly
>>>> podunk, Iowa.
>> Not exactly proof of a trend or even support for such a
>> claim.
> You've messed up the attributions; I didn't write what
> you're replying to above.
I didn't mess up any attributions, the quoting is intact. The quoting shows
that you weren't the author, which means that you don't have necesarily have
a dog in this fight. Later on you argue with my comments about the claim, so
you later on have changed your mind.
>>> Yes, the largest music retailer in the largest city in
>>> the country.
>> The largest music retailer in the US is iTunes.
>>
>> http://gizmodo.com/375816/apple-confirms-1-music-retailer-status-with-four-bil
>> lion-songs-sold
>>
>> "Apple's just confirmed the morning's news on them being
>> the number one music retailer in the US."
>
>> I have it on good authority that iTunes sells no vinyl.
>> ;-) Something about it being technically impossible to
>> download LPs...
This part of the debunking of the claim of relevance of J&R's claims then
stands.
>> The largest music store in NYC is the Virgin Music Store
>> on Union Square:
>>
>> http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Virgin_Megastores_Annouces_Biggest_Sale_i
>> n_Music_Retail_History_Starting_Thursday_at_Times_Square_Store_20090218
>>
>> The article says that when Virgin closed down their
>> Times Square Store, their Union Square store became the
>> largest in NTC.
> No, it doesn't say that at all. Please check the article.
In the absence of any meaningful discussion, the claim has to stand.
>> Therefore your claims about J&R are completely
>> falisifed, and there no reason to answer any false
>> suppositions based on the idea that J&R are "The largest
>> music retailer in the US".
> I thought that it was clear that we were discussing brick
> and mortar stores. And again, it is you made a false
> claim concerning Virgin.
Since you're not explaining yourself, this is just an unsupported assertion.
>>
>>> The present thread is, IMV, a very tired argument.
>>
>> Of course. I've shown that every once in a while sales
>> of LPs spike up, and then they settle down again.
>>
>>> Some people would like to buy some LPs.
>>
>> There is no problem with people liking to buy LPs.
>>
>> The problem is false suppositions based on false claims.
> IIRC, the claim is that LP sales are up. Clearly, they
> are.
Its all about meaning. LP sales have gone up and down several times in the
past, and after they went up, they went down.
The title of this thead says something about a "Comeback". When the last
place team improves their scores but remains the last place team we don't
call it a comeback.
We've seen some abuse of the principles of statistics and statistical
sources here.
Strip the hype away and we see a number that has a long history of going up
and down go up again, probably preparatory to going down.
>>> In the view of some
>>> here, that makes them "vinyl bigots".
>>
>> No, it makes people who base false claims on false data
>> look like they are very passionate, but also wrong.
>
> Then you shouldn't call people "vinyl bigots" because
> they like to buy some LPs. Seems reasonable, doesn't it?
Since you brought up the issue of "Vinyl bigots", it remains for you to drop
it.
Jenn
"Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
> news:7od9v1F...@mid.individual.net
>
> >>> Yes, the largest music retailer in the largest city in
> >>> the country.
>
> >> The largest music retailer in the US is iTunes.
...
> This part of the debunking of the claim of relevance of J&R's claims then
> stands.
As I wrote, I thought that it was clear that we were discussing brick
and mortar stores.
>
>
> >> The largest music store in NYC is the Virgin Music Store
> >> on Union Square:
> >>
> >> http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Virgin_Megastores_Annouces_Biggest_Sal
> >> e_i
> >> n_Music_Retail_History_Starting_Thursday_at_Times_Square_Store_20090218
> >>
> >> The article says that when Virgin closed down their
> >> Times Square Store, their Union Square store became the
> >> largest in NTC.
>
> > No, it doesn't say that at all. Please check the article.
>
> In the absence of any meaningful discussion, the claim has to stand.
The article says that the Virgin store in Union Square is now THEIR
largest store in NYC, not THE largest store in NYC.
>
> >> Therefore your claims about J&R are completely
> >> falisifed, and there no reason to answer any false
> >> suppositions based on the idea that J&R are "The largest
> >> music retailer in the US".
>
> > I thought that it was clear that we were discussing brick
> > and mortar stores. And again, it is you made a false
> > claim concerning Virgin.
>
> Since you're not explaining yourself, this is just an unsupported assertion.
See above.
>
> >>
> >>> The present thread is, IMV, a very tired argument.
> >>
> >> Of course. I've shown that every once in a while sales
> >> of LPs spike up, and then they settle down again.
> >>
> >>> Some people would like to buy some LPs.
> >>
> >> There is no problem with people liking to buy LPs.
> >>
> >> The problem is false suppositions based on false claims.
>
> > IIRC, the claim is that LP sales are up. Clearly, they
> > are.
>
> Its all about meaning. LP sales have gone up and down several times in the
> past, and after they went up, they went down.
And this differs from most other items how? Check in with us when CDs
enjoy a similar rise in sales.
>
> The title of this thead says something about a "Comeback". When the last
> place team improves their scores but remains the last place team we don't
> call it a comeback.
In light of the fact that CD sales, the major physical media, are
tanking, it's a story. If your argument is with the title of the piece,
you could have simply said so and saved some bandwidth.
>
> We've seen some abuse of the principles of statistics and statistical
> sources here.
>
> Strip the hype away and we see a number that has a long history of going up
> and down go up again, probably preparatory to going down.
>
> >>> In the view of some
> >>> here, that makes them "vinyl bigots".
> >>
> >> No, it makes people who base false claims on false data
> >> look like they are very passionate, but also wrong.
> >
> > Then you shouldn't call people "vinyl bigots" because
> > they like to buy some LPs. Seems reasonable, doesn't it?
>
> Since you brought up the issue of "Vinyl bigots", it remains for you to drop
> it.
The term 'vinyl bigots' is often used by you to describe people who like
some LPs.
bob
> "bob" <nabo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> Bob, you have always asserted that the DJ market was much bigger than the
> audiophile market, but it is simply your supposition....hardly a proven
at
> that may have been an additional factor I overlooked that worked in
me.
But at least my explanation fits the data consistently. How is it that
the audiophile market grew substantially in the 90s, the went into a
long decline, and is only now reviving? That doesn't make a lot of
sense. And your tortured explanation focuses (very speculatively) on
the supply side. But demand drives supply. My explanation=97that the
sales cycle follows the market for electronic dance music=97fits a whole
lot better.
bob
bob
>
> BTW, Bob, the article reminds us that the DJ segment perhaps was the
> sustaining factor for LP's in the late '80's and very early 90's but
> suggests that was not what was at work by 1994.
A 1994 article can't tell us much about trends in the latter half of
the 90s, now can it? The term "turntablism" was coined in 1995. That's
when the electronic dance music phenomenon started penetrating the
broader culture.
bob
Harry Lavo
It would help if you could quote a source and/or some statistics in support
of this assertion.
As for what the NYTimes '94 article said, it said the growth was due to the
introduction of new, quality vinyl by companies that specialized in
audiophile reproductions....the same assertion I ascribed to the same factor
based on the timing of the growth in that distribution. You are the one
asserting that something else was at work.
Scott
of arguing about whether or not vinyl sales have spiked in the last
couple years or whether or not it constitutes a "come back" we'd be
discussing the actual impact this spike has had on high end audio. It
has been a double edged sword IMO. While it has brought a few new
people into the niche of high end audio and high end vinyl in
particular it has also affected production of audiophile vinyl in a
bad way. QC has been down at times due to the overloaded demands put
on various pressing plants. reissues are being delayed due to back
logging and there is more crap to sift through in order to find the
gems because the majors have decided it's enough just to get the title
out there and not do a good job of it. the worst thing of all though
is that certain desireable titles are being held back from the labels
that do a great job with high quality reissues because the majors are
doing those titles themselves or licencing them to other players who
wouldn't be in the game were it not for this big upswing. A fine
example. a couple of my all time favorite albums have been reissued as
audiophile LPs. But the company that did them is this outfit called
Friday Music. Their work simply sucks. Now those titles are basically
out of reach for the great reissue labels like Analog Productions,
ORG, Music Matters, Classics, Speaker's Corner or Pure Pleasure, Were
it not for this spike I doubt Friday Music would have even jumped into
the vinyl reissue business.
bob
> "bob" <nabo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:7ofct7F...@mid.individual.net...
>
> > On Dec 10, 11:34=A0pm, "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> BTW, Bob, the article reminds us that the DJ segment perhaps was the
> >> sustaining factor for LP's in the late '80's and very early 90's but
> >> suggests that was not what was at work by 1994.
>
> > A 1994 article can't tell us much about trends in the latter half of
> > the 90s, now can it? The term "turntablism" was coined in 1995. That's
> > when the electronic dance music phenomenon started penetrating the
> > broader culture.
>
> It would help if you could quote a source and/or some statistics in support
> of this assertion.
Statistics don't exist, which is why you and I can argue about this
forever. (Fun, huh?) But see, for example, the paper Scott cited
earlier, which looks at this from a historical perspective. BTW, it
includes a section entitled, "Dance saves vinyl." Though it should be
noted that he doesn't have any reliable statistics, either.
> As for what the NYTimes '94 article said, it said the growth was due to the
> introduction of new, quality vinyl by companies that specialized in
> audiophile reproductions....the same assertion I ascribed to the same factor
> based on the timing of the growth in that distribution. You are the one
> asserting that something else was at work.
Then the article is making the same mistake you are, which is
ascribing an increase in *demand* to a change in supply. Economics
doesn't work that way. Companies expand production because there is
demand. Demand does not increase because somebody produces more.
The only thing that can explain the cyclical nature of the data is
cyclical demand. And I can't think of any reason why audiophile demand
for vinyl would be cyclical, to that extent. I'd expect it to be small
and stable, and rising moderately over time. I think you can get a
clue to its magnitude if you look at the troughs in the shipment data.
Overlaying that are periodic trends (fads, if you will) driven by
consumers outside the audiophile world. And those trends exceed
several-folder the audiophile market itself.
bob
David
of why vinyl's sales went up just lately. The most
> recent relevant technological advance was the under-$200 USB turntable.
> Think that might be it - people picking up some new media to see what
> their
> newly-hyped cheap LP playback hardware actually sounds like?
LOL, so they go and buy a crappy USB turntable so that they can then
purchase recordings at about twice the price of a CD only to convert it back
to digital, yeah right.
USB turntables are only bought to convert your old collection to digital.
The sales of LPs (in general very good pressings and quite costly) are on
the increase for one reason and one reason only.
Harry Lavo
On Dec 11, 12:50 pm, "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "bob" <nabo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:7ofct7F...@mid.individual.net...
>
> > On Dec 10, 11:34=A0pm, "Harry Lavo" <hl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> BTW, Bob, the article reminds us that the DJ segment perhaps was the
> >> sustaining factor for LP's in the late '80's and very early 90's but
> >> suggests that was not what was at work by 1994.
>
> > A 1994 article can't tell us much about trends in the latter half of
> > the 90s, now can it? The term "turntablism" was coined in 1995. That's
> > when the electronic dance music phenomenon started penetrating the
> > broader culture.
>
> It would help if you could quote a source and/or some statistics in
> support
> of this assertion.
Statistics don't exist, which is why you and I can argue about this
forever. (Fun, huh?) But see, for example, the paper Scott cited
earlier, which looks at this from a historical perspective. BTW, it
includes a section entitled, "Dance saves vinyl." Though it should be
noted that he doesn't have any reliable statistics, either.
My interpretation of that is that sales "at the bottom" were probably due in
some part due to disco. I've already conceded that. But other reasons led
to the rise, then the fall, then the rise again as I see it and have
explained it.
> As for what the NYTimes '94 article said, it said the growth was due to
> the
> introduction of new, quality vinyl by companies that specialized in
> audiophile reproductions....the same assertion I ascribed to the same
> factor
> based on the timing of the growth in that distribution. You are the one
> asserting that something else was at work.
Then the article is making the same mistake you are, which is
ascribing an increase in *demand* to a change in supply. Economics
doesn't work that way. Companies expand production because there is
demand. Demand does not increase because somebody produces more.
All you have to do to refute that sentiment is ask yourself "was there
demand for Bob Dylan (say, in Iowa) before his first album?".
When supply is scarce or nonexistant, and then becomes available, and the
product is open to impulse purchase, then, certainly, distribution can lead
to increased sales. Marketing 101. In the case of vinyl, many people are
probably suprised just to see it appear in the catalog or on the internet,
since they haven't been able to see much less buy a vinyl version for years.
Even moreso, many are probably greatly surprised if it greets them in the
entranceway to Barnes & Noble's Music Department.
The only thing that can explain the cyclical nature of the data is
cyclical demand. And I can't think of any reason why audiophile demand
for vinyl would be cyclical, to that extent. I'd expect it to be small
and stable, and rising moderately over time. I think you can get a
clue to its magnitude if you look at the troughs in the shipment data.
Overlaying that are periodic trends (fads, if you will) driven by
consumers outside the audiophile world. And those trends exceed
several-folder the audiophile market itself.
That is your interpretation....I've given you in detail my explanation,
which I think is even more valid, and ties to certain external data points
that are pretty solid. You want to see "fads", Arny wants to see
"noise"....but nobody has any evidence to suggest that my expanation is
somehow in error.....so I'll stay with it.
Arny Krueger
news:hfuk9...@news7.newsguy.com
> being that this forum is about high end audio you'd think
> that instead of arguing about whether or not vinyl sales
> have spiked in the last couple years or whether or not it
> constitutes a "come back" we'd be discussing the actual
> impact this spike has had on high end audio.
Just another area where relevant facts are hard to find.
