Teens say they like vinyl records over CDs

[Resident Loser]

...it's hot, it's now (in a cool, retro way) and there's money to be made from it...

So gather up your single-sided shellacs and Gramophones, your waxen cylinders and your Edison Talking Machines...there's gold in them thar hills...and dales...(and if you don't get the reference, you're just not old enough)

My collection is overwhelmingly them big ol' 12in. black things...

jimHJJ(...cactus needles anyone?...)

[shokhead]

How does those 12 inchers play in your car?

[Feanor]

A Canadian scientist says teens who used to view CDs as superior to older vinyl records now consider vinyl superior to the newer format.

Full Story;

http://www.physorg.com/news64807495.html

Does vinyl sound better? Do I know? I'm not sure. Do I care? Definitely not.

I gave up on vinyl circa 1985 when I accidentally smashed a brand-new and expensive (at least for me) stylus. All the rituals of handling those huge plastic wafers had already become a pain in the butt. Yeah, my Yamaha C2 CDP was a bit like glass splinters on the top, but it didn't have rice krispies.

I refuse to look backwards. Actually, slinging CDs is becoming a bit of a nuisance now that I'm old and past my prime. Give me my iTunes and USB DAC -- that rules

Time for vinyl -- and this thread -- to die, die, die

[Resident Loser]

How does those 12 inchers play in your car?

...I have 12 inches but, I don't use it as a rule...RIM-SHOT!!!

jimHJJ(...once they're recorded onto 8-track they're great!!!...)

[AudiosAmigos]

well, teens SHOULD like vinyl more than cds - and they probably SAY they like vinyl better - but are they just being hipsters? probably. too bad. cuz vinyl is the BEST!!
i LOVE vinyl - but i'm old. & i'm like dwass - i inherited my dad's collection. which is amazing - hendrix orig. pressings? yes!!
(love the arctic monkeys, btw, dwass.)

[shokhead]

...I have 12 inches but, I don't use it as a rule...RIM-SHOT!!!

jimHJJ(...once they're recorded onto 8-track they're great!!!...)

Odd,i use mine as a ruler. 12"=1'

[shokhead]

well, teens SHOULD like vinyl more than cds - and they probably SAY they like vinyl better - but are they just being hipsters? probably. too bad. cuz vinyl is the BEST!!
i LOVE vinyl - but i'm old. & i'm like dwass - i inherited my dad's collection. which is amazing - hendrix orig. pressings? yes!!
(love the arctic monkeys, btw, dwass.)

Pretty tough to carry around vinyl and listen to it as most teens do with music.

[nightflier]

Pretty tough to carry around vinyl and listen to it as most teens do with music.

That's the ubiquitous argument against Vinyl. I've been hearing it for 20 years now, along with the one about playing records in the car. Fact is, people move around a lot less now than they used to. It may not be healthy, but it's a fact. When I was young we used to play outside all the time, but you hardly see that anymore.

Most kids stay indoors and while iPods have their place, like it or not, playing records is a new trend that is growing.

[shokhead]

Your kidding right? Guess teens around where you are must be different. I dont see a teen outside without music. I also dont know any that just sits there and listens to music. They have it on while they do everything. Quality doesnt count. Quanity does.

[nightflier]

Not to start on stereotypes, but it also has to do with the music styles. LP's have always been popular with the DJ crowd (even with the new "scratching" & mixing cd players), so I suppose that's one group that still uses them. But I've also noticed that the most popular records at the local swap meets and online are the 60's & 70's classic rock & disco stuff. This is not your typical DJ crowd, but I would venture to guess more the sit-down-and-listen crowd.

As an aside, I was at a student center at a local campus and my wife & I were sitting next to group of kids who were discussing, or rather bragging about the speakers they had. And while I was expecting the usual Infinity & Klipsch names to come up, they were actually throwing out names like Bohlender & Vandersteen. Granted, the students around here have a bit more money to spend, but that still threw me for a loop. Maybe they were talking about their old man's speakers, I don't know, but at least they know a bit about good sound - those companies don't make iPod speakers.

