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The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads Died

I happened to stop by a local mall-based record store the other day. First time since it went bankrupt some time ago and was taken over by another chain. I was not surprised to see lots of bin-feet of vinyl. Nor that in the 30 minutes or so that I was there, the cash register never rang up a sale of any kind.

I did get a huge chuckle out of the asking prices for new vinyl: typically 2-5 times that for a CD.

As I posted quite some time ago, except where available nowhere else, I don't purchase physical media any longer. Just recently my daughter expanded her Spotify membership to full family in the hope of enticing me into the current age. From my list of a dozen or so difficult-to-find albums that I'd been looking for, without success, for quite some time, I was able to find ten of them on Spotify.

Jeff
 
Yeah... I've posted about this a bit. I think it's a useless statistic as they real story is that CDs are now pointless for most consumers of music.

It is neat that LP sales growth has led to companies designing new presses as the old presses are maxed out in a failing attempt to keep up. It is also shocking, to me, that people are okay with paying $35 for a new LP.
 
I still prefer some form of physical media. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I can be a bit of a dinosaur.

Im not a streamer yet and I am holding off, I have converted most of my music to some form other than CD for casual listening in the car, boat, office, and I use Pandora a lot at work. I don't see me ever going back to vinyl though.

I only wish I were smart enough to come up with some whacky merchandising scheme to make myself silly rich and buy an island.

Something else I noticed when assembling the stuff for the stereo upgrade in my boat was all of the digital madness, streaming and hdmi, have nearly eradicated the once booming cable/interconnect market. I stopped in at Best Buy to see if they had a few cables I needed and the young puke working there not only didn't try to upsell me on cables, he seemed offended he had to speak to me of such archaic nonsense.
 
Yeah... I've posted about this a bit. I think it's a useless statistic as they real story is that CDs are now pointless for most consumers of music.

It is neat that LP sales growth has led to companies designing new presses as the old presses are maxed out in a failing attempt to keep up. It is also shocking, to me, that people are okay with paying $35 for a new LP.
Adjusted for inflation, the price is about the same as it was back in the day. The quality of today's vinyl is far higher than back then, and that quality costs more to make. They don't run stampers far beyond their life like they used to, and the vinyl compounds are better. I have pressings where it is rare to hear even one small tick on a side. The records of the 70s sounded like crap except for the high quality ones like Telarc and Mobile Fidelity, and those cost more, unsurprisingly.
 
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Adjusted for inflation, the price is about the same as it was back in the day. The quality of today's vinyl is far higher than back then, and that quality costs more to make. They don't run stampers far beyond their life like they used to, and the vinyl compounds are better. I have pressings where it is rare to hear even one small tick on a side. The records of the 70s sounded like crap except for the high quality ones like Telarc and Mobile Fidelity, and those cost more, unsurprisingly.

I believe everything you wrote.

Maybe I should have written that I'm surprised that so many people are willing to pay $35 for a new LP. While not a scientific study, in my experience the vast majority of LP buyers I know are as far from audiophiles as possible. Most have sub-$100 audio systems, including the record player, and I've seen a few handle the vinyl in a way to smear skin oil all over the grooves.
 
My wife still buys a lot of music on iTunes, but it is mostly K-Pop, and a lot of it isn't available on the streaming services. I mostly stopped buying music and just use Google Play most of the time. My system and room are nowhere near good enough for me to pretend I can hear an audible difference.
 
I believe everything you wrote.

Maybe I should have written that I'm surprised that so many people are willing to pay $35 for a new LP. While not a scientific study, in my experience the vast majority of LP buyers I know are as far from audiophiles as possible. Most have sub-$100 audio systems, including the record player, and I've seen a few handle the vinyl in a way to smear skin oil all over the grooves.
That same record store I was in was selling "record players" by the box - for far less than $100 if I recall correctly. Akin to those old Fisher-Price kids' units.

So I'm going to buy a $35 vinyl album and then play it on a $70 turntable that uses a ceramic cartridge with 20 grams of tracking force?
 
From what I have read, something like 40% of buyers don't play their vinyl or don't even have a turntable. They buy vinyl so that they will appear to be "hip" (or whatever the correct modality is these days) and call them "vinyls" - I hate that word. Then there are the people like me who take vinyl seriously.
 
From what I have read, something like 40% of buyers don't play their vinyl or don't even have a turntable. They buy vinyl so that they will appear to be "hip" (or whatever the correct modality is these days) and call them "vinyls" - I hate that word. Then there are the people like me who take vinyl seriously.

Ugh!!!
 
We went to an Apple Music subscription, and it's cut back the digital purchases we've made, and those had pretty well ended our purchases of physical music before that.
 
We went to an Apple Music subscription, and it's cut back the digital purchases we've made, and those had pretty well ended our purchases of physical music before that.

I've slowed my purchases of CDs since starting my Amazon Unlimited music service. I only buy stuff with which I am deeply in love or I consider worthy of truly critical listening while stuff of which I like the sound I just add to one of my playlists on Amazon Music.
 
I've slowed my purchases of CDs since starting my Amazon Unlimited music service. I only buy stuff with which I am deeply in love or I consider worthy of truly critical listening while stuff of which I like the sound I just add to one of my playlists on Amazon Music.
Same here. Its damn hard finding great recordings of the music I want. A real pain in the ass!
 
I haven't bought a CD in about 2 years and don't purchase music via downloads.

With close to 1,500 CD's and 1,000 "vinyls" I realized I have enough music to listen to for a long time.

I also subscribe to Amazon Unlimited music so if I want to listen to newer stuff I use that. I am pretty much out of the loop on newer stuff unless it is an older artist (older meaning years performing, not necessarily chronological age)

Most of the "current" artists I hear mentioned I have no clue who they are.
 
With some extra time on my hands I have been doing some investigating and I just realized today that my Roku will allow me to stream Amazon Unlimited music.

I upgraded my account from just the Echo to allow me to stream on any device.

Back in the music game
 
With some extra time on my hands I have been doing some investigating and I just realized today that my Roku will allow me to stream Amazon Unlimited music.

I upgraded my account from just the Echo to allow me to stream on any device.

Back in the music game
That must be a recent thing, as I looked for it before and never found it. Thanks for the heads up, Jeff.
 
With some extra time on my hands I have been doing some investigating and I just realized today that my Roku will allow me to stream Amazon Unlimited music.

I upgraded my account from just the Echo to allow me to stream on any device.

Back in the music game
I assure you'll enjoy. I would if you dont find the song your looking for dont give up. Check back in a few weeks. Music seems to come and go at Amazon music extremely fast.
 
I just bought my first vinyl in decades. Found an old Christmas album from my childhood that I absolutely loved.

Paid $30 plus shipping for it, but it indeed came in fantastic condition (album and jacket). Now I have to get it to a buddy who can transfer it to digital so I can play it.
 
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