> It has been a double edged sword IMO.
> While it has brought a few new
> people into the niche of high end audio
No real evidence of that. The previous build up had to do with dance clubs,
but high end audio not so much.
> and high end vinyl in particular
No real evidence of that. We do see a proliferation of unbelievably cheap
USB turntables, some of which even work credibly. They seem to have little
or nothing to do with high end vinyl.
> it has also affected production of
> audiophile vinyl in a bad way. QC has been down at times
> due to the overloaded demands put on various pressing
> plants. reissues are being delayed due to back logging
> and there is more crap to sift through in order to find
> the gems because the majors have decided it's enough just
> to get the title out there and not do a good job of it.
> the worst thing of all though is that certain desirable
> titles are being held back from the labels that do a
> great job with high quality reissues because the majors
> are doing those titles themselves or licensing them to
> other players who wouldn't be in the game were it not for
> this big upswing.
An interesting tale, but again one with little or no supporting hard facts.
> A fine example. a couple of my all time
> favorite albums have been reissued as audiophile LPs. But
> the company that did them is this outfit called Friday
> Music. Their work simply sucks. Now those titles are
> basically out of reach for the great reissue labels like
> Analog Productions, ORG, Music Matters, Classics,
> Speaker's Corner or Pure Pleasure, Were it not for this
> spike I doubt Friday Music would have even jumped into
> the vinyl reissue business.
Vinyl reissues strike me as being very pathological. I can justify vinyl in
those cases where it is available when there are no viable digital
transcriptions of the same work. However vinyl reissues don't exactly fit
into that niche.
Scott
> "Scott" <S888Wh...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
> news:hfuk9...@news7.newsguy.com
>
> > being that this forum is about high end audio you'd think
> > that instead of arguing about whether or not vinyl sales
> > have spiked in the last couple years or whether or not it
> > constitutes a "come back" we'd be discussing the actual
> > impact this spike has had on high end audio.
>
> Just another area where relevant facts are hard to find.
Just gotta know where to look
>
> > It has been a double edged sword IMO.
> > While it has brought a few new
> > people into the niche of high end audio
>
> No real evidence of that. The previous build up had to do with dance club=
s,
> but high end audio not so much.
There is very real evidence of that. I have actually talked to such
people. One can find testimonials of audiophiles who have taken an
interest in vinyl after being made aware of it's viability in the past
few years because of the residual effects of this current spike in
sales. Again, ya gotta know where to look.
>
> > and high end vinyl in particular
>
> No real evidence of that. We do see a proliferation of unbelievably cheap
> USB turntables, some of which even work credibly. They seem to have littl=
e
> or nothing to do with high end vinyl.
The evidence is there in personal testimonials. Not sure what USB
turntables have to do with anything I am talking about. My comments
were in regard to vinyl in high end audio. you really need to learn
the difference between the actual existance of real evidence and your
beliefs about the existance of evidence. They are not the same thing.
>
> > it has also affected production of
> > audiophile vinyl in a bad way. QC has been down at times
> > due to the overloaded demands put on various pressing
> > plants. reissues are being delayed due to back logging
> > and there is more crap to sift through in order to find
> > the gems because the majors have decided it's enough just
> > to get the title out there and not do a good job of it.
> > the worst thing of all though is that certain desirable
> > titles are being held back from the labels that do a
> > great job with high quality reissues because the majors
> > are doing those titles themselves or licensing them to
> > other players who wouldn't be in the game were it not for
> > this big upswing.
>
> An interesting tale, but again one with little or no supporting hard fact=
s.
Arny, is this just a post meant to be a demonstration of what you
don't know? You might want to consider asking for facts before making
declarations about their existance. The facts are there if you just
look. But one would have to have at least a passing interest in these
things to look. Just ask anyone who had preordered the Doors box set
about QC and delays in delivery due to the backlog in pressing records
because of this spike in sales. better yet, ask The folks at WB who
had to replace a couple thousand defective discs. The delays on that
title alone are well documented as are the QC issues that were a
direct result of RTI being totally overloaded. Again you can varify
this with RTI, the actual pressing plant, if you don't know the facts.
>
> > A fine example. a couple of my all time
> > favorite albums have been reissued as audiophile LPs. But
> > the company that did them is this outfit called Friday
> > Music. Their work simply sucks. Now those titles are
> > basically out of reach for the great reissue labels like
> > Analog Productions, ORG, Music Matters, Classics,
> > Speaker's Corner or Pure Pleasure, Were it not for this
> > spike I doubt Friday Music would have even jumped into
> > the vinyl reissue business.
>
> Vinyl reissues strike me as being very pathological. =A0I can justify vin=
yl in
> those cases where it is available when there are no viable digital
> transcriptions of the same work. However vinyl reissues don't exactly fit
> into that niche.
Anyone who is paying attention to mastering (a key step in the process
of making any LP or CD) should have a profound appreciation for the
value of having both media (and SACD). The assumption that a title
merely need to be released in some digital format to render any and
all LP versions obsolete based on the assumption that anything digital
will be sonically superior suggests a lack of experience with the
variations one can find of any given title due to mastering alone. In
many cases these vinyl reissues represent the very best sound
available of that title ever. Of course one would have to actually be
interested enough to do the homework needed to know about these things
in detail. But for those of us who are actually interested in getting
the music we love with the best sound possible this is an amazing
time. There is a glut of such reissues that have completely raised the
bar to unexpected levels of excellence for so many great titles.
Arny Krueger
> On Dec 12, 8:44=A0am, "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com>
> wrote:
>> "Scott" <S888Wh...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:hfuk9...@news7.newsguy.com
>>
>>> being that this forum is about high end audio you'd
>>> think that instead of arguing about whether or not
>>> vinyl sales have spiked in the last couple years or
>>> whether or not it constitutes a "come back" we'd be
>>> discussing the actual impact this spike has had on high
>>> end audio.
>>
>> Just another area where relevant facts are hard to find.
>
> Just gotta know where to look
Since you've provided none, they must be eluding you, as well.
>>> It has been a double edged sword IMO.
>>> While it has brought a few new
>>> people into the niche of high end audio
>> No real evidence of that. The previous build up had to
>> do with dance club= s, but high end audio not so much.
> There is very real evidence of that. I have actually
> talked to such people. One can find testimonials of
> audiophiles who have taken an interest in vinyl after
> being made aware of it's viability in the past few years
> because of the residual effects of this current spike in
> sales. Again, ya gotta know where to look.
The testimonials lack supporting documentation. They could easily be plants
by people merchandising equipment.
>>
>>> and high end vinyl in particular
>>
>> No real evidence of that. We do see a proliferation of
>> unbelievably cheap USB turntables, some of which even
>> work credibly. They seem to have littl= e or nothing to
>> do with high end vinyl.
> The evidence is there in personal testimonials.
But those testimonials aren't well-documented and we have no way to know
that the people giving testimony aren't shills.
> Not sure
> what USB turntables have to do with anything I am talking
> about.
My point, exactly.
> My comments were in regard to vinyl in high end
> audio.
Only a tiny segement of it.
> you really need to learn the difference between
> the actual existance of real evidence and your beliefs
> about the existance of evidence. They are not the same
> thing.
Given the degree of support that you've provided, you are apparently talking
to yourself.
>
>>> it has also affected production of
>>> audiophile vinyl in a bad way. QC has been down at times
>>> due to the overloaded demands put on various pressing
>>> plants. reissues are being delayed due to back logging
>>> and there is more crap to sift through in order to find
>>> the gems because the majors have decided it's enough
>>> just to get the title out there and not do a good job
>>> of it. the worst thing of all though is that certain
>>> desirable titles are being held back from the labels
>>> that do a great job with high quality reissues because
>>> the majors are doing those titles themselves or
>>> licensing them to other players who wouldn't be in the
>>> game were it not for this big upswing.
>> An interesting tale, but again one with little or no
>> supporting hard fact= s.
> Arny, is this just a post meant to be a demonstration of
> what you don't know?
What my post is demonstrating is the lack of reliable documentation. So far,
you've provided hearsay at best.
>You might want to consider asking
> for facts before making declarations about their
> existance.
I was asking for facts, and look what I get!
> The facts are there if you just look.
If they are so easy to find, why haven't you documented them?
> But one
> would have to have at least a passing interest in these
> things to look. Just ask anyone who had preordered the
> Doors box set about QC and delays in delivery due to the
> backlog in pressing records because of this spike in
> sales.
Probably mere incompetence.
> better yet, ask The folks at WB who had to replace
> a couple thousand defective discs.
Documentation?
Google searching comes up empty.
> The delays on that
> title alone are well documented as are the QC issues that
> were a direct result of RTI being totally overloaded.
> Again you can varify this with RTI, the actual pressing
> plant, if you don't know the facts.
If the docmentation is so easy to find, why can't google find it?
>
>>> A fine example. a couple of my all time
>>> favorite albums have been reissued as audiophile LPs.
>>> But the company that did them is this outfit called
>>> Friday Music. Their work simply sucks. Now those titles
>>> are basically out of reach for the great reissue labels
>>> like Analog Productions, ORG, Music Matters, Classics,
>>> Speaker's Corner or Pure Pleasure, Were it not for this
>>> spike I doubt Friday Music would have even jumped into
>>> the vinyl reissue business.
>>
>> Vinyl reissues strike me as being very pathological.
>> =A0I can justify vin= yl in those cases where it is
>> available when there are no viable digital
>> transcriptions of the same work. However vinyl reissues
>> don't exactly fit into that niche.
> Anyone who is paying attention to mastering (a key step
> in the process of making any LP or CD) should have a
> profound appreciation for the value of having both media
> (and SACD).
Only the digital formats can possibly be accurate enough to the artist's
intentions to be interesting to serious listeners.
> The assumption that a title merely need to be
> released in some digital format to render any and all LP
> versions obsolete based on the assumption that anything
> digital will be sonically superior
There is no assumption that anything digital is necessarily sonically
superior. However, if it isn't, then someone didn't do their homework. They
had some great tools, and they blew it!
Steven Sullivan
Perhaps just the 'eternal recurrance'...I am going to guess that
long play vinyl quality was higher in the early days of 'stereo'
when it was aimed mainly at the
classical (and bizzarely the sound-effects market)
market. By the 1980s LPs were mass market and
vinyl quality was routinely shit (this is memory, not guessing).
And so to digital.
Wonder if it will play out the same way now.
Audio Empire
(in article <7ola4pF...@mid.individual.net>):
Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high quality. I.E. 180, or 200
gram virgin vinyl, often times the discs are cut at 45 rpm, and sometimes
they are even pressed on only one side of the disc. Records are expensive,
averaging $30 - $100 for each album. The vinyl makers can't afford to make
schlock at those prices like they could when the average single-disc stereo
LP was $4.98.
Robert Peirce
Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high quality. I.E. 180, or 200
> gram virgin vinyl, often times the discs are cut at 45 rpm, and sometimes
> they are even pressed on only one side of the disc. Records are expensive,
> averaging $30 - $100 for each album. The vinyl makers can't afford to make
> schlock at those prices like they could when the average single-disc stereo
> LP was $4.98.
I have been paying about $25/LP, $50 for a 45RPM album of two discs. So
far I have had only one record that we noisy. I returned it for a
replacement.
How do they compare with CD? My philosophy over the years has been to
get all digital recordings on CD and all analog recordings on LP.
Converting a digital recording to LP seems like a waste.
The modern LPs of analog recordings sound pretty much the same as the
CDs of digital recordings. Maybe my hearing is going, but I can't
really tell the difference. OTOH, analog recordings on CD, especially
the earliest, don't really sound as good. I can't quite put my finger
on the problem. They just don't sound as good to me.
Scott
> "Scott" <S888Wh...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 12, 8:44=3DA0am, "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com>
> > wrote:
> >> "Scott" <S888Wh...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
> >>news:hfuk9...@news7.newsguy.com
>
> >>> being that this forum is about high end audio you'd
> >>> think that instead of arguing about whether or not
> >>> vinyl sales have spiked in the last couple years or
> >>> whether or not it constitutes a "come back" we'd be
> >>> discussing the actual impact this spike has had on high
> >>> end audio.
>
> >> Just another area where relevant facts are hard to find.
>
> > Just gotta know where to look
>
> Since you've provided none, they must be eluding you, as well.
It simply does not follow that I since I have provided none that they
must be eluding me.
>
> >>> It has been a double edged sword IMO.
> >>> While it has brought a few new
> >>> people into the niche of high end audio
> >> No real evidence of that. The previous build up had to
> >> do with dance club=3D s, but high end audio not so much.
> > There is very real evidence of that. I have actually
> > talked to such people. One can find testimonials of
> > audiophiles who have taken an interest in vinyl after
> > being made aware of it's viability in the past few years
> > because of the residual effects of this current spike in
> > sales. Again, ya gotta know where to look.
>
> The testimonials lack supporting documentation. They could easily be plan=
ts
> by people merchandising equipment.
The testimonials are actually well documented. Your awareness of that
documentation does not affect the reality of that documentation. I'm
not sure how you conclude these testimonials can easily be plants when
you have yet to see the testimonials.
>
>
>
> >>> and high end vinyl in particular
>
> >> No real evidence of that. We do see a proliferation of
> >> unbelievably cheap USB turntables, some of which even
> >> work credibly. They seem to have littl=3D e or nothing to
> >> do with high end vinyl.
> > The evidence is there in personal testimonials.
>
> But those testimonials aren't well-documented and we have no way to know
> that the people giving testimony aren't shills.
They are well documented. You seem to just be having trouble finding
them. I have seen them. I have no trouble telling that these
testimonials are not shills.
