The Vinyl Future ... it's 1984 all over again?

[Chris Sommovigo]

OK - I'm being cheeky with Huxley's tome, but it's worth the chuckle.

Check the link:

http://www.prefixmag.com/news/vinyl-sales-continue-to-surge-amazon-...

After hearing about John Esposito's remarks at the gathering in New Orleans - namely that he expects WEA to do $12 million in vinyl sales next year, and getting endless news alerts in my inbox about the resurgence of vinyl - my theory remains:

Within 5 years (possibly sooner), the CD as a physical music medium will go away thanks to downloads taking over the market, leaving the only physical medium for music as the vinyl record. Since most vinyl records are coming with coupons for gratis downloads, the "value" of the purchased download will remain questionable (although I would like to see true high resolution downloads, as in uncompressed 24/96 files like my friend Mark Waldrep offers on iTrax.com).

What seems to be going on, however, is more of a battle for old school distribution schemes vs. the new reality - small labels and indie musicians can distribute themselves, and if they work hard enough touring they can get a faithful following. Indies are relying ever more heavily on digital distribution, but what began as a dream of a cash cow has turned into a freeloader's download paradise.

I can't blame the copyright infringers ... they're being asked to part with money for nothing substantial in return, YET they remain fans and want to hear the music of the bands they love. Besides - you can't fill an iPod with 80GB of GREAT music, you need something else in there to justify the other 75GB of disk space ...

SO: As the majors are getting a real taste for vinyl again, and Amazon is listing 250,000 titles in its vinyl shop (is that for real?) - will the indies get squeezed again, or is the ball coming further into the indies' court - are the majors being forced to abandon their hopes for a digital distribution future and stuck back in 1984 ... when records were still in the bins?

[L'wood]

So how many vinyl listeners are there out there? At $12million in sales next year, and they're garnering $20 for new vinyl, that's 60,000 LP's, not really a boom, but obviously more than 10 years ago.

The real problem is there is a generation or two that has no idea what even lo-fi or mid-fi sound like, let alone audiophile sound....until that can be increased....why even bother with an HD type download when all they're listening to it on is an Ipod or other mp3 player?

My two cents for the evening....cheers! L'wood

[Chris Sommovigo]

Hey L'Wood,

My hope for high res recordings being available stems from my rediscovery of binaural and especially the Zuccarelli methods (from my other post - use headphones). Thanks to iPod, the installed base of headphone users is massive, and it takes much less of an investment in HiFi to get great headphone sound than it takes to get great in-room stereo sound.

So high res binaural recordings may have a future ...