[shokhead]

I'm thinking Newport is different then North Long Beach. LOL

[GMichael]

TT's do have their advantages. The first few plays do have a better sound than a CD. But that advantage doesn't last long as the crackles and pops begin. I had a huge LP collection and have worn out every record. Some I even bought several times, recorded them to tapes and kept the records as masters. But as the tapes wore out and I made more & more copies, those masters wore out too. In all the listening that I've done, I have never wore out a single CD. I'll take that trade off. Others would rather have those first few plays that are better more than a 1000 plays from a CD that aren't as good. I can understand that. Why not? Some people would rather eat a 6 oz filet than a 16 oz NY strip. Sometimes, I'm one of them.
Kids are getting into TT? Do they know why or is it just a passing phase? Although there are some youngin's here who, I'm sure, understand why, I don't believe that the masses do. They are just followers. Maybe some of them will learn why though. Maybe I'll remember why and get back into it myself. But not until life slows down a little.

[Woochifer]

Kexo, R&R Ninja,

You're all focusing too much on sales of new LP's. Most of the vinyl that is being sold is second-hand. The one thing I have noticed is how these have gone up in price over the last three years, both on eBay and at the flea markets. A good-quality LP will sell from $3-5 now, and if it's out of print and not available on CD, the sky's the limit ($30-60?). Now I don't know of many used CD's that sell for that.

Sorry about the tardiness of the response, but I hadn't followed this thread for a while!

Anyway, you're right that a lot of vinyl is now traded second hand, but there's no data as to how many units are actually sold (especially compared to how many used CDs change hands). As for what drives prices for LPs, a lot of it will fall under the typical factors used in evaluating collectibles -- scarcity, condition, and demand.

Unlike with CDs, the vast majority of LP titles are now out of print, and the prices for LPs can vary wildly. Also unlike with CDs, the condition of the LPs will vary a lot, as will the sound quality as you look into different versions and press runs of a particular title. With LPs, collectors will scrutinize the condition of the record (mint, near mint, VG++, etc.), as well as which edition/press run it came from. LP collectors will also look for pressings made from earlier stampers, which presumably are a closer match with the original lacquer master.

CDs don't need this kind of scrutiny with the condition (it will either play or it won't play) and might not have gone through as many remasterings or version changes as LPs, so their prices are more driven by simple supply and demand. The LP market is very different because the condition and sound quality of a particular title will vary from copy to copy, which makes the scarcity dimension far more prevalent.

I've also noticed that TT prices have gone up online, more so than what could be attributable to inflation. It's not significant in a let's-invest-our-retirement-savings-in-vinyl-sense, but it is interesting from an academic perspective. I would argue that maybe this is more about rebellion than anything else; rebellion against commercialization, high prices, bad music, repetitive playlists, and yes, also bad quality. When we were teens we wanted to belong, right? That's what teens want now, too.

With the turntable (and cartridge) prices, it boils down to simple economies of scale. Turntables are not mass produced on the scale that they were before. Not a lot of turntables made now date back to the vinyl heyday, but plenty of cartridges do and I can tell you that the prices on those units have gone way up. The Ortofon OM20 that I used on my turntable and continually replaced since 1985 used to cost me $60. Now, it goes for $190. The Shure V15 cartridge in the mid-80s sold for $150, and cost less than $200 when it went out of production in the early-90s. When Shure brought it back a few years later, they increased the price to over $300 and produced at a much lower volume.

I don't know if it's rebellion against commercialization, because if anything the MP3 downloading culture has a definite anti-establishment and anti-commercial angle to it. Like I said earlier, I've been hearing about vinyl revivals for at least the past 15 years and everytime I hear about it, it's phrased as if this revival is a new thing. When Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and a whole slew of indie rockers were touting the virtues of vinyl in the early-90s, that was hyped up as a sign of a vinyl revival, and the vinyl revival talk has periodically popped up ever since. IMO, it's nothing more than an evolution of a niche market that never went away in the first place.

That's the ubiquitous argument against Vinyl. I've been hearing it for 20 years now, along with the one about playing records in the car. Fact is, people move around a lot less now than they used to. It may not be healthy, but it's a fact. When I was young we used to play outside all the time, but you hardly see that anymore.

While it's true that teens don't play outside as much, what they do indoors typically does not involve sitting in front of their stereo playing LPs either. Just look at the size of the video game industry if you want to see how teens occupy their time!

And while teens don't play outdoors, they still like to carry their music with them wherever they go (they may not exercise, but they do drive). Not really a new phenomenon here either, since before MP3 players, we had Walkmans, and before that we had boomboxes and 8-tracks. Why do you think prerecorded cassette sales passed LP sales before the CD format was even launched? Lack of mobility is often cited as a reason why multichannel music has so far failed to catch on with the teen crowd.

Most kids stay indoors and while iPods have their place, like it or not, playing records is a new trend that is growing.