>
> > Not sure
> > what USB turntables have to do with anything I am talking
> > about.
>
> My point, exactly.
OK so we agree that this point was off topic.
>
> > My comments were in regard to vinyl in high end
> > audio.
>
> Only a tiny segement of it.
No, they were in regard to just all vinyl being produced in high end
audio.
>
> > you really need to learn the difference between
> > the actual existance of real evidence and your beliefs
> > about the existance of evidence. They are not the same
> > thing.
>
> Given the degree of support that you've provided, you are apparently talk=
ing
> to yourself.
Nope, I'm talking to you. And anyone else who may be following.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> it has also affected production of
> >>> audiophile vinyl in a bad way. QC has been down at times
> >>> due to the overloaded demands put on various pressing
> >>> plants. reissues are being delayed due to back logging
> >>> and there is more crap to sift through in order to find
> >>> the gems because the majors have decided it's enough
> >>> just to get the title out there and not do a good job
> >>> of it. the worst thing of all though is that certain
> >>> desirable titles are being held back from the labels
> >>> that do a great job with high quality reissues because
> >>> the majors are doing those titles themselves or
> >>> licensing them to other players who wouldn't be in the
> >>> game were it not for this big upswing.
> >> An interesting tale, but again one with little or no
> >> supporting hard fact=3D s.
> > Arny, is this just a post meant to be a demonstration of
> > what you don't know?
>
> What my post is demonstrating is the lack of reliable documentation. So f=
ar,
> you've provided hearsay at best.
No it only demonstrates your unawareness of the documentation. I have
made no attempt to provide documentation. So far it has not been asked
for.
>
> >You might want to consider asking
> > for facts before making declarations about their
> > existance.
>
> I was asking for facts, and look what I get!
You weren't asking for facts. You still haven't asked for any
information.
>
> > The facts are there if you just look.
>
> If they are so easy to find, why haven't you documented them?
Largely because they are so easy to find.
>
> > But one
> > would have to have at least a passing interest in these
> > things to look. Just ask anyone who had preordered the
> > Doors box set about QC and delays in delivery due to the
> > backlog in pressing records because of this spike in
> > sales.
>
> Probably mere incompetence.
"Probably?" Seriously, why would you denigrate the hard working pros
at RTI like that without any knowledge of what was going on? I think
this kind of wreckless attack on skilled pros is really in bad taste.
Who are you to call the folks at RTI incompetent? Apparently guideline
4.8: "Posts that have an offensive tone, that is, use rude,
condescending, or tactless language, or that are belittling or
denigrating at all, will be considered inflammatory and returned to
the author for revision" does not apply to you denigrating the folks
at RTI. A shame that is the case.
>
> > better yet, ask The folks at WB who had to replace
> > a couple thousand defective discs.
>
> Documentation?
Now that you finally asked...
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=3D104836&highlight=3Ddo=
ors+box+set
I strongly suggest reading the content carefully before attacking it.
It pretty much offers objective evdidence of everything I have
asserted about The Doors box set. OTOH you could actually contact the
folks at WB through their forum. http://board.becausesoundmatters.com/
>
> Google searching comes up empty.
Guess there is more in this world than can be found in a google
search. Like I said, ya gotta know where to look. Or better yet just
ask the people who obviously would know.
>
> > The delays on that
> > title alone are well documented as are the QC issues that
> > were a direct result of RTI being totally overloaded.
> > Again you can varify this with RTI, the actual pressing
> > plant, if you don't know the facts.
>
> If the docmentation is so easy to find, why can't google find it?
It's easy to find if you know where to look. Or who to ask.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> A fine example. a couple of my all time
> >>> favorite albums have been reissued as audiophile LPs.
> >>> But the company that did them is this outfit called
> >>> Friday Music. Their work simply sucks. Now those titles
> >>> are basically out of reach for the great reissue labels
> >>> like Analog Productions, ORG, Music Matters, Classics,
> >>> Speaker's Corner or Pure Pleasure, Were it not for this
> >>> spike I doubt Friday Music would have even jumped into
> >>> the vinyl reissue business.
>
> >> Vinyl reissues strike me as being very pathological.
> >> =3DA0I can justify vin=3D yl in those cases where it is
> >> available when there are no viable digital
> >> transcriptions of the same work. However vinyl reissues
> >> don't exactly fit into that niche.
> > Anyone who is paying attention to mastering (a key step
> > in the process of making any LP or CD) should have a
> > profound appreciation for the value of having both media
> > (and SACD).
>
> Only the digital formats can possibly be accurate enough to the artist's
> intentions to be interesting to serious listeners.
Wrong.
>
> > The assumption that a title merely need to be
> > released in some digital format to render any and all LP
> > versions obsolete based on the assumption that anything
> > digital will be sonically superior
>
> There is no assumption that anything digital is necessarily sonically
> superior.
I believe your assertion did rely on such an assumption.
> However, if it isn't, then someone didn't do their homework. =A0They
> had some great tools, and they blew it
Really? Do tell. Let's start with the Beatles remasters. CNN did an
interview witht he mastering engineers that documents their work
pretty thouroghly. The mastering engineers have conceded that their
efforts fell short of the original vinyl. Please tell us how they
didn't do their homework and how they "blew it." What would you have
done differently? What homework did they fail to do? After that you
can do the same for the Dennis Drake remasters of the Mercury Living
Presence catalog. That project is also very well documented. Please
tell us how Dennis drake didn't do his homework. Tell us how he "blew
it?" Then maybe you can tell us how Rudy Van Gleder blew it with the
Blue Note CD reissues and explain how Rudy Van Gleder managed to fail
to do his homework. Let's see you apply your assertions to these real
world examples.
Arny Krueger
news:7olimvF...@mid.individual.net
> Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high
> quality. I.E. 180, or 200 gram virgin vinyl,
Quantity does not guarantee quality.
Besides, you can't beat the basic geometric and materials problems of vinyl.
Compared to digital its going to be less reliable, larger, noisier and have
higher audible distortion.
> often times the discs are cut at 45 rpm,
Non sequitor. It's well known that cutting discs at lower than playing
speeds is a potential route to improved quality. If you mean that some discs
are cut to play at 45 rpm, then that has serious problems of its own - lack
of playing time if the levels are reasonably high and there's anything like
realistic deep bass.
> and sometimes they are even pressed on only one side of the disc.
I'm unaware of any necessary advantages to that at all.
> Records are expensive, averaging $30 - $100 for each album.
If you go back to say 1962, LPs had a street price in the $8 range. If you
add the effects of inflation from 1962 to 2009, that's equal to
approximately $56. IOW, all but the most expensive LPs are selling for less
than their price, corrected for inflation.
> The vinyl makers can't afford to make schlock at those prices
> like they could when the average single-disc stereo LP
> was $4.98.
I never ever remember paying that little for a regular-priced LP. Yes there
were loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut outs. But even if we take
that as a 1962 price, then it would be $35 today.
Audio Empire
(in article <7olpfrF...@mid.individual.net>):
> In article <7olimvF...@mid.individual.net>,
> Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high quality. I.E. 180, or
>> 200
>> gram virgin vinyl, often times the discs are cut at 45 rpm, and sometimes
>> they are even pressed on only one side of the disc. Records are expensive,
>> averaging $30 - $100 for each album. The vinyl makers can't afford to make
>> schlock at those prices like they could when the average single-disc stereo
>> LP was $4.98.
>
> I have been paying about $25/LP, $50 for a 45RPM album of two discs. So
> far I have had only one record that we noisy. I returned it for a
> replacement.
>
> How do they compare with CD? My philosophy over the years has been to
> get all digital recordings on CD and all analog recordings on LP.
> Converting a digital recording to LP seems like a waste.
CD isn't the panacea that some would have you believe. Has anyone read the
obit for Wilma Cozart Fine in the latest TAS? For those who don't know, Ms
Fine was the head of the Classical Division at Mercury Records as well as the
producer of the all of the "living Presence" recordings, during that
company's "golden age" (from about 1954 to about 1965) and was married to the
Mercury recording engineer, the legendary C. Robert Fine. In the obit, the
author, Harry Pearson, who, apparently knew Ms. Fine very well, repeats what
she said to him on the occasion of her transferring her husband's master
tapes to CD: Ms. Fine insisted that CD and LP represented two different views
of the original analog masters and that neither was a perfect replica, but
both told different, but equally valid "truths" about the originals. She
would have known if anybody did. She was reputed to have the most analytical
pair of ears in the industry and was present when the original tapes were
recorded. They must have been very good indeed. Most of the Mercury Living
Presence classical recordings are still regarded as among the very best ever
made. In fact, most modern, commercial, classical recordings aren't nearly
the equal of these fifty-some-year-old marvels.
And yes, I don't see any particular reason to transfer digital recordings to
LP. Not in this day and time. I have some early digital recordings which
were released on LP (simply because the CD wasn't on the market yet) but
there is nothing special about them.
There is, however, a good reason for re-releasing analog material on CD.
Today's autocorrelation software can tell the difference between tape hiss
and music and can remove the one without AUDIBLY affecting the other. This
can make for some spectacular sounding ADD. Many of these analog performances
are priceless and audio tape deteriorates with age - even when carefully
stored. So getting them into digital at this time is the right thing to do
for preservation sake, if nothing else. Hopefully, the digitization process
is done at at least 24-bit, 192 KHz, if not DSD and the transfers are being
archivally preserved and stored without any signal processing. We don't want
to find ourselves in the future stuck with the signal processing technology
of the past, so a straight 24/192 or DSD transfer of the original analog
master will insure that any improvements to to signal processing
(autocorrelation, drop-out compensation, etc) can be applied to each new
remastering of these recordings.
>
> The modern LPs of analog recordings sound pretty much the same as the
> CDs of digital recordings. Maybe my hearing is going, but I can't
> really tell the difference. OTOH, analog recordings on CD, especially
> the earliest, don't really sound as good. I can't quite put my finger
> on the problem. They just don't sound as good to me.
I can help you there, I think. The Sony 1600 series A/D converters. They were
as lousy as they were ubiquitous. Again, referring back to Ms. Fine's
obituary in the January issue of TAS. Apparently, Ms. Fine HATED the Sony
1600 series of converters (1610, 1620, 1630) and decided not to use them for
the Mercury transfers to CD. Instead she commissioned one from dCS which
allowed her and the Philips crew to work in 24-bits. Also, most early analog
to digital transfers were passed through some of the first generation digital
autocorrelation software. It wasn't very good. While it did remove the hiss,
it also left the transfers sounding gritty and strident.
Want to hear an analog-to-digital transfer at its very best? Try some of the
JVC XRCD24 re-releases from the RCA and the British Decca catalogs.
Symphonic recordings simply don't get any better than this.
AudioEmpire
Audio Empire
(in article <7omrjuF...@mid.individual.net>):
> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:7olimvF...@mid.individual.net
>
>> Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high
>> quality. I.E. 180, or 200 gram virgin vinyl,
>
> Quantity does not guarantee quality.
Virgin vinyl usually does, though. Thicker plastic means resistance to
warpage - both before and after purchase. Virgin vinyl means quieter
surfaces.
> Besides, you can't beat the basic geometric and materials problems of vinyl.
> Compared to digital its going to be less reliable, larger, noisier and have
> higher audible distortion.
None of which is all that important.
>
>> often times the discs are cut at 45 rpm,
>
> Non sequitor. It's well known that cutting discs at lower than playing
> speeds is a potential route to improved quality. If you mean that some discs
> are cut to play at 45 rpm, then that has serious problems of its own - lack
> of playing time if the levels are reasonably high and there's anything like
> realistic deep bass.
Actually, I misspoke myself. What I meant was that often these modern premium
LPs are designed to be played-back at 45 RPM. Certainly, some of them could
be half-speed mastered.
>
>> and sometimes they are even pressed on only one side of the disc.
>
> I'm unaware of any necessary advantages to that at all.
Less stress on the vinyl. Again, has to do with warpage resistance, mostly. A
case could also be made for print through, although with 180 or 200 gram
vinyl, I can't imagine that this would even be a consideration
>
>> Records are expensive, averaging $30 - $100 for each album.
>
> If you go back to say 1962, LPs had a street price in the $8 range.
Nope. in 1962 a single stereo LP was $4.98 from RCA, Columbia, Mercury, et
al. Some classical titles were $5.98. Eventually prices went to around $10,
but not in 1962.
If you
> add the effects of inflation from 1962 to 2009, that's equal to
> approximately $56. IOW, all but the most expensive LPs are selling for less
> than their price, corrected for inflation.
>
>> The vinyl makers can't afford to make schlock at those prices
>> like they could when the average single-disc stereo LP
>> was $4.98.
>
> I never ever remember paying that little for a regular-priced LP. Yes there
> were loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut outs. But even if we take
> that as a 1962 price, then it would be $35 today.
>
>
For many years, there was two-tier pricing for non-budget label LPs. Mono LPs
were US$3.98, and stereo versions were a dollar more. Like I said above, some
classical titles were $5.98 for stereo. This is, of course, for single disc
albums. Multi-disc albums were more.
Dick Pierce
> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:7olimvF...@mid.individual.net
>>like they could when the average single-disc stereo LP
>>was $4.98.
>
> I never ever remember paying that little for a regular-priced LP.
Well, uhm, if they are not "regular priced," then I guess
no one would ever remember paying regular price for
products that are not regular priced.
> Yes there were loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut outs.
> But even if we take that as a 1962 price, then it would be
> $35 today.
