Death of the iPod (Everyone's buying vinyl)

[sonnymax]

"Vinyl hits 25-year high", and yet still only represent a very small percentage of overall music sales. A look at vinyl sales over the past 40+ years helps put this "revival" in perspective.

 

[A Lark Ascending]

The real story is the boom in streaming. I've read some reports that triumph the rise of vinyl sales against the fall in download sales as if there's some correlation - what seems to be happening is that an increasing number of people are finding the streaming sites more reliable, comprehensive and convenient for their purposes. The owning of physical product in whatever form seems to be restricted to the music obsessive (that would be me!) and people lured in by the contemporary 'cool' of playing vinyl on a record player. 

Interesting that the fall in vinyl sales predated the arrival of CD by a few years. Arrival of the home computer, perhaps? 

 

[Scott Dolan]

Cassette sales really took a chunk out of LP sales around that point, IIRC. 

[rostasi]

"The First Intelligent Turntable"

[Scott Dolan]

Pretty cool! 

I'm wondering how the whole stylus thing works. Is it actually making surface contact? 

[rostasi]

Well, they're not saying much at the website,
but my problem with it (based on what I'm able
to glean from it) is that it appears to use a tiny
proprietary stylus that kinda sounds like it's
one of those 89t 911 Fisher-Price toy needles
that you can't adjust (no anti-skate or weight
changing methods). Along with that, you have
these two hunks of plastic encasing your LP
that would have to be transferring all kinds of
rumble and vibration, etc. I don't know enough
yet, but it looks and maybe acts "cool", but the
functionality may really be subpar. We'll see...

 

[Scott Dolan]

Oh yeah, I couldn't agree more. This will be more a gee whiz gadget than a highly functional record player. Kind of the Bose Acoustimass of record players. And priced accordingly, I'm sure. 

[rostasi]

The MP3 Format is now Patent Free.

from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits.

"On April 23, 2017, Technicolor's mp3 licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated.

We thank all of our licensees for their great support in making mp3 the defacto audio codec in the world, during the past two decades.

The development of mp3 started in the late 80s at Fraunhofer IIS, based on previous development results at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Although there are more efficient audio codecs with advanced features available today, mp3 is still very popular amongst consumers. However, most state-of-the-art media services such as streaming or TV and radio broadcasting use modern ISO-MPEG codecs such as the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H. Those can deliver more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates compared to mp3.

For more information about mp3’s successful history, please visit http://www.mp3-history.com/."

[Scott Dolan]

That's really interesting! Thanks, Rod. 

[ArtSalt]

On ‎05‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 9:20 AM, Scott Dolan said:

Cassette sales really took a chunk out of LP sales around that point, IIRC. 

Indeed they did. Cassette's for many were the choice before vinyl for album listening. They were not considered an inferior product and there were a lot of technical advances on tape decks in the 80s that made them attractive. All the revisionist history that audiophiles were only listening to albums and that they never heard a good pre-recorded cassette tape is utter nonsense. And I know, because I was there!

[Dmitry]

I my memory prerecorded cassettes didn't sound any good. However, you could record on a good cassette deck onto a good tape from vinyl, and get excellent results. 

[sidewinder]

I used to record from vinyl and FM radio onto TDK metal tape with a JVC noise reduction thing called 'Super - ANRS' I think. The results were fairly good - but nothing near reel-to-reel.

Edited May 9, 2017 by sidewinder

[Scott Dolan]

The problem with cassettes is they degraded as quickly as you could play them. You could buy studio releases on cassette and they sounded wonderful at first. But things went downhill quickly from there. Especially if you were like me and didn't feel like cleaning your heads on a daily basis. 

Portability was the primary driving force behind the popularity of cassettes. 

And like Art said, audiophiles were initially in love with four track cassettes. Just like they were initially in love with CDs. Then when it wasn't cool to be in love with them (i.e., everybody was playing them), they quickly disavowed their usefulness and proclaimed the LP the ultimate audiophile medium. 

[sidewinder]

Well - I for one will say (and as a big user of cassettes) that I never for one moment considered them a valid substitute for LPs. They were convenient - for use in the car or walkman or at work - and that is all.

[Scott Dolan]

Right, but that was what it was all about back then. Nobody complained about the sound. That was my point. 

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, sidewinder said:

Well - I for one will say (and as a big user of cassettes) that I never for one moment considered them a valid substitute for LPs. They were convenient - for use in the car or walkman or at work - and that is all.

Or for dubbing LPs that your friends had that you didn't (and probably couldn't).

I can't begin to mention how much of my exposure to Black Saint/Soul Note, Horo, Moers Music, Fluid, Hat, etc. was from dubbing LPs from somebody who had been to Europe and brought them back. Imports, when they were available, were cost-prohibitive, but a box of K-Mart cassettes was not. And then TDK, etc. and finally the real things themselves. But I needed that entry-level access, the cheapass cassette dub.

Same thing with OOP BNs and lots of other things. I wasn't looking to have an object in the best sound possible, I was just hungry to hear the shit by any way possible.

[Scott Dolan]

I was a Maxell guy. 

[JSngry]

Come to think of it, I might have been...which product was on the general market longer?

I found that K-Mart tapes could and would vary wildly. One lot would be more than adequate, another one borderline unlistenable. But at that price, hey, you borrow 20 LPs from somebody at one time to tape, you can't hold on to them until you find good tape. At lease I couldn't.

Hell, I kept files on them, spiral note card binders with hand written discographical info copied from the LP jackets, detailed like a mofo, front & back of card if needed, relevant liner notes when applicable.

Truthfully, I never knew all that many people who wanted to hear that much music that badly. But I've known a few, and believe me, both them and I made dubs of each other's dubs.

Whatever else digital is or isn't, it's definitely made it easier to scratch that particular itch.

[ArtSalt]

1 hour ago, Scott Dolan said:

Right, but that was what it was all about back then. Nobody complained about the sound. That was my point. 

Exactly, by the specifications and standards of the early to mid even late 80s, the humble cassette was delivering on a number of perceived critical and desirable criteria were vinyl wasn't. I don't remember anyone complaining on how awful cassettes sounded.

 

 

[Scott Dolan]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Come to think of it, I might have been...which product was on the general market longer?

I'm not sure, but if I had to take a guess I'd say TDK. 

[sonnymax]

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I remember getting cassette dupes of rare Blue Note LPs in the years before CD-Rs became more affordable. I probably had almost 100 of them. Some I got from posters here.

[sidewinder]

I remember that Ella Memorex ad on TV !

[Scott Dolan]

You know, I'm not sure I ever saw the Ella commercial. The only one I recall was the guy sitting in a chair being blown backwards by his stereo speakers. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 hour ago, Scott Dolan said:

You know, I'm not sure I ever saw the Ella commercial. The only one I recall was the guy sitting in a chair being blown backwards by his stereo speakers.