# So... any idea why we're selling music on vinyl again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 13, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801 "2012-05-13T20:11:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/41 "2012-05-14T16:30:34Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > Apparently audiophiles think that it has a warmer sound. I don’t know if I buy that, or if that sound can’t be reproduced just as accurately and warmly digitally (as noted above), but that’s what the claim was. Personally, I think the idea of a “warmer” sound is a joke. It’s the equivalent of the people who complain that HDTV doesn’t look as “natural” as their older systems. What I think happened is people just got used to seeing and hearing a certain amount of distortion. And when a new format reduces this distortion, the results doesn’t seem normal to them even though it’s objectively truer to the source material. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/42 "2012-05-14T16:47:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Yeah, but… > > CDs USE FRIKKING LASER BEAMS! _But_ a CD case is worthless for cleaning weed. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/43 "2012-05-14T17:03:01Z")
The number of people who, under blinded/controlled conditions can tell vinyl, CD and better quality digital recordings apart is probably similar to the number of people who can reliably tell cheap from expensive booze. In other words, not all that many. I like the look and feel of old records. But since what’s really important to me is the music, I only buy used vinyl - when it’s music I don’t already have, is cheap and in good shape. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/44 "2012-05-14T17:34:20Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Vinyl sucks! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/45 "2012-05-14T17:46:03Z")
I don’t think gaffa’s fond of turnips, either. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/46 "2012-05-14T18:37:47Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > They sell turntables and vinyl to the same people who buy Monster speaker and audio cables. Just my guess. These same hipsters flock to “$2 Pabst Blue Ribbon” Happy-hour post-snowboarding and really think its “Nar, Dude!” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/47 "2012-05-14T18:47:04Z")
First off, saying “blame hipsters” doesn’t answer anything. It doesn’t explain why they’re into vinyl and in any event the label long ago became so broad it lost all meaning. And second, I think vinyl sales started bouncing back in the late '90s, which is way too early to be blamed on hipsters- although the vinyl revival has become a bigger deal in the last half-decade or so. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/48 "2012-05-14T19:00:12Z")
The idea of sound quality is somewhat amusing when you consider how many people listen to music through $10 earbuds plugged into their phone. Vinyl is less convenient, less robust, and way more touchy than digital media, but when you put it to the test, it can deliver a magical experience. Nobody has yet designed a sound system so awesome that vinyl can’t fill it with music. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/49 "2012-05-14T20:20:12Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > The idea of sound quality is somewhat amusing when you consider how many people listen to music through $10 earbuds plugged into their phone. > > Vinyl is less convenient, less robust, and way more touchy than digital media, but when you put it to the test, it can deliver a magical experience. Nobody has yet designed a sound system so awesome that vinyl can’t fill it with music. “Magical” is the operative word here. Disdain me as a “meter reader” if you must, but the audio on the most well mastered LP is demonstrably inferior to the same material on an equally well mastered CD. I speak as someone who has operated a record lathe. You _have_ to compress the material to control groove dynamics. You _have_ to sum both channels to mono below 100 hz to avoid destroying the cutter head. Those two limitations alone are real and substantial proof of the inferiority of vinyl. The fact that record company buttheads are forcing mastering engineers to compress the music on pop CDs in the mistaken belief that the result will sound better on the radio. Sadly, many people expect it and even complain when pop records are less compressed - that dynamic range makes it harder to hear the subtle parts on headphones on a noisy train. There are well-mastered CDs out there, with equally well-mastered LPs. Kate Bush’s album _Aerial_ is one. The LP sounds excellent, and is beautifully mastered. But the CD sounds better. I bought the LP for the album artwork. ---
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/50 "2012-05-14T20:35:16Z")
Vinyl (and CD) collector here. For me it is rarely about the sound differences between the formats. I’ve just always been susceptible to collecting stuff, and vinyl is the most collectible format of music. I like taking a day to visit every record store in a city, not knowing what old or obscure stuff they’ll have in stock that day, and maybe finding a good deal on something that’s been on my wishlist for years. That “thrill of the hunt” is something that anyone who collects anything should be able to relate to. Downloading (or even ordering the records online) takes all the challenge and fun out of acquiring albums. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/51 "2012-05-14T21:02:33Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > “Magical” is the operative word here. Disdain me as a “meter reader” if you must, but the audio on the most well mastered LP is demonstrably inferior to the same material on an equally well mastered CD. I won’t argue this, because it’s irrelevant. The inferior recording technology available in an LP is still outrageously good. There’s more music stuffed into those grooves than 99.9% of people will ever get out of any recording they ever hear, it’s limitations are more practical than theoretical. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/52 "2012-05-14T21:09:53Z")