In the classical realm, there was Nonesuch, Angel Melodiya,
Seraphim and others that were, for the most part, first-
rate pressings of first-rate performances that retailed in
the Boston area in the mid-70's for under $5.00. And there
was the Musical Heritage Society whose prices were in a
similar realm. Much of their catalog was U.S. reissues of
European first releases for the same kind of money. For
example, the MHS release of Gilberts performances of the
Couperin Livre de Clavecin and Chapuis' Bach Organ works
were first avilable in this country through MHS, and at
half the price of the eventual European releases.
No, things like Nonesuch and MHS were most assuredly NOT
"loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut outs." I was
paying $2 for "loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut
outs" in the mid 70's.
And when I was buying top-of-the-line classical albums
in the mid '70's, I don't ever recall paying as much
as $10 per disk. Typical price for this sort of classical
album was in the realm of $7.98. I'm talking DGG, Phillips,
Telefunken, and the like. And I bought a LOT of LPs at
that time, living on a worse-than-student budget. I have
most of them to this day.
Now, to be fair, I didn't buy any of the high-end "audiophile"
pressings of the day: to me, most of them were dreadful,
musically (a couple of exceptions: Levinson's multi-disk
release of the Bach Kunst der Fuge recorded at Yale is
one of the more haunting performances of that work, most
especially the incomplete Contrapunctus XIV).
So, what is $4.98 in 1976 worth today? Well, it's under
$20. Would I pay $20 for an LP of Helmut Walcha doing
Bach organ on the Schnitger organ in the Jacobikirke
in Hamburg on an LP? Damn straight, since I haven't
seen it on CD (best performance of the BWV565 Tocatta
and Fugue!)
--
+--------------------------------+
+ Dick Pierce |
+ Professional Audio Development |
+--------------------------------+
Arny Krueger
> On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:07:11 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
> (in article <7omrjuF...@mid.individual.net>):
>
>> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in
>> message news:7olimvF...@mid.individual.net
>>
>>> Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high
>>> quality. I.E. 180, or 200 gram virgin vinyl,
>> Quantity does not guarantee quality.
> Virgin vinyl usually does, though. Thicker plastic means
> resistance to warpage - both before and after purchase.
The notion that a LP can somehow resist being warped due to poor storage and
other environmental and usage conditions by being a little heavier is pretty
strange. If a LP is thicker, it just takes a stronger set.
> Virgin vinyl means quieter surfaces.
Most noise on LPs is not due to the material but the process.
>> Besides, you can't beat the basic geometric and
>> materials problems of vinyl. Compared to digital its
>> going to be less reliable, larger, noisier and have
>> higher audible distortion.
> None of which is all that important.
So you seriously believe that excess audible noise and distortion is "not
all that important"? Isn't that the opposite of "High Fidelity"?
>>> and sometimes they are even pressed on only one side of
>>> the disc.
>>
>> I'm unaware of any necessary advantages to that at all.
> Less stress on the vinyl.
IOW no reliable evidence, just unsupported speculation that stress in the
plastic causes audible problems?
> Again, has to do with warpage
> resistance, mostly.
Already debunked once.
> A case could also be made for print
> through, although with 180 or 200 gram vinyl, I can't
> imagine that this would even be a consideration
There is audible print-through in vinyl, but its all in adjacent grooves on
the same side of the LP. Another fable debunked.
>>> Records are expensive, averaging $30 - $100 for each
>>> album.
>> If you go back to say 1962, LPs had a street price in
>> the $8 range.
> Nope. in 1962 a single stereo LP was $4.98 from RCA,
> Columbia, Mercury, et al.
I have here a catalog sheet from 1960 that says that the list price of LPs
from major producers was $5.98 Many first rate record stores sold LPs for
list price.
I have another document that says in the 70s, the list price of LPs from
major producers went from $7.98 to $8.98. Fill in the blanks - that $4.98
LP is very hard to find.
> Some classical titles were
> $5.98. Eventually prices went to around $10, but not in 1962.
Apparently, the late 70s, early 80s.
> If you
>> add the effects of inflation from 1962 to 2009, that's
>> equal to approximately $56. IOW, all but the most
>> expensive LPs are selling for less than their price,
>> corrected for inflation.
>>> The vinyl makers can't afford to make schlock at those
>>> prices like they could when the average single-disc
>>> stereo LP
>>> was $4.98.
>> I never ever remember paying that little for a
>> regular-priced LP. Yes there were loss leaders, blow
>> outs, culls, and cut outs. But even if we take that as
>> a 1962 price, then it would be $35 today.
> For many years, there was two-tier pricing for non-budget
> label LPs. Mono LPs were US$3.98, and stereo versions
> were a dollar more.
This comment has no dates attached to it. Therefore it has no meaning.
Audio Empire
(in article <7oplf7F...@mid.individual.net>):
> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:7oo96iF...@mid.individual.net
>> On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:07:11 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
>> (in article <7omrjuF...@mid.individual.net>):
>>
>>> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in
>>> message news:7olimvF...@mid.individual.net
>>>
>>>> Since it's "resurgence", vinyl has been pretty high
>>>> quality. I.E. 180, or 200 gram virgin vinyl,
>
>>> Quantity does not guarantee quality.
>
>> Virgin vinyl usually does, though. Thicker plastic means
>> resistance to warpage - both before and after purchase.
>
> The notion that a LP can somehow resist being warped due to poor storage and
> other environmental and usage conditions by being a little heavier is pretty
> strange. If a LP is thicker, it just takes a stronger set.
True, but it takes more to warp them.
>
>> Virgin vinyl means quieter surfaces.
>
> Most noise on LPs is not due to the material but the process.
Partially true. Underfill, as well as pressing at the wrong temperature will
cause the vinyl to set-up granular and that will cause increased surface
noise, but such discs SHOULD never get shipped (I emphasize the word should,
because, often, such discs DID get shipped, in spite of any quality
control.). Mixing what the industry called regrind with the virgin vinyl
pellets (records that didn't make the cut wrt quality control would have the
label area punched out of them to avoid getting paper in with the vinyl and
the records were ground-up and the resultant shards of vinyl were used again)
and records were pressed from that. This was mostly done with budget labels
and pop music albums. RCA Red Seal, Mercury Living Presence, Columbia
Masterworks, HMV, Angel, British Decca (London), etc., did not use regrind
But RCA Victorla, Vox Turnabout, Seraphim, etc. often did. A virgin vinyl LP
could have, when new, a s/n ratio of 58 to 60 dB, but an LP with regrind
(depending on the ratio with virgin vinyl) could be as low as 54 dB and still
be considered acceptable. Most historical sources (Tremaine, Welch and Reed,
et al) will quote an LP s/n ratio average as 56 dB, and that's about right.
>>> Besides, you can't beat the basic geometric and
>>> materials problems of vinyl. Compared to digital its
>>> going to be less reliable, larger, noisier and have
>>> higher audible distortion.
>
>> None of which is all that important.
>
> So you seriously believe that excess audible noise and distortion is "not
> all that important"? Isn't that the opposite of "High Fidelity"?
Most people who listen to records learn to "listen around" the surface noise
and regard ticks and pops as they would coughs and sneezes and program
rustling at a concert. Modern stylus shapes and correct alignment have all
but eliminated inner-groove distortion, and other than that, records can
sound pretty damn good in my opinion. In fact, lots of music lovers and audio
enthusiasts share my opinion.
>>>> and sometimes they are even pressed on only one side of
>>>> the disc.
>>>
>>> I'm unaware of any necessary advantages to that at all.
>
>> Less stress on the vinyl.
>
> IOW no reliable evidence, just unsupported speculation that stress in the
> plastic causes audible problems?
>
>> Again, has to do with warpage
>> resistance, mostly.
>
> Already debunked once.
Not debunked, sir. Merely asserted.
>> A case could also be made for print
>> through, although with 180 or 200 gram vinyl, I can't
>> imagine that this would even be a consideration
>
> There is audible print-through in vinyl, but its all in adjacent grooves on
> the same side of the LP. Another fable debunked.
By yet another unsubstantiated assertion.
>>>> Records are expensive, averaging $30 - $100 for each
>>>> album.
>
>>> If you go back to say 1962, LPs had a street price in
>>> the $8 range.
>
>> Nope. in 1962 a single stereo LP was $4.98 from RCA,
>> Columbia, Mercury, et al.
>
> I have here a catalog sheet from 1960 that says that the list price of LPs
> from major producers was $5.98 Many first rate record stores sold LPs for
> list price.
>
> I have another document that says in the 70s, the list price of LPs from
> major producers went from $7.98 to $8.98. Fill in the blanks - that $4.98
> LP is very hard to find.
>
>> Some classical titles were
>> $5.98. Eventually prices went to around $10, but not in 1962.
>
> Apparently, the late 70s, early 80s.
True enough, but remember, in the 1970's we went through double-digit
inflation for a number of years. Between 1970 and 1980, prices on everything
more than doubled including the prices of LPs.
>
>> If you
>>> add the effects of inflation from 1962 to 2009, that's
>>> equal to approximately $56. IOW, all but the most
>>> expensive LPs are selling for less than their price,
>>> corrected for inflation.
>
>>>> The vinyl makers can't afford to make schlock at those
>>>> prices like they could when the average single-disc
>>>> stereo LP
>>>> was $4.98.
>
>>> I never ever remember paying that little for a
>>> regular-priced LP. Yes there were loss leaders, blow
>>> outs, culls, and cut outs. But even if we take that as
>>> a 1962 price, then it would be $35 today.
>
>> For many years, there was two-tier pricing for non-budget
>> label LPs. Mono LPs were US$3.98, and stereo versions
>> were a dollar more.
>
> This comment has no dates attached to it. Therefore it has no meaning.
Well, since stereo records didn't appear, essentially, until 1958, and double
inventory stopped about 1970 when they started making "mono compatible"
stereo discs, that would be the dates we're discussing. I would have thought
that someone with your knowledge of records would have known that. Sorry for
any confusion.
Dick Pierce
> I have another document that says in the 70s, the
> list price of LPs from major producers went from
> $7.98 to $8.98.
Why does that not contradict your earlier claim:
"If you go back to say 1962, LPs had a street
price in the $8 range."
Does that suggest that there were no inflationary
pressures on LP prices from 1962 to the 1970s?
> Fill in the blanks - that $4.98 LP is very hard to find.
I shall. Just running my thumb down one shelf of my
LP collection came up with 38 Nonesuch albums, which
had retail prices of under $5 when I purchased them
in the mid 1970's. And that's only one label that
had those sorts of prices. I would say that of the
many hundreds of classical LPs I have purchased and
still have on hand, somewhere between 20% and 40%
were purchased for under $5 from legitimate retailers
from normal stock (not closeout bins).
20%-40% does NOT constitute "very hard to find" nor
does finding 38 of one particular label in under a
minute.
On the other side of the coin: vinyl may or may not
be making a "comeback." But what is abundently clear
to me is that the LP business ceased to offer what
I wanted well over 20 years ago in terms of content.
In many cases, quality is secondary to me, so I am
willing to tolerate crappy LPs and crappy CDs if the
music and performer can be had. LP stopped doing that
a long time ago. I don't care how well the business
is doing or whether they're using 20 metric ton vestal
virgin vinyl. High quality music I don't want is music
I don't want, regardless of the medium.
Audio Empire
(in article <7oo97eF...@mid.individual.net>):
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:7olimvF...@mid.individual.net
>>> The vinyl makers can't afford to make schlock at those prices
>>> like they could when the average single-disc stereo LP
>>> was $4.98.
>>
>> I never ever remember paying that little for a regular-priced LP.
>
> Well, uhm, if they are not "regular priced," then I guess
> no one would ever remember paying regular price for
> products that are not regular priced.
>
>> Yes there were loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut outs.
>> But even if we take that as a 1962 price, then it would be
> > $35 today.
>
> In the classical realm, there was Nonesuch, Angel Melodiya,
> Seraphim and others that were, for the most part, first-
> rate pressings of first-rate performances that retailed in
> the Boston area in the mid-70's for under $5.00. And there
> was the Musical Heritage Society whose prices were in a
> similar realm. Much of their catalog was U.S. reissues of
> European first releases for the same kind of money. For
> example, the MHS release of Gilberts performances of the
> Couperin Livre de Clavecin and Chapuis' Bach Organ works
> were first avilable in this country through MHS, and at
> half the price of the eventual European releases.
I forgot about MHS. I have a number of British Lyrita titles (mostly the
music of Gustav Holst and Malcolm Arnold) that were released on Musical
Heritage Society and pressed for them by Columbia Special Products division.
These discs (in their plain, signature, black and white MHS covers) always
were quieter and sounded better than the real Lyrita imports. Certainly not
the usual result when comparing U.S. to British pressings of the same title!
> No, things like Nonesuch and MHS were most assuredly NOT
> "loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut outs." I was
> paying $2 for "loss leaders, blow outs, culls, and cut
> outs" in the mid 70's.
They were a bit cheaper than the premium labels but were generally of high
quality.
>
> And when I was buying top-of-the-line classical albums
> in the mid '70's, I don't ever recall paying as much
> as $10 per disk. Typical price for this sort of classical
> album was in the realm of $7.98. I'm talking DGG, Phillips,
> Telefunken, and the like. And I bought a LOT of LPs at
> that time, living on a worse-than-student budget. I have
> most of them to this day.
As do I. But my comments on LP prices were a rebuke of Arny Kruger's
assertion that in 1962, LPs were generally priced at ~$10.
>
> Now, to be fair, I didn't buy any of the high-end "audiophile"
> pressings of the day: to me, most of them were dreadful,
> musically (a couple of exceptions: Levinson's multi-disk
> release of the Bach Kunst der Fuge recorded at Yale is
> one of the more haunting performances of that work, most
> especially the incomplete Contrapunctus XIV).