While anecdotally it might seem like a growing trend (and maybe it is), MP3 player sales in 2005 totaled more than $4 billion, which more than tripled the $1.2 billion in sales tallied by the ENTIRE home audio component market. The iPod definitely has its place -- basically in a dominant position and bigger than the combined remainder of the home audio market.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6319031.html

[Mr Peabody]

The things I've been hearing are true. And even though kids are in the digital age with Ipods, some are definitely into vinyl and Classic Rock.

I was at a gathering over the weekend and just sitting in a room drinking some ice water. In the room was several kids ranging from 10 to 15 and one had a guitar playing at it. I began to listen to what they were talking about which was music. That's what caught my ear. These kids were telling each other they had Tom Petty, The Stones, Zepplin and other Classic Rock artists in their collection. One kid bought some kind of all in one stereo from K-mart which had a turntable and he had a few vinyl records. I didn't even know those kinds of stereos were still available. I know things seem to come back into style after so many years but darn, am I that old. I was truely astounded. I thought they would be into the latest Pop or Alternative being force fed on the radio today.

[Sabbath_Bloody_Sabbath]

im 15 and i listen to old music (60s/70s predominantly). until i was about 12 i listened to nothing but classical (very intense pianist), until i was introduced to new "music". after listening to the disgusting mess that is new popular music for about a year, i stopped and borrowed my dads old beatles cds (unfortunetly my mom had him throw out all his vinyl when they got married...there was just too much of it ) named revolver and sgt peppers. at the time those names had no meaning, besides a gun and a soldier! however by 14, i had started listening to what would become staples of my music: led zeppelin, the beatles, the who, the doors, eric claptons numerous bands and of course pink floyd. about a year ago i really got into it (although admittedly 99% was downloaded unfortunetly) and discovered bands like racer x, black sabbath and iron maiden. maiden would quickly become my favourite band, closely followed by sabbath.

now at 15 i am unemployed and poor (and thus cant afford to buy records) but as the bands i listen to arent releasing music anymore, i tend to look for new (to me) bands to listen to. vinyl at this point is a novelty. i dont buy cds whatsoever, as i cant afford them and sound quality is dissapointing. when i get an opportunity i buy up all the vinyl i can, and with my friends (with whom i collectively buy vinyl) we have 20 some records.

shamefully i admit to owning an ipod (although $70 headphones help a bit). i tend to still download 99% of my music from a program called bitlord. however in the mess of 128kbps tracks, i managed to find a gem. nearly 200 grateful dead tracks in uncompressed, unaltered tracks ripped from vinyl (aparently you can do that these days). i have a few at 500+ kbps which is phenominal considering 320 is the max from cds. if i had the opportunity (i think my dad would skin me alive) i would have a very nice stereo system (dont know enough bout audio stuff yet to tell you just what) with more vinyl than you can shake a stick at.

music today was obviously totally destroyed by mtv, and it really is sad how most people are stuck listening to emo bands and so-called punk rock like greenday. however i have noticed a great increase in the number of people listening to our parents music.

i suppose i went way off topic but the point is that there are some of us out there that listen to good music and really honestly do love vinyl on a nice stereo system.

there ya go
-John

P.S.
i DO know that ronnie james dio invented the devil horns and i AM appalled at my generations excessive overuse of the great devil horns! (it most certainly was not gene simmons and he can complain all he wants)

[Mr Peabody]

SBS, you seem to have developed good taste in music from my point of view. Don't turn your back on the Classical. I have both Iron Maiden and Vivaldi co-existing in my collection.

A good place to find cheap vinyl is yard sales and thrift stores. If any of the Salvation Army or Goodwill stores keep vinyl, most do, check it out. If you are diligent you may even be abel to pick up a turntable or other assorted hi fi gear. Used vinyl is stores has gone up but some of the more available titles can still be reasonable. Some stores even have a budget bin but be careful, some are budget because of condition, not overstock. My brother worked for a sanitation company and used to bring me all kinds of vinyl. I couldn't believe people were just throwing away. What was even more amazing is that most of it would be in good shape, being rescued from the trash.

[maxg]

Its been about 2 years since I last visited this forum - I wonder if there is still anyone on here that I know.

Anyway - just a few things to add to the discussion that may be of interest to some:

1. "i have a few at 500+ kbps which is phenominal considering 320 is the max from cds" Actually the figure is 150 for original CD's and it is in kilobytes per second not kilobits. There are 8 bits to a byte - assume 1200 kilobits per second for normal CD.