_Waits patiently for the VHS tape to rise again._ ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/53 "2012-05-14T21:41:27Z")
Vinyl’s better because if you set the record player to the wrong speed everything sounds funny. Can’t get that sort of cheap laugh with a CD player! That said, I haven’t had a working record player since the early 80’s and 99% of what I listened to was kids stuff (and a lot of that not even music) so I’m sure my experience wasn’t typical. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/54 "2012-05-14T22:50:25Z")
Wait. Don’t they pretty much _HAVE_ to continue making vinyl records? I mean, if you’re a dj for a rapper, you need a vinyl disk to be able to make that god-awful record-scratching noise, right? Speaking of which: OT, but how many times can a dj do that to a record before it’s totally ruined? Is **dalovindj** still a Doper? He’d know. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/55 "2012-05-15T00:43:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Personally, I think the idea of a “warmer” sound is a joke. It’s the equivalent of the people who complain that HDTV doesn’t look as “natural” as their older systems. > > What I think happened is people just got used to seeing and hearing a certain amount of distortion. And when a new format reduces this distortion, the results doesn’t seem normal to them even though it’s objectively truer to the source material. Well, I think that distortion, and, more importantly, that hiss, is what people mean by warmer. Also, there is an objective reason to like CRTs over LCD TVs. LCDs do actually produce an inferior color response (e.g. less pure black), and have more discrete pixels–the edges don’t blur into each other as well as on a CRT. This creates an aliased look–it looks blocky unless you sit further away. These are known problems with the technology. (The latter could be fixed if they’d just increase the resolution to 200ppi instead of 100ppi.) Now, HD CRTs are definitely superior to standard definition TVs. And plasma is definitely better than LCD, though I don’t know how it compares to CRT. And I have no idea about LED TVs. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/56 "2012-05-15T03:42:52Z")
I have a theory about LP vinyl recordings. When you play them through a turntable and stereo amplifier, you are actually getting \*two \*different sounds in your living room: You are getting the amplified signal out of the speakers, \*plus \*you are getting a very faint, very quiet, but still perceptible analog sound _directly off of the needle_. My theory is that the ears and brain detect this, and attribute a greater level of depth to the experience because of it. Is it greater fidelity? Probably not. But a deeper, more immersive experience? Yes, probably. And I think that is why adherents of vinyl find it more satisfying. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/57 "2012-05-15T04:48:41Z")
> [@heathen\_earthling](#): > > Vinyl (and CD) collector here. For me it is rarely about the sound differences between the formats. I’ve just always been susceptible to collecting stuff, and vinyl is the most collectible format of music. This is a refreshingly honest and believable answer. Kudos, collector! I myself have the\* Concert for Bangladesh\*, complete with booklet and all the “stuff” that I will never play again, yet will never part with. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/58 "2012-05-15T06:05:09Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Now, HD CRTs are definitely superior to standard definition TVs. And plasma is definitely better than LCD, though I don’t know how it compares to CRT. And I have no idea about LED TVs. “LED TVs” as they are currently marketed are simply LCDs. They use LEDs for the backlight. This is annoying because there could have been (possibly might still) be TV displays that actually emit light using LEDs. OLED displays, in use in a few monochrome small screens, are the only common implementation. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/59 "2012-05-15T11:11:51Z")
There was a small market for direct discs in the 1980’s-they are supposed to be better than the regular vinyl-though I could never tell the difference. The DDs sold for obscene prices-I remember one gong for $90. I expect that its an audiophile thing-no proof, lots of hype. ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801/60 "2012-05-15T11:20:03Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I have a theory about LP vinyl recordings. When you play them through a turntable and stereo amplifier, you are actually getting \*two \*different sounds in your living room: You are getting the amplified signal out of the speakers, \*plus \*you are getting a very faint, very quiet, but still perceptible analog sound _directly off of the needle_. My theory is that the ears and brain detect this, and attribute a greater level of depth to the experience because of it. Is it greater fidelity? Probably not. But a deeper, more immersive experience? Yes, probably. And I think that is why adherents of vinyl find it more satisfying. Good idea, but, well, no. Try it: play a record without amplifying it. You can somehow recognize the song if you hold your ear about two inches from the needle. Once the speakers start playing, the level difference is so big it’s not even funny. Even in a perfect anechoic chamber (which your living room is not) you probably couldn’t even measure the sound from the disc. Any reflexion from any surface anywhere in the room is many orders of magnitude louder than than what you would hear from the disc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-any-idea-why-were-selling-music-on-vinyl-again/621801.md?page=4)