Probably being older than you, and working in these years, I did buy them. I
still have a number of Audiophile discs from Sheffield, Century, and Crystal
Clear as well as Telarc - whose LP of the two Holst suites for military band
had the greatest bass drum whacks ever cut to vinyl (you can see them on the
disc from across the room!). Everybody used that LP for demo purposes. Oddly
enough, the CD version of that early SoundStream digital recording never
achieved the visceral whack of that bass drum like the LP did. I always
thought that CD was supposed to have much better bass than LP, but in spite
of the specs, this belief has never borne fruit with any recordings that I
have ever bought - even pipe organ and Gary Karr's bass viol always sounded
more visceral, more real on LP.
> So, what is $4.98 in 1976 worth today? Well, it's under
> $20. Would I pay $20 for an LP of Helmut Walcha doing
> Bach organ on the Schnitger organ in the Jacobikirke
> in Hamburg on an LP? Damn straight, since I haven't
> seen it on CD (best performance of the BWV565 Tocatta
> and Fugue!)
Probably renders the pipe organ better than a CD too.
Jenn
Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> As do I. But my comments on LP prices were a rebuke of Arny Kruger's
> assertion that in 1962, LPs were generally priced at ~$10.
As I recall, I bought my first LP as a kid in 1964 for just under $5. I
doubt that it was discounted, as it was a new hot record (Meet the
Beatles).
Jenn
Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen around" the surface noise
> and regard ticks and pops as they would coughs and sneezes and program
> rustling at a concert.
I very much agree with you. If there is an occasional pop or click, if
doesn't bother nearly as much as impossible timbres do.
David E. Bath
Well I can't stand any pops or clicks in my music, epecially when they
occur during quieter moments. It takes me right out of the enjoyment
every time.
--
David Bath - RAHE Co-moderator
Keith
> In article <hg996...@news7.newsguy.com>,
> Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen around" the surface noise
>> and regard ticks and pops as they would coughs and sneezes and program
>> rustling at a concert.
Were you to qualify that with "...who *still primarily* listen..." I
would agree with you. But I, as with all my audiophilic friends, who
having listened pretty exclusively to LP's for decades prior to digital
introduction, found that being set free from the requirement of
"listening around" the LP surface noise was the biggest boon to musical
enjoyment yet contrived.
>
> I very much agree with you. If there is an occasional pop or click, if
> doesn't bother nearly as much as impossible timbres do.
Well, I don't often find "impossible timbres" on digital recordings, but
I do have a few. And where such does occur, I would agree with you. I
have purchased a few CD's that are so bad that even my beat-up decades
old college-days LP copies are preferable. Thankfully that's fairly
rare IME.
I do, however, always find it curious that some folks are seemingly
unable, or simply refuse, to understand how those clicks and pops and
other LP surface noises can be, to some of us, similarly destructive to
musical enjoyment as "impossible timbres" are to others.
Keith Hughes
Arny Krueger
news:hgajt...@news4.newsguy.com
> In article <hg996...@news7.newsguy.com>,
> Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen
>> around" the surface noise and regard ticks and pops as
>> they would coughs and sneezes and program rustling at a
>> concert.
That pretty much tells it all. You're talking about listening to music
under technically degraded conditions. Just because the music is live
doesn't mean that its being heard in its most perfected state. In fact it is
pretty well guaranteed that by modern standards, music heard or recorded
live isn't being heard at its best.
Most commercial recordings are not recorded live and are free of distracting
noises like coughs.
The history of recordings is full of anecdotes about large numbers of takes
and careful editing for the purpose of avoiding audible problems that have
to be tolerated in a live concert setting. I recall that there are a small
number of commercial recordings with audible coughing, but they are rare and
the coughs themselves are rare in the small percentage of recordings that
have them at all.
OTOH, the chances of listening to a 20-30 minute side of a LP without
hearing a tic or a pop is very improbable for a person with anything like
normal hearing acuity. Therefore the idea that tics and pops are somehow
comparable to coughs at live concerts is not an accurate general situation.
In fact people go way out of their way to avoid hearing distracting noises,
particularly in recordings that are listened to over and over again. Note
that once a little spec of dirt lodges in the groove of a LP, there's a tic
or a pop at that point in the recording forever. True especially if the
recording is played several times and the spec of dirt lodges into the
groove or makes an imprint on the groove.
> I very much agree with you. If there is an occasional
> pop or click, if doesn't bother nearly as much as
> impossible timbres do.
Jenn, that is easily explainable by the well-known fact that you are a
musician, and therefore your listening is no doubt heavily weighted towards
concern over the music, and not so much the sound quality of the
reproduction.
IOW due to your training and preferences Jenn, you are more concerned over
whether the right notes are played at the right time and with the right
intonation. All of those things can be reliably detected by an experienced
person, even in a highly degraded sonic environment.
To a certain degree, being able to follow a single instrument part in the
middle of a large symphony orchestra is a study in extracting useful
information from a noisy signal. A little random noise, a few tics and
pops, some wow, a little flutter and other audible forms of nonlinear
distortion don't get in your way nearly as much as it might for other people
with different preferences and orientation.
Jenn
Keith <khu...@nospam.net> wrote:
> Jenn wrote:
> > I very much agree with you. If there is an occasional pop or click, if
> > doesn't bother nearly as much as impossible timbres do.
>
> Well, I don't often find "impossible timbres" on digital recordings, but
> I do have a few. And where such does occur, I would agree with you. I
> have purchased a few CD's that are so bad that even my beat-up decades
> old college-days LP copies are preferable. Thankfully that's fairly
> rare IME.
I agree that it's fairly rare these days. My point is that, for me, a
small amount of vinyl surface noise is far preferable to
instruments/voices sounding like they can't actually sound.
>
> I do, however, always find it curious that some folks are seemingly
> unable, or simply refuse, to understand how those clicks and pops and
> other LP surface noises can be, to some of us, similarly destructive to
> musical enjoyment as "impossible timbres" are to others.
I know that you're not referring to me. I understand that we all own
our own listening preferences. Different strokes and all.
Audio Empire
(in article <7otj7aF...@mid.individual.net>):
> Jenn wrote:
>> In article <hg996...@news7.newsguy.com>,
>> Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen around" the surface
>>> noise
>>> and regard ticks and pops as they would coughs and sneezes and program
>>> rustling at a concert.
>
> Were you to qualify that with "...who *still primarily* listen..." I
> would agree with you. But I, as with all my audiophilic friends, who
> having listened pretty exclusively to LP's for decades prior to digital
> introduction, found that being set free from the requirement of
> "listening around" the LP surface noise was the biggest boon to musical
> enjoyment yet contrived.
While I certainly appreciate the quietness of digital in all it's forms, I
also am of the opinion that the surface noise which often (OK, always)
accompanies vinyl does not disqualify LPs from being enjoyable sources of
music. While I do not primarily listen to LP, I do have good record-playing
equipment, thousands of LPs collected since about 1958, and I do listen to
them. I also have thousands of CDs, hundreds of 1/2-track 15 ips analog
master tapes, lots of DATs, and not a few 78's. I listen to and enjoy all of
them.
>> I very much agree with you. If there is an occasional pop or click, if
>> doesn't bother nearly as much as impossible timbres do.
>
> Well, I don't often find "impossible timbres" on digital recordings, but
> I do have a few. And where such does occur, I would agree with you. I
> have purchased a few CD's that are so bad that even my beat-up decades
> old college-days LP copies are preferable. Thankfully that's fairly
> rare IME.
Same here. But there can be a warmth and realism to the very best of LP and
analog tape, that digital seems to lack. I know that the techno-types will
pooh-pooh that observation as being the product of distortion, or noise
modulation, or whatever, but what causes it doesn't concern me as much as
does the listening pleasure I get from the "illusion of reality" that this
distortion often makes possible (to MY ears, anyway).
> I do, however, always find it curious that some folks are seemingly
> unable, or simply refuse, to understand how those clicks and pops and
> other LP surface noises can be, to some of us, similarly destructive to
> musical enjoyment as "impossible timbres" are to others.
I can certainly understand it, I'm just glad that I'm not similarly affected.
If it bothered me that much. I couldn't listen with great pleasure to live
concerts that I've recorded (either via analog or digital), or attended, for
that matter. Not a one of them is without the occasional cough, the rustling
of a program, a squeeking seat, or a sneeze - usually in the quietest
passages.
Audio Empire
Robert Peirce
"Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
> OTOH, the chances of listening to a 20-30 minute side of a LP without
> hearing a tic or a pop is very improbable for a person with anything like
> normal hearing acuity. Therefore the idea that tics and pops are somehow
> comparable to coughs at live concerts is not an accurate general situation.
>
> In fact people go way out of their way to avoid hearing distracting noises,
> particularly in recordings that are listened to over and over again. Note
> that once a little spec of dirt lodges in the groove of a LP, there's a tic
> or a pop at that point in the recording forever. True especially if the
> recording is played several times and the spec of dirt lodges into the
> groove or makes an imprint on the groove.
It is possible to clean your LPs and even to remove deeply imbedded
ticks and pops. I had an LP that would actually skip at one point. It
did this for years. I finally ran it through a record cleaning machine
several times and what I thought might be a defect in the record turned
out to be some kind of gunk that had been there as long as I owned it.
I won't say all my records are totally silent but a surprising number
are. Careful care is required, which most people aren't going to be
willing to do, but it is possible. However, in contrast to CDs, if you
ever do get a serious tick, pop or scratch, it will be there forever.
Jenn
> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
> news:hgajt...@news4.newsguy.com
> > In article <hg996...@news7.newsguy.com>,
> > Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen
> >> around" the surface noise and regard ticks and pops as
> >> they would coughs and sneezes and program rustling at a
> >> concert.
>
> That pretty much tells it all. You're talking about listening to music
> under technically degraded conditions. Just because the music is live
> doesn't mean that its being heard in its most perfected state. In fact it is
> pretty well guaranteed that by modern standards, music heard or recorded
> live isn't being heard at its best.
Thanks for your very interesting reply, Arny. Though you aren't
responding to me in the above paragraph, I'd like to chime in. For me,
live IS the "most perfected state". I can imagine that if I attended
rock concerts, for example, I wouldn't feel the same way about that
music.
>
> Most commercial recordings are not recorded live and are free of distracting
> noises like coughs.
Of course. But for the music that I listen to, live performances aren't
coming through distracting speakers, for example.
>
> The history of recordings is full of anecdotes about large numbers of takes
> and careful editing for the purpose of avoiding audible problems that have
> to be tolerated in a live concert setting. I recall that there are a small
> number of commercial recordings with audible coughing, but they are rare and
> the coughs themselves are rare in the small percentage of recordings that
> have them at all.
Of course. No argument.
>
> OTOH, the chances of listening to a 20-30 minute side of a LP without
> hearing a tic or a pop is very improbable for a person with anything like
> normal hearing acuity.
I disagree. While most LPs, either new or used, carry tics or pops,
many don't.
> Therefore the idea that tics and pops are somehow
> comparable to coughs at live concerts is not an accurate general situation.
I'm afraid that this doesn't make sense. There are t&p on many LPs, and
there are coughs at many concerts. Neither noise is desirable, but for
me, other aspects of what I'm hearing are far more important.
>
> In fact people go way out of their way to avoid hearing distracting noises,
> particularly in recordings that are listened to over and over again.
Your point?
>Note
> that once a little spec of dirt lodges in the groove of a LP, there's a tic
> or a pop at that point in the recording forever.
Really? I've found that cleaning an LP often removes the noise.
>True especially if the
> recording is played several times and the spec of dirt lodges into the
> groove or makes an imprint on the groove.
Sure.
>
> > I very much agree with you. If there is an occasional
> > pop or click, if doesn't bother nearly as much as
> > impossible timbres do.
>
> Jenn, that is easily explainable by the well-known fact that you are a
> musician, and therefore your listening is no doubt heavily weighted towards
> concern over the music, and not so much the sound quality of the
> reproduction.
Yes, the main concern is always the music. That's why I listen to
recordings.
>
> IOW due to your training and preferences Jenn, you are more concerned over
> whether the right notes are played at the right time and with the right
> intonation.
Among many other considerations, yes.
>All of those things can be reliably detected by an experienced
> person, even in a highly degraded sonic environment.
Yes on the things you listed. Not so much with other important
considerations.
>
> To a certain degree, being able to follow a single instrument part in the
> middle of a large symphony orchestra is a study in extracting useful
> information from a noisy signal. A little random noise, a few tics and
> pops, some wow, a little flutter and other audible forms of nonlinear
> distortion don't get in your way nearly as much as it might for other people
> with different preferences and orientation.
I suppose that if one's listening activity is directed toward those
things rather than toward the music, you are probably correct. If
you're accusing me of concentrating on the music when I listen rather
than on various distortions, I'll plead guilty. I'm not the kind of
listener that one would want to engage to estimate the flutter
measurement of a given recording. And yes, I hear the flutter on
recordings. My LP collection contains few piano recordings, for
example, for that reason. But realistic sounding voices and instruments
on recordings are far more important to me than detecting some other
distortions. As you know, I believe that on average, CDs sound better
than LPs. But I enjoy the sound on some LPs more than I do on any CD.
Arny Krueger
news:7p08qm...@mid.individual.net
> In article <7ovr1c...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
>> OTOH, the chances of listening to a 20-30 minute side of
>> a LP without hearing a tic or a pop is very improbable
>> for a person with anything like normal hearing acuity.
>> Therefore the idea that tics and pops are somehow
>> comparable to coughs at live concerts is not an accurate
>> general situation.