2. MP3 / IPod etc. There is a lot of talk of quality when refering to digital music - or the lack thereof - most of it is really irrelevent. The point of all these digtial formats is that they are portable formats. Portable music in all its forms has never been very good. Was a Transistor radio hifi? How about a Walkman (tape or CD)? A boombox? I would say not. Some MP3 players are capable as being every bit as good as these items that preceded them. No - it is not as good as my vinyl rig (but that cost a lot of money relatively), nor are they as good as my CD player (again rather more expensive).

When I bought a new mobile phone I got one that was basically a computer. It plays videos and music (MP3 and WMA / WMV). Relative to my Walkman cassette player the sound it great - and holds a lot more music (about 18 albums on a 2 gig card).

3. Vinyl. I am a vinyl lover through and through. I have about 1500 records and will never be parted from them. Unlike others I have not worn through them - there are some that are noisier now than when I bought them but not enough to make listening a chore.

When at home and listening properly (i.e. just listening - not as background) I listen to vinyl. When listening as background I can happily have a CD playing, or a decent MP3 or even the radio.

In the car I listen to CD mainly and radio ocasionally.

On foot I listen to MP3's on my phone.

In other words - however dedicated you are to one format or another a music lover will listen to what is avaiable at the location and that is the deciding factor.

4. Buying vinyl. I live in Athens, Greece. Maybe things are different here. I know of 25 shops that sell vinyl records within driving distance of my house (not DJ shops - they are separate) and 12 within walking distance of my wife's office. There are now more shops selling vinyl than CD in the centre of Athens (not counting the flea market - there are innumberable stores there too). Most of the vinyl is second hand. Pricing varies more with the contents of the records than the condition. Classical music (my main love) is typcially 1 euro per record (about $1.28) and all the shops I use have a TT to test a record out prior to purchase.

5. The younger crowd. In Greece at least it appears they have not yet discovered vinyl. In the shops I frequent I am usually one of the younger buyers - and I am 41. Does it really matter much? On the odd ocasion a younger person comes to the house and expresses an interest I will play them a record. The response it always positive - but I do not see them rushing out to get their own TT's - maybe they do - I have no idea.

[nightflier]

Ironically I was called in to work this weekend to deal with a "substantial security issue." My assistant had found what he thought was a huge stash of downloaded MP3's on our network at work - this is strictly forbidden and punishable by drawing & quartering, to hear our director. Anyhow, it turned out not to be music at all, but speeches and lectures. More interestingly when we rounded up the usual suspects, we found that it was one of our interns who is still in college. He told us that this was part of a research project he was working on after hours (so he claims), but, get this, they were all recorded from old records. I asked him where he got the gear and he described a pretty fancy setup that he had put together over the years.

Anyhow, that got me thinking about this again. I remember when I was younger, my dad had some of these with Kennedy speeches and other stuff. So I'm wondering how much vinyl content will never make it to CD at all. Not only is there a tremendous amount of music that will not be transfered (wasn't that the fear with Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus?), but also social and political speeches that few people would be interested in now a days. Heck who doesn't have an old George Carlin record laying around?

And this kid had a whole vinyl setup at home. He told me he regularly rips his LP's to MP3's so he and his friends can listen to them on their iPods. And that brings up another "hypothetical" question: if he were to share these analog-sourced files online, is this the same crime as sharing CD-ripped files? I'm only asking because my numbskull of an assistant got the bright idea to cc the top brass about his fine detective work, and they are going to want to see some heads roll.

[Woochifer]

Anyhow, that got me thinking about this again. I remember when I was younger, my dad had some of these with Kennedy speeches and other stuff. So I'm wondering how much vinyl content will never make it to CD at all. Not only is there a tremendous amount of music that will not be transfered (wasn't that the fear with Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus?), but also social and political speeches that few people would be interested in now a days. Heck who doesn't have an old George Carlin record laying around?

A lot of this historical content has already been archived digitally and made available online, but a lot of it won't make the transition simply due to lack of interest. But, so long as some library copy exists in the LP or other format, it will at least be available for review.

The thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these speeches and old recordings were originally in some sort of tape or film format. There's a big race right now to preserve the archived materials before the film or tape medium deteriorates (analog audio tapes are only supposed to last about 50 years). Sony actually developed the DSD format (which is used for SACD) to archive their music library. I read that some analog master tapes have deteriorated to the point that any further playback will basically destroy the tape, so they are getting transferred to DSD as quickly as possible.