>>
>> In fact people go way out of their way to avoid hearing
>> distracting noises, particularly in recordings that are
>> listened to over and over again. Note that once a little
>> spec of dirt lodges in the groove of a LP, there's a tic
>> or a pop at that point in the recording forever. True
>> especially if the recording is played several times and
>> the spec of dirt lodges into the groove or makes an
>> imprint on the groove.
> It is possible to clean your LPs and even to remove
> deeply imbedded ticks and pops.
Not without leaving an audible trace. Deeply imbedded dirt that has been
played over several times causes a permanent imprint on the record. Even if
you remove the dirt, the imprint remains.
> I had an LP that would
> actually skip at one point. It did this for years. I
> finally ran it through a record cleaning machine several
> times and what I thought might be a defect in the record
> turned out to be some kind of gunk that had been there as
> long as I owned it.
Seems like a very passive way to treat a skip. In those rare occasions where
I've had skips, I was usually able to use a finely pointed tool to dislodge
the piece of crud without actually touching the surface of the record.
> I won't say all my records are totally silent but a
> surprising number are.
I've heard this story many times. I've asked to listen to the purported
"silent" record ,and when I could, there were still audible tics and pops.
I've also heard the story that if your player is good enough, surface noise
is reduced. What I've found is that if your player is crappy enough or badly
adjusted enough the surface noise can be increased. Address the obvious
problem, and you still have a LP that has audible noise. It might be
exceptionally quiet for a LP, but its basic somewhat noisy nature is still
there.
> Careful care is required, which
> most people aren't going to be willing to do, but it is
> possible. However, in contrast to CDs, if you ever do get
> a serious tick, pop or scratch, it will be there forever.
Given that digital is so pervasive and readily available, there's no need to
torture yourself trying to listen past the inherent noise and distortion in
LPs.
Harry Lavo
It seems to me that those who insist that vinyl cannot be enjoyed because of
surface noise must have grown up either indifferent to or ignorant of the
requirements for vinyl care. Those have evolved with time, but going all
the way back to the '50's and '60's it could be done with just a few simple
steps.
1) Never, ever leave a record out of its jacket when not playing.
2) Wipe the record with a dust-cleaning cloth before placing the cartridge
in the groove.
3) (After "Last Record Preservative" came along, "lasting" each side of a
new record.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a record-loving household headed by a
father who had fine record playing gear. When I went to college it was with
my own hard-earned and hand-built "hi-fi system" and the records I started
accumulating during my senior year of high school and thereafter were always
meticulously maintained. The collection includes many of the vinyl
"classics" that audiophiles pay premium prices for today. I can still play
those records with no real problem with noise.
About four years ago I committed my Christmas music to CD, since I usually
use it as background music much of the time and this prevents the need to
change records while doing other things. I was struck the other day by how
fine my favorite music sounded, to the point where I had to stop and listen
intently. This is a CD that contains two vinyl offerings (on Capitol) by
the Roger Wagner Chorale and a small, mostly brass, orchestra. They were
recorded in 1959 and 1962 repectively, and I bought them in '62-'63 during
my first gainful employment following business school. I played them a
minimum of four times each each holiday season from then on, until as I
said, about four years ago. I was listening to the CD for about twenty
minutes before it entered my consciousness that there was ANY noise...I
simply forgot that I had recorded this disk from vinyl (it was one of five I
had placed in the CD/SACD changer days before). That is how clean the
records had stayed, and how noise free. And while an illuminating
incident, the quietness of the vinyl was not unique....it is typical of my
collection.
So I think it is unfortunately that those who perhaps did not care carefully
of their vinyl years ago put down those who still enjoy it. I had the
advantage of a head start, but most vinyl enthusiasts today KNOW how to care
for vinyl and do. And reap the benefit of quiet sound.
Those who don't want to put fourth the effect or think CD's sound better
have that option. But just let those of us who enjoy vinyl (still) alone,
please. And don't insist that vinyl is inherently so full of "tics and
pops" that it can't be enjoyed. It isn't, and it can be.
Arny Krueger
> In article <7ovr1c...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
>> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
>> news:hgajt...@news4.newsguy.com
>>> In article <hg996...@news7.newsguy.com>,
>>> Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen
>>>> around" the surface noise and regard ticks and pops as
>>>> they would coughs and sneezes and program rustling at a
>>>> concert.
>>
>> That pretty much tells it all. You're talking about
>> listening to music under technically degraded
>> conditions. Just because the music is live doesn't mean
>> that its being heard in its most perfected state. In
>> fact it is pretty well guaranteed that by modern
>> standards, music heard or recorded live isn't being
>> heard at its best.
>
> Thanks for your very interesting reply, Arny. Though you
> aren't responding to me in the above paragraph, I'd like
> to chime in. For me, live IS the "most perfected state".
Actually, I didn't exactly contradict that. I said:
"Just because the music is live doesn't mean
that its being heard in its most perfected state."
The contradiction of what I said would be:
"If the music is live that means that it is being heard in its most
perfected state. "
If you want to contradict what I said, then you're basically saying that
even if a 2 year old attempts to beat out Beethoven's Ninth on his cereal
bowl, that would be Beethoven's Ninth in its most highly perfected state.
Is that what you mean to say?
Jenn
"Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
No, but I think that you know that. The 2 year old beating out the d
minor symphony on his cereal bowl is THAT PERFORMANCE of the symphony in
its most perfected state.
Keith
> "Robert Peirce" <b...@peirce-family.com> wrote in message
> news:7p08qm...@mid.individual.net...
>> In article <7ovr1c...@mid.individual.net>,
>> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>>
<snip>
>> I won't say all my records are totally silent but a surprising number
>> are. Careful care is required, which most people aren't going to be
>> willing to do, but it is possible. However, in contrast to CDs, if you
>> ever do get a serious tick, pop or scratch, it will be there forever.
>
> It seems to me that those who insist that vinyl cannot be enjoyed because of
> surface noise must have grown up either indifferent to or ignorant of the
> requirements for vinyl care.
Then you clearly don't get out much. I can't even begin to count the
number of LP's that, fresh out of the sleeve and cleaned had tics and
pops and audible distortion. In days past I returned *many* LP's, some
several times, to get a copy that was fairly noise free. So please,
drop the "if you can't enjoy LP's you're indifferent or ignorant" ad
hominem nonsense.
> Those have evolved with time, but going all
> the way back to the '50's and '60's it could be done with just a few simple
> steps.
>
> 1) Never, ever leave a record out of its jacket when not playing.
> 2) Wipe the record with a dust-cleaning cloth before placing the cartridge
> in the groove.
> 3) (After "Last Record Preservative" came along, "lasting" each side of a
> new record.
>
> I was fortunate enough to grow up in a record-loving household headed by a
> father who had fine record playing gear. When I went to college it was with
> my own hard-earned and hand-built "hi-fi system" and the records I started
> accumulating during my senior year of high school and thereafter were always
> meticulously maintained. The collection includes many of the vinyl
> "classics" that audiophiles pay premium prices for today. I can still play
> those records with no real problem with noise.
Nice dodge Harry. No "real problem" eh? The whole point is that for
many of us (IME the vast majority of us) those tics, pops, "vinyl rush"
or however you want to characterize the various types of vinyl surface
noise, noise you clearly don't find disagreeable, nonetheless seriously
compromise our listening enjoyment.
<snip>
>
> Those who don't want to put fourth the effect or think CD's sound better
> have that option.
If by this you meant "put forth the effort" to play LP's, then I'll
plead guilty. The convenience of CD is clearly a bonus. But minor
compared to what I feel are the significant sonic advantages.
> But just let those of us who enjoy vinyl (still) alone,
> please.
Who's saying you can't enjoy vinyl? We're talking about vinyl sales,
market, and physical attributes. About "listening around" vinyl noises
and whether that impairs ones ability to enjoy the resulting music. How
does that harm you?
> And don't insist that vinyl is inherently so full of "tics and
> pops" that it can't be enjoyed. It isn't, and it can be.
Well, IME, tics and pops ARE endemic to vinyl, all remonstrations to the
contrary notwithstanding. And, no one said it "can't be enjoyed", as
I'm sure you're aware. It's a matter of degree. I played a couple of
LP's just yesterday, and despite the tics and surface noise, I certainly
enjoyed the music. When I get the time, I'll transfer them to CD and
clean them up, and enjoy them much more. Were they available on CD, I
would happily leave those LP's in the "vault".
Keith Hughes
Dick Pierce
> Actually, I didn't exactly contradict that. I said:
>
> "Just because the music is live doesn't mean
> that its being heard in its most perfected state."
>
> The contradiction of what I said would be:
>
> "If the music is live that means that it is being heard in its most
> perfected state. "
>
> If you want to contradict what I said, then you're basically saying that
> even if a 2 year old attempts to beat out Beethoven's Ninth on his cereal
> bowl, that would be Beethoven's Ninth in its most highly perfected state.
>
> Is that what you mean to say?
If you're attempting a "reductio ad absurdum," you need to
start with the premise, and use logical steps to reach an
absurd conclusion as a means of showing the premise is
absurd. It doesn't work if you start with a premise and
use absurd steps to reach an absurd conclusion.
Or, more to the point, no, I see NO reason that the
inevitable logical conclusion of Jenn's premise is
as you state. Yes, it is absurd to conclude that a
2 year old's attempts to beat out Beethoven on a cereal
box is that piece in its most highly perfected state.
But that conclusion is your absurdity, not hers.
While I may agree with some of your assertions on the
verifiable technical properties of LP playback, it's
becoming apparent to me that you have moved far beyond
that and have taken this on as a crusade that seems
personal and borders on the ad hominem.
Audio Empire
(in article <7p1e8p...@mid.individual.net>):
Same here. I have one LP, the original cast recording of "My Fair Lady" that
I've had since 1956 (when I was 11 years old). I can still play it, it's
reasonably quiet (Mono, of course) and still sounds good. I just wonder if,
by the time my earliest CDs are 54 years old, there will still be players to
play them? I'll bet that were I still around then, there would still be new
turntables and arms and cartridges to play this LP with.
>
> About four years ago I committed my Christmas music to CD, since I usually
> use it as background music much of the time and this prevents the need to
> change records while doing other things. I was struck the other day by how
> fine my favorite music sounded, to the point where I had to stop and listen
> intently. This is a CD that contains two vinyl offerings (on Capitol) by
> the Roger Wagner Chorale and a small, mostly brass, orchestra. They were
> recorded in 1959 and 1962 repectively, and I bought them in '62-'63 during
> my first gainful employment following business school. I played them a
> minimum of four times each each holiday season from then on, until as I
> said, about four years ago. I was listening to the CD for about twenty
> minutes before it entered my consciousness that there was ANY noise...I
> simply forgot that I had recorded this disk from vinyl (it was one of five I
> had placed in the CD/SACD changer days before). That is how clean the
> records had stayed, and how noise free. And while an illuminating
> incident, the quietness of the vinyl was not unique....it is typical of my
> collection.
It is typical of most vinyl-philes' collections, I would bet.
>
> So I think it is unfortunately that those who perhaps did not care carefully
> of their vinyl years ago put down those who still enjoy it. I had the
> advantage of a head start, but most vinyl enthusiasts today KNOW how to care
> for vinyl and do. And reap the benefit of quiet sound.
I know that I do.
>
> Those who don't want to put fourth the effect or think CD's sound better
> have that option. But just let those of us who enjoy vinyl (still) alone,
> please. And don't insist that vinyl is inherently so full of "tics and
> pops" that it can't be enjoyed. It isn't, and it can be.
And the best CDs and SACDs are excellent too. They sound different from LPs,
but can sound excellent. When possible, I prefer an LP but a CD is enjoyable
for it's own sake. I know a number of digital-phobes who think that CD is
cold and sterile, lacking in warmth and realism but I think these people are
looking at it in the wrong way. CD is very ACCURATE to the signal it's
presented with. That signal might be cold and sterile because something in
the recording chain made it so. It might be the venue where the recording
took place, it might be the imperfect transducers that all microphones are,
it might be the way the performance was mixed, etc. All the CD did was
accurately capture the imperfections of the recording process. LPs, perhaps
because of their inherent distortions, seem to "warm up" that coldness and
sterility and complement the errors of the recording process. I don't know,
of course, but I do know that I have CDs (for convenience, mostly) made from
master analog tapes of which I also have the LP (and some of those said LPs
are decades old). What I can tell you is that in MOST cases, the LPs of these
performances from the 50's and 60's sound more like real music than do the CD
"remasters". It's nothing that I can put my finger on, it's not like one can
listen to a comparison and say: "Ah, the LP sounds better because the CD was
made from the master tape decades after the record, and the tape has
deteriorated." While that's certainly possible, the fact remains that I have
some CDs of older master tapes that are astoundingly good. With today's
autocorrelation algorithms, drop-out compensation software and other DSP
provided enhancements, it should be possible to "repair" all but the most
extreme master tape deterioration, so I don't think that tells anywhere near
the whole story.
Audio Empire
(in article <hgfvn...@news3.newsguy.com>):
> In article <7ovr1c...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
>> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
>> news:hgajt...@news4.newsguy.com
>>> In article <hg996...@news7.newsguy.com>,
>>> Audio Empire <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Most people who listen to records learn to "listen
>>>> around" the surface noise and regard ticks and pops as
>>>> they would coughs and sneezes and program rustling at a
>>>> concert.
>>
>> That pretty much tells it all. You're talking about listening to music
>> under technically degraded conditions. Just because the music is live
>> doesn't mean that its being heard in its most perfected state. In fact it
>> is
>> pretty well guaranteed that by modern standards, music heard or recorded
>> live isn't being heard at its best.
>
> Thanks for your very interesting reply, Arny. Though you aren't
> responding to me in the above paragraph, I'd like to chime in. For me,
> live IS the "most perfected state". I can imagine that if I attended
> rock concerts, for example, I wouldn't feel the same way about that
> music.
Since rock concerts ARE artificial (in that without the PA system, there
would be no concert performance) You simply cannot compare the two. Live
unamplified music played in a real space simply IS the standard by which
high-fidelity is SUPPOSED to be measured, but most of time it isn't. Most
people (who have significant interest in the audio hobby) simply make their
systems sound GOOD to them. I recently read, in one of the Hi-Fi rags,
someone who put it quite well. This person essentially said that all we have
to go by is our own taste in reproduced sound. And that there is really no
way for my opinion of what sounds good to be translatable to you. When I say
that this sounds "better" than that, what I'm really saying is that this
suits my taste more than that does. This person (whose viewpoint I thought to
be profound) went on to say that when we say that something is "better " than
or provides a "big improvement" over something else, most people attribute
that to mean that the improvements heard are quantifiable, when what the
speaker (writer) should have said was that " I like the way this (component,
recording, whatever) sounds in comparison to that one." In the latter case,
it is clear that the improvements heard were that person's OPINION, while in
the former, it's not so clear that this "better" was not a quantifiable
improvement over something else.
In the case of Arny Kruger's above statement, Unless he's talking about rock
concerts or jazz or classical concerts where sound reinforcement is used, in
my opinion he simply cannot be any more wrong. While there are great
variations in the quality of various venues, and often we don't have any
control over those, I'd have to say that live unamplified music is music
heard at it's best, because IT IS the source. The venue doesn't matter as
much as the direct sound of the instruments. To make an analogy, one can
enjoy a High-Definition video image of the Grand Canyon. It's beautiful,
spectacular and highly stimulating. But if one were to take you out of your
living room for an moment and deposit you on a bank overlooking the REAL
Grand Canyon, even though the weather might lousy, it could be cloudy, windy,
and raining, but STILL, BEING THERE in the presence of that grandeur is a
more stimulating experience than is the Hi-Def picture that you were looking
at, in SPITE of the conditions being, perhaps, less optimal. Hearing live
music is hearing live music, also in spite of the conditions (in this case
the venue) being less than optimal. But add sound reinforcement equipment to
that equation, and indeed the live concert becomes a case of hearing live
music at much less than it's best. In fact, it becomes not hearing live music
at all. I hope that's what Arny Kruger is talking about.
>
>>
>> Most commercial recordings are not recorded live and are free of
>> distracting
>> noises like coughs.
>
> Of course. But for the music that I listen to, live performances aren't
> coming through distracting speakers, for example.
I should hope not. In fact I have walked out of concerts where sound
reinforcement was being employed. If I walk into a concert environment and
see speakers stacked up on either side of the ensemble playing, I turn right
around and go back to the box office and demand my money back. I can hear
reproduced music at home. That's NOT what I go to live concerts for.
>
>>
>> The history of recordings is full of anecdotes about large numbers of takes
>> and careful editing for the purpose of avoiding audible problems that have
>> to be tolerated in a live concert setting. I recall that there are a small
>> number of commercial recordings with audible coughing, but they are rare
>> and
>> the coughs themselves are rare in the small percentage of recordings that
>> have them at all.
>
> Of course. No argument.
>
>>
>> OTOH, the chances of listening to a 20-30 minute side of a LP without
>> hearing a tic or a pop is very improbable for a person with anything like
>> normal hearing acuity.
>
> I disagree. While most LPs, either new or used, carry tics or pops,
> many don't.
>
>> Therefore the idea that tics and pops are somehow
>> comparable to coughs at live concerts is not an accurate general situation.
>
> I'm afraid that this doesn't make sense. There are t&p on many LPs, and
> there are coughs at many concerts. Neither noise is desirable, but for
> me, other aspects of what I'm hearing are far more important.
Well put. That's exactly what I was saying.
Quite so. Both are viable sources of music. We must never forget that the
recording medium and the equipment exist to SERVE THE MUSIC, not the other
way around.
Arny Krueger
news:7og78cF...@mid.individual.net
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message > That
>> begs the question of why vinyl's sales went up just
>> lately. The most
>> recent relevant technological advance was the under-$200
>> USB turntable. Think that might be it - people picking
>> up some new media to see what their
>> newly-hyped cheap LP playback hardware actually sounds
>> like?
> LOL, so they go and buy a crappy USB turntable so that
> they can then purchase recordings at about twice the
> price of a CD only to convert it back to digital, yeah
> right.
It's not always that simple or single minded.
Some people are buying USB turntables to convert their existing LPs (which
they may not have listened to for a goodly number of years) into CDs based
on fond memories of what the LPs sounded like.
Some people read the hype about vinyl sounding better than CDs, and blow
some "mad money" to do what the cool people do. A USB turntable can play
directly through a PC's speakers in real time, so conversion to CDs is not a
necessary part of their use. These people may have no LPs on hand at all,
and are therefore natural customers for new LPs.
People who are converting their existing LPs are likely to have their sonic
expectations disappointed, and may reasonably blame that on the condition of
their old LPs. Purchasing a few new high-touted LPs is a reasonable step for
them to take to diagnose their problem.
> USB turntables are only bought to convert your old
> collection to digital.
That's not necessarily true. A lot of young people base their home sound
systems on PCs. There's a big market for upscale PC speakers, for example. A
USB turntable is an obvious tool for them to use for listening to LPs in
real time.
> The sales of LPs (in general very good pressings and
> quite costly) are on the increase for one reason and one
> reason only.
There are good reasons, given above, for rejecting this kind of simplistic
statement.
Scott
> "Jenn" <jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote in message
>
> news:hgfvn...@news3.newsguy.com
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <7ovr1cF75...@mid.individual.net>,
> > "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
> >> "Jenn" <jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote in message
> >>news:hgajt...@news4.newsguy.com
> >>> In article <hg996q01...@news7.newsguy.com>,
Yes Arny "Live" would be the perfect way to hear a two year old try to
beat out Beethoven's ninth if one wanted to hear a two year old do
that. Recording it digitally and playing it back would be an inferior
way of hearing it. Hence the idea of live as a reference. But of
course most of us don't want to hear that. What we want is to hear is
great performances be it classical, jazz, folk, rock or whatever. here
is the catch, if I want to hear Coltrane play Love Supreme I can't go
the concert hall to hear him live (the ideal) because it ain't gonna
happen for obvious reasons. So all we have is a great legacy of
recordings of these great performances and the virtues and liabilities
of the recording quality that comes with each of them. The question is
what will bring us closer to that superior aesthetic of "live" when
playing back these recordings via their commercial releases. In many
cases (most actually) an LP played back on a high end rig will be
more life like and aesthetically pleasing than any and all possible
combinations of CDP and commercially released CD of the same title.
All this anguish over an occasional tick or pop seems like much ado
over nothing. Ever heard of hi rez digital rips and deticking
programs? Would you really rather listen to say, the RVG CDs over the
Music Matter's or APO reissues because of an occasional tick or pop
that can easily be removed? Really? Ignore the version that is many
times more life like, involving and aesthetically beautiful to avoid
removable ticks and pops? Your gun your foot.
Audio Empire
(in article <7p1qin...@mid.individual.net>):
If you are saying that Arny Kruger's negative opinions about vinyl seem to
border on the obsessiveness of a personal crusade, I'd have to say, yes, it
does seem that way. Perhaps it's merely the forcefulness of his assertions
that make his comments seem a bit overboard at times. He strikes me as a
pretty intelligent and knowledgeable guy, overall.
Arny Krueger
The above is an example of narrowing the discussion far more than what it
was it was originally stated. Suddenly a potentially large number of
performances of a given composition have been reduced to just one
performance. Given that there are many musical performances that never ever
exist as a live performance, a great deal of music has been artificially
excluded from the discussion.
In short my point, which is that many live performances so suboptimal as to
have no appreciable public interest has been missed.
> Since rock concerts ARE artificial (in that without the
> PA system, there would be no concert performance) You
> simply cannot compare the two.
I wasn't comparing the two. I didn't even mention whether or not the concert
involved amplified instruments, because it really doesn't matter.
Amplified musical instruments are often used with no PA system at all. It is
very common for amplified instruments to have their own individual
amplification systems. In essence, the electronics is an electrical analog
of the usual mechanical or acoustical amplification that is built into
virtually every acoustical instrument. It does not make sense to me to
quibble whether or not the means of amplification is mechanical or
acoustical or electrical.
Once one realizes that the electronics is simply an analog, then it also
doesn't matter whether or not the electronics is aggregated and shared among
a number of instruments, or individualized. I don't think that either
engineers or listeners should dictate to musicians how their instruments are
implemented. All that should matter to us is whether or not the meet the
usual artistic criteria. IOW, we should judge musical instruments based on
how they sound when played by trained, skilled musicians, and not prejudge
them based on their internal construction.
Arny Krueger
news:7p1qin...@mid.individual.net
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>> Actually, I didn't exactly contradict that. I said:
>>
>> "Just because the music is live doesn't mean
>> that its being heard in its most perfected state."
>>
>> The contradiction of what I said would be:
>>
>> "If the music is live that means that it is being
>> heard in its most perfected state. "
>>
>> If you want to contradict what I said, then you're
>> basically saying that even if a 2 year old attempts to
>> beat out Beethoven's Ninth on his cereal bowl, that
>> would be Beethoven's Ninth in its most highly perfected
>> state.
>>
>> Is that what you mean to say?
>
> If you're attempting a "reductio ad absurdum," you need to
> start with the premise, and use logical steps to reach an
> absurd conclusion as a means of showing the premise is
> absurd. It doesn't work if you start with a premise and
> use absurd steps to reach an absurd conclusion.
There seems to be a double standard here. There's no conference rule that
discussions have to follow a predetermined form. All that's necessary is
that they be reasonably understandable. It's quite clear that the intent of
my comments was unstandable and understood.
> Or, more to the point, no, I see NO reason that the
> inevitable logical conclusion of Jenn's premise is
> as you state.
It is very rare that any discussions here ever lead to inevitable logical
conclusions. So we have yet another example of standards being made up and
applied *after* the discussion point was presented.
> Yes, it is absurd to conclude that a
> 2 year old's attempts to beat out Beethoven on a cereal
> box is that piece in its most highly perfected state.
Of course.
> But that conclusion is your absurdity, not hers.
It's a reasonble conclusion that can be reached from an overly broad
statement like:
"If the music is live that means that it is being heard in its most
perfected state."
One rather obvious problem with the above statement is that there is much
music that does not ever exist as a live performance. Much music that is
listened to today is constructed in the studio. The only complete form of
the recording that ever exists is composed of segments and snippets, many
highly processed by sound-altering hardware and software.
Thus the above is a blanket statement that music cannot be in its most
perfected state unless it is live. Seems very short sighted and narrow.
> While I may agree with some of your assertions on the
> verifiable technical properties of LP playback, it's
> becoming apparent to me that you have moved far beyond
> that and have taken this on as a crusade that seems
> personal and borders on the ad hominem.
No personalities were introduced by me into this portion of the discussion.
If there are any ad hominem arguments here, then they must have been
introduced by someone besides me, and are wholly products of their
imaginations.
Jenn
"Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
Huh? I'm afraid that I don't understand your statement.
>Given that there are many musical performances that never ever
> exist as a live performance, a great deal of music has been artificially
> excluded from the discussion.
You've totally lost me. Every performance is a live performance. The
goal, as I see it, is to capture the sound of that live performance and
reproduce it as faithfully in the home as possible.
>
> In short my point, which is that many live performances so suboptimal as to
> have no appreciable public interest has been missed.
I don't know how that became at all relevant. In what way does the
quality of the performance matter in this discussion?
>
> > Since rock concerts ARE artificial (in that without the
> > PA system, there would be no concert performance) You
> > simply cannot compare the two.
>
> I wasn't comparing the two. I didn't even mention whether or not the concert
> involved amplified instruments, because it really doesn't matter.
>
> Amplified musical instruments are often used with no PA system at all. It is
> very common for amplified instruments to have their own individual
> amplification systems. In essence, the electronics is an electrical analog
> of the usual mechanical or acoustical amplification that is built into
> virtually every acoustical instrument. It does not make sense to me to
> quibble whether or not the means of amplification is mechanical or
> acoustical or electrical.
>
> Once one realizes that the electronics is simply an analog, then it also
> doesn't matter whether or not the electronics is aggregated and shared among
> a number of instruments, or individualized. I don't think that either
> engineers or listeners should dictate to musicians how their instruments are
> implemented. All that should matter to us is whether or not the meet the
> usual artistic criteria. IOW, we should judge musical instruments based on
> how they sound when played by trained, skilled musicians, and not prejudge
> them based on their internal construction.
I believe that the OP (as well as I) were speaking of unamplified
instruments, i.e. "the music that I usually listen to" to which I
referred. Perhaps it was lost in the above, but we were discussion
"distractions" in listening: p&c on LPs vs. coughs and program rustling
at concerts. The rock concert example was used because the
"distractions" (i.e noise) is far greater there than at acoustic
concerts.
Arny Krueger
> In article <7p2pqu...@mid.individual.net>,
When people talk about what they imagine, they are admitting that their
comments have zero empirical or experiential base. I really don't have time
to pay much attention to such things.
>> The above is an example of narrowing the discussion far
>> more than what it was it was originally stated. Suddenly
>> a potentially large number of performances of a given
>> composition have been reduced to just one performance.
> Huh? I'm afraid that I don't understand your statement.
It appears that my comments are being buried in an avalanche of
unrestrained subjectivism and perhaps even solipsism.