Ironically, the biggest challenge that archivists face in the upcoming years will center on how to deal with obsolete digital formats. For example, some PCM digital recordings were recorded onto Betamax video tapes, and others might have been archived onto an older hard drive that uses a connector that's no longer supported. And there's the issue with what to do with old mainframe tape reels, data created with obsolete operating systems, etc. Think of all those digital camera pics you got stashed on a memory card. Will that memory card format and the JPEG format still be supported 20 years from now?

And this kid had a whole vinyl setup at home. He told me he regularly rips his LP's to MP3's so he and his friends can listen to them on their iPods. And that brings up another "hypothetical" question: if he were to share these analog-sourced files online, is this the same crime as sharing CD-ripped files? I'm only asking because my numbskull of an assistant got the bright idea to cc the top brass about his fine detective work, and they are going to want to see some heads roll.

This is kind of a gray area. The so-called Betamax decision in the early-80s established a doctrine of "fair use" that's been applied to a variety of recording devices. Fair use includes making copies for your own personal use. One of the areas that has also been delineated under fair use is the use of copyrighted materials for "educational" purposes. I'm not a lawyer, so maybe someone who knows more about intellectual property laws can chime in.

I would guess that sharing CD-ripped files runs afoul of copyright laws, but that would also depend on whether the shared material is copyrighted to begin with. Things like political speeches are typically in the public domain, and sharing MP3s of old speeches would be perfectly legal.

[Sabbath_Bloody_Sabbath]

1. "i have a few at 500+ kbps which is phenominal considering 320 is the max from cds" Actually the figure is 150 for original CD's and it is in kilobytes per second not kilobits. There are 8 bits to a byte - assume 1200 kilobits per second for normal CD.

i use winamp to play music on my computer, and in the media library there is a bitrate column. in that bitrate column i have files that range from about 90 kbps to (as i had said) 500+ kbps. when you rip a cd to computer, the highest bitrate you can rip at is 320, and cds are (if i remember correctly) between 128 and 196 kbps.

-John

[Koggit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Boo...io_CD_standard)
"Bit rate = 44100 samples/s × 16 bit/sample × 2 channels = 1411.2 kbit/s (more than 10 MB per minute)"


For the record, I don't actually know what I'm talking about, I just Googled because I was curious, but 1411kb/s seems to be true.

[nightflier]

For the record, I don't actually know what I'm talking about, I just Googled because I was curious, but 1411kb/s seems to be true.

Just out of curiosity, what would a typical vinyl recording converted to digital clock in at? If there is a difference, then I suppose that difference could hold up the argument that analog conversion to digital-compressed (ie. MP3) is not the same as digital to digital-compressed.

[Koggit]

Just out of curiosity, what would a typical vinyl recording converted to digital clock in at? If there is a difference, then I suppose that difference could hold up the argument that analog conversion to digital-compressed (ie. MP3) is not the same as digital to digital-compressed.

You can capture analog audio uncompressed, at a VERY high bitrate but you'll still lose some of what was in the original recording. This is because there are limitations in analog recording and there are limitations in digital recording -- when you digitally capture an analog recording, the result has both restrictions and loses quality from each transfer (live to analog, then analog to digital).

Bitrate is purely a digital term, measuring how much data is decoded in a certain timeframe, the more data the higher the quality. Since analog isn't comprised of bits - no digital data - there's no bitrate. The only way to give a bitrate to a non-digital source is to determine how much data would be required with no loss in quality. Since there will always be loss, there's no hard word on how high the rate would have to be.

It's similar to video. You can shoot a film digitally at higher resolutions than 35mm film, but if you shoot in 35mm film and then make a digital transfer you lose quality due to technical limitations. There's no set bitrate that the digital video would have to run to give the same quality, because of what's lost when scanning and creating the video from physical slides.

[nightflier]

Koggit,

So legally, an analog-to-digital copy is not an exact copy, whereas a digital-to-digital copy is, theoretically, and exact copy. I'm curious to know how this has played out in the courts, or if it has been heard as an argument at all.

[Koggit]

Oh, interesting point. I didn't consider that. Analogous to tracing the Mona Lisa with paper and pen infringing upon copyrights.

I'm not sure. I'd assume it'd fall under the same law, since it's a near-exact reproduction (afterall, digital compression changes the file also). Definite gray area, I wonder if there's any line that has to be crossed. At what point does a copy become a copy, how true to the original must it be?