In the original context, the discussion seemed to be about music that might
be available in several forms, including perhaps live performances and on
various kinds of media. IOW we were talking about the same basic piece of
music such as a composition or a performance by certain artists at a certain
time in a certain place. A given piece of music would be available as
various performances and/or on various kinds of media. If there is no such
diversity, then there is really nothing to discuss, and we end up with such
useless and trivial nonsense as observations that every instance is a
perfect example of itself.
>> Given that there are many musical performances that
>> never ever
>> exist as a live performance, a great deal of music has
>> been artificially excluded from the discussion.
> You've totally lost me.
I can't help that.
> Every performance is a live performance.
How do you define live performance?
I define live performance as an event with performers and an audience all
together in one place. The music work is performed in real time. In this day
and age some of the elements of the performance may be themselves
recordings.
In some cases the performer and the audience are the same person. IMO, it
is quite a stretch to call this a live performance.
In some cases there is never a day and a time where the performers and the
audience are all together in one place. They are often connected
electronically and displaced from each other by time and space. IMO this is
*not* a live performance. It is in fact very common. There was a musical
performance, but there was no audience in the common meaning of audience.
In some cases there never is a day and a time when even all of the
performers are all together in one place. Again, they are connected
electronically, and displaced from each other by time and space. IMO this is
*not* a live performance. It is also in fact very common. There was a
musical performance, but there was no audience in the common meaning of
audience. Furthermore, even the musical performers were displaced from each
other by time and/or space.
> The goal, as I see it, is to capture the
> sound of that live performance and reproduce it as
> faithfully in the home as possible.
Most if not almost all music listened to at home was not available for
capture at any live performance. "Live Performance" recordings are only a
tiny minority of all commercial recordings that are available.
>> In short my point, which is that many live performances
>> so suboptimal as to have no appreciable public interest
>> has been missed.
> I don't know how that became at all relevant. In what
> way does the quality of the performance matter in this
> discussion?
The quality of the performance started mattering in this discussion when the
phrase "most perfected" was introduced about 2 days ago. It's quoted above.
How can there be a reasonable discussion when such basic issues are denied
by people responding to posts?
>>> Since rock concerts ARE artificial (in that without the
>>> PA system, there would be no concert performance) You
>>> simply cannot compare the two.
This is a very ignorant statement. It is quite possible to play rock music
on acoustical instruments. No PA system or any electronics of any kind are
required.
>> I wasn't comparing the two. I didn't even mention
>> whether or not the concert involved amplified
>> instruments, because it really doesn't matter.
>>
>> Amplified musical instruments are often used with no PA
>> system at all. It is very common for amplified
>> instruments to have their own individual amplification
>> systems. In essence, the electronics is an electrical
>> analog of the usual mechanical or acoustical
>> amplification that is built into virtually every
>> acoustical instrument. It does not make sense to me to
>> quibble whether or not the means of amplification is
>> mechanical or acoustical or electrical.
>>
>> Once one realizes that the electronics is simply an
>> analog, then it also doesn't matter whether or not the
>> electronics is aggregated and shared among a number of
>> instruments, or individualized. I don't think that
>> either engineers or listeners should dictate to
>> musicians how their instruments are implemented. All
>> that should matter to us is whether or not the meet the
>> usual artistic criteria. IOW, we should judge musical
>> instruments based on how they sound when played by
>> trained, skilled musicians, and not prejudge them based
>> on their internal construction.
> I believe that the OP (as well as I) were speaking of
> unamplified instruments, i.e. "the music that I usually
> listen to" to which I referred.
I'm the OP as the quotes at the top of this post indicate, and I would never
make the kind of narrow and ignorant statements that seem to have afflicted
this thread.
> Perhaps it was lost in
> the above, but we were discussion "distractions" in
> listening: p&c on LPs vs. coughs and program rustling at
> concerts.
I'm truly amazed at the logical gyrations that some people will go through
to deny the obvious fact that tics and pops can be very distracting to very
many listeners. In fact the popularity of digital formats is partially based
on the fact that almost all listeners will avoid media with tics and pops,
given the choice.
Furthermore, it is very common for people to complain about coughs at
concerts, which are common in temperate climates for 2 or 3 months of the
year. How something that is disagreeable as coughs at concerts would be
seized on as a defense of endemic flaws in any particular kind of media is
actually quite taxing to my imagination.
> The rock concert example was used because the
> "distractions" (i.e noise) is far greater there than at
> acoustic concerts.
Again we have an example of an ignorant claim that rock music can't be
performed acoustically, and from a source that seems to have shown that she
knows better on other occasions.
It is well known that musical genre and the choice of instruments are often
completely orthogonal to each other. One can play classical music on
electric instruments and one can play rock on acoustical instruments, right?
In fact playing rock and roll on acoustical instruments has lately become
stylish as a number of albums with the word "unplugged" in them shows. I
believe that several have gone gold.
Keith
> In article <7p2pqu...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
>> "Audio Empire" <audio_...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:7p252l...@mid.individual.net
>>> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:22:51 -0800, Jenn wrote
>>> (in article <hgfvn...@news3.newsguy.com>):
>>>
>>>> In article <7ovr1c...@mid.individual.net>,
>>>> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "Jenn" <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:hgajt...@news4.newsguy.com
<snip>
> I believe that the OP (as well as I) were speaking of unamplified
> instruments, i.e. "the music that I usually listen to" to which I
> referred. Perhaps it was lost in the above, but we were discussion
> "distractions" in listening: p&c on LPs vs. coughs and program rustling
> at concerts.
Perhaps I'm alone in this view, but to me, what makes the "noise" a
"distraction" is the contextual incongruity. While coughs can be
disruptive, they, along with program rustling, and various other such
minor crowd related noises don't really bother me much. In the context
of an audience setting, they are "normal" background noises, and as such
seldom intrude on my consciousness. Tics and pops, however, are totally
incongruous, and are always disruptive and distracting.
An illustration: Say you're sitting in the park having a conversation
with a friend. There are kids playing and making noise, dogs barking,
traffic sounds, etc. Does this bother you or intrude on your
conversation? Likely not, as they are contextually familiar and
"expected" sounds. Now add to this scene a clown with a 'ground pounder'
who pulls in, parks, and starts sharing his/her favorite
hip-hop...music...with you. This immediately becomes (at least to me)
totally disruptive and distracting, irrespective of the relative sound
levels (i.e. it doesn't have to be real loud, just clearly audible). It
is intrusive because it's not (well, didn't use to be) part of the
normal "park sound".
Keith Hughes
Keith
>> In article <7p2pqu...@mid.individual.net>,
>> "Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote:
<snip>
>
>> The rock concert example was used because the
>> "distractions" (i.e noise) is far greater there than at
>> acoustic concerts.
>
>
> Again we have an example of an ignorant claim that rock music can't be
> performed acoustically, and from a source that seems to have shown that she
> knows better on other occasions.
You seem to have put and undeservedly negative interpretation on that
one Arny. I took Jenn's "acoustic" moniker, in the statement above, as
simple shorthand to mean "non-rock" genres. Not meaning that rock can't
be "acoustic" (Jenn can correct me if I'm wrong - 'cause then she'd be
:-). Reality is that the vast majority of rock concerts are *not*
acoustic/un-amplified (some of the absolute best are, but that's another
story), and IME, irrespective of whether the music is acoustic or
amplified, rock concerts are, in every case, noisier than would be, say,
a symphony performance. Crowd restraint at rock concerts is not really
an expectation, and lets face it, crowds seldom rise above expectations.
Keith Hughes
Scott
> "Jenn" <jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote in message
>
> > The rock concert example was used because the
> > "distractions" (i.e noise) is far greater there than at
> > acoustic concerts.
>
> Again we have an example of an ignorant claim that rock music can't be
> performed acoustically, and from a source that seems to have shown that she
> knows better on other occasions.
No Arny all we have here is either a misunderstanding or a
misrepresentation of what Jenn is actually asserting. "Rock concerts"
are performed with PA systems. This is pretty much a universal truth.
There may be the rare exception but they are not really worth noting.
The noise at a rock concert is almost universally greater then that of
an unamplified acoustic concert. That was the comapraison Jenn was
making. It was clear and easy to understand.
>
> It is well known that musical genre and the choice of instruments are often
> completely orthogonal to each other. One can play classical music on
> electric instruments and one can play rock on acoustical instruments, right?
Given that you have clerarly misrepresented what Jenn was saying....
your point is mut.
>
> In fact playing rock and roll on acoustical instruments has lately become
> stylish as a number of albums with the word "unplugged" in them shows. I
> believe that several have gone gold.
And they were all performed with P.A. systems.
Audio Empire
(in article <7p4d9c...@mid.individual.net>):
All Jenn asserts is that hearing live unamplified music, playing in a real
space is the closest one can get to that music (without actually being one of
the performers). Nothing else. She wasn't talking about studio performances
(from what I gather from her posts)of largely electronic instruments which do
not exist outside of the studio (and in a concert environment are the result
of the ensemble carrying the "studio" with them. The difference being instead
of the output of the studio equipment being some recording device, it's a
bunch of PA speakers).
>
>
>>> Given that there are many musical performances that
>>> never ever
>>> exist as a live performance, a great deal of music has
>>> been artificially excluded from the discussion.
>
>> You've totally lost me.
>
> I can't help that.
>
>> Every performance is a live performance.
>
> How do you define live performance?
A live performance is any time musicians play in the presence of an audience
- no matter how big or small that audience might be. But the kind of live
performance being discussed here is, I believe, live, unamplified music,
played in a real space. If one isn't listening to the instruments themselves
(and when sound reinforcement is present, one is listening to the PA system's
reconstruction of those instruments, not the instruments themselves), one is
not HEARING the instruments. One is hearing and seeing the musicians playing
their instruments, but one is not listening TO those instruments.
> I define live performance as an event with performers and an audience all
> together in one place. The music work is performed in real time. In this day
> and age some of the elements of the performance may be themselves
> recordings.
Yes, your definition is, indeed valid, but it's not the kind of "live
performance" that this discussion is about (well, let me be more specific
here. It's certainly not what I mean when I speak of live music performed in
real space, and I don't believe it's what Jenn is talking about either). You
are talking about instruments that have no sound of their own, but rely upon
electronics to provide that sound. A Martin solid-body electric guitar,
without it's amplifier and speaker, makes no sound above a whisper. I suspect
that a Fender-Rhodes or other electric piano makes no sound without it's
speakers, either. I am talking about acoustic instruments that rely totally
on human lung and muscle power to make music. In the kind of live
performance that I'm talking about, there is nothing between that instrument
and my ears except air and that is the most perfect realization of that
performance because I'm hearing the performance DIRECTLY. I don't care about
pop and rock music, would never listen to it, and certainly have never and
would never attend a concert where such music was played. The closest I ever
came was in Rome a few years ago. Paul McCartney was giving a free concert at
the ancient Roman Colosseum and I happened to be in the (empty that day)
Roman Forum next to it. I could hear the music everywhere I went that day,
even up on the Palatine! His crew had put up huge speaker scaffolds all down
that wide avenue for at least a half a mile! God was it loud!
"Most perfected" has a specific meaning. The "most perfected" listening
situation, is, as I said above, when there in nothing between the acoustic
instruments being played and the listener except air. One can stretch that to
mean that there is nothing between the electronic instruments, their
instrument amplifiers and the listener except air, But the moment a PA system
is introduced, IMO, one is no longer hearing live music.
>
>
>>>> Since rock concerts ARE artificial (in that without the
>>>> PA system, there would be no concert performance) You
>>>> simply cannot compare the two.
>
> This is a very ignorant statement. It is quite possible to play rock music
> on acoustical instruments. No PA system or any electronics of any kind are
> required.
I believe that you are grasping at straws here. Of course it's possible to
play rock music on acoustic instruments, but are the great percentage of
these performances GENERALLY performed that way? When one makes a general
statement, I think that it's understood by most people that there are
exceptions. Why didn't you understand that?
It's still irrelevant to the overall point.
Jenn
Keith <khu...@nospam.net> wrote:
> Perhaps I'm alone in this view, but to me, what makes the "noise" a
> "distraction" is the contextual incongruity. While coughs can be
> disruptive, they, along with program rustling, and various other such
> minor crowd related noises don't really bother me much. In the context
> of an audience setting, they are "normal" background noises, and as such
> seldom intrude on my consciousness. Tics and pops, however, are totally
> incongruous, and are always disruptive and distracting.
>
> An illustration: Say you're sitting in the park having a conversation
> with a friend. There are kids playing and making noise, dogs barking,
> traffic sounds, etc. Does this bother you or intrude on your
> conversation? Likely not, as they are contextually familiar and
> "expected" sounds. Now add to this scene a clown with a 'ground pounder'
> who pulls in, parks, and starts sharing his/her favorite
> hip-hop...music...with you. This immediately becomes (at least to me)
> totally disruptive and distracting, irrespective of the relative sound
> levels (i.e. it doesn't have to be real loud, just clearly audible). It
> is intrusive because it's not (well, didn't use to be) part of the
> normal "park sound".
I pretty much agree with this. It also all boils down to the amount of
the noise, I suppose. A few t&p simply don't bother me. A lot of them
do bother me. One that reoccurs for, say, about 3 seconds or more
bothers me the most; I suppose because it creates its own "rhythm". And
it's all a matter of personal tolerance, isn't it? For some, none are
acceptable; for others some are. I'd rather there be none, of course ;-)
Jenn
Whoa! THERE'S a rare beast! ;-)
>I suspect
> that a Fender-Rhodes or other electric piano makes no sound without it's
> speakers, either.
True.