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The vinyl resurrection is mostly due to hipster cred, and a whole mythology that has sprung up around the (imagined) sound quality benefits. The format also has

The vinyl resurrection is mostly due to hipster cred, and a whole mythology that has sprung up around the (imagined) sound quality benefits. The format also has a lot of drawbacks. The records are large and fragile, turntables are relatively large and the whole setup is not very portable. Records are also very much read-only. The compact cassette is small and rugged, tape players can be small enough that they are barely larger than a cassette tape, and most importantly it's trivially easy to record your own tapes, either as a mix tape from other sources, as a recording from radio or even with your friends in your small-time garage band. There is a damn good reason why the humble cassette tape stuck around in punk/DIY underground circles. For decades, recording to cassette tape and having them duplicated was the absolute cheapest way to get your music out to the world. My own appreciation for cassette tape comes from growing up in the late 80s/early 90s. I didn't have a CD player of my own, but I had a cheap boombox with a tape deck, and a whole bunch of tapes from my parents. Classics like Deep Purple and the Beatles, but also a whole bunch of stuff they'd recorded from the radio, and various other random things, I had a whole bunch of children's books on tape, as well. My parents eventually gave me a tape deck with a built-in microphone and a bunch of blank tapes, and let my friends and me play around with it. To me, the cassette tape (and the 3.5" floppy disk) was a cornerstone of my formative years, and I will always appreciate the versatility and possibilities the format has. Vinyl is/was mostly a format for people with disposable income, it's the Big Serious format. In contrast, cassette tape was the format for the common people, you can play around with it and experiment. As for the CD, it's just an obsolete physical format for digital audio, which is much easier to distribute online now, rather than stamping and shipping shiny plastic discs. There are quite a few distributers that offer CD-quality downloads.

criddell 7y ago
> The vinyl resurrection is mostly due to hipster cred, and a whole mythology that has sprung up around the (imagined) sound quality benefits. I think that was the start of it, but at this point it's spread well beyond hipsters. One of my kids bought a turntable and they do the same thing I did when I listened to records 30 years ago - lie on the floor and examine the sleeve and liner. Aside from the large format artwork, I wouldn't underestimate the appeal of building and having a collection. People collect vinyl toys to sit on a shelf. Is collecting records all that different? > There are quite a few distributers that offer CD-quality downloads. Not really and the ones that exist are expensive and have poor selection.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  Bandcamp has a huge selection. Maybe not the biggest mainstream artists, but definitely something to satisfy every taste. There are others who specialize in specific genres, especially within electronic music. And some labels have started offering CD quality downloads, Nuclear Blast is the one I'm most familiar with.
  - criddell 7y ago
    > Bandcamp has a huge selection. Sure, they win by quantity. But it doesn't matter if they have millions of artists if what I want is a particular Radiohead album. For now, CD is still the best way to buy mainstream music in a high quality format. It also happens to be pretty inexpensive as well. On top of all that, I'm an old guy that happens to enjoy looking over my collection, picking a CD, and sitting down to listen to it for an hour, giving it the same attention I would if I were watching a movie or reading a book. I also subscribe to a streaming service and that's how I find a lot of the stuff I want to buy.
- thirdsun 7y ago
  > Not really and the ones that exist are expensive and have poor selection. - Bandcamp - Boomkat - Qobuz - 7Digital - Bleep - Juno Download I buy everything I like (and it's a lot) in a lossless, digital format and the only time I can't find a legal lossless purchase option is when it's actually a physical-only release.
  - criddell 7y ago
    I just looked on those services for a few CD's I recently bought and Qobuz is the only one that had them. The price for a download from them is more than the price to get Amazon to deliver the physical discs to my door. For now, that doesn't make any sense to me especially since I actually want the physical media. It's what I listen to as I work. If I only wanted the files, then I would be on board.
    - thirdsun 7y ago

criddell 7y ago

> The vinyl resurrection is mostly due to hipster cred, and a whole mythology that has sprung up around the (imagined) sound quality benefits. I think that was the start of it, but at this point it's spread well beyond hipsters. One of my kids bought a turntable and they do the same thing I did when I listened to records 30 years ago - lie on the floor and examine the sleeve and liner. Aside from the large format artwork, I wouldn't underestimate the appeal of building and having a collection. People collect vinyl toys to sit on a shelf. Is collecting records all that different? > There are quite a few distributers that offer CD-quality downloads. Not really and the ones that exist are expensive and have poor selection.

KozmoNau7 7y ago
Bandcamp has a huge selection. Maybe not the biggest mainstream artists, but definitely something to satisfy every taste. There are others who specialize in specific genres, especially within electronic music. And some labels have started offering CD quality downloads, Nuclear Blast is the one I'm most familiar with.
- criddell 7y ago
  > Bandcamp has a huge selection. Sure, they win by quantity. But it doesn't matter if they have millions of artists if what I want is a particular Radiohead album. For now, CD is still the best way to buy mainstream music in a high quality format. It also happens to be pretty inexpensive as well. On top of all that, I'm an old guy that happens to enjoy looking over my collection, picking a CD, and sitting down to listen to it for an hour, giving it the same attention I would if I were watching a movie or reading a book. I also subscribe to a streaming service and that's how I find a lot of the stuff I want to buy.
thirdsun 7y ago
> Not really and the ones that exist are expensive and have poor selection. - Bandcamp - Boomkat - Qobuz - 7Digital - Bleep - Juno Download I buy everything I like (and it's a lot) in a lossless, digital format and the only time I can't find a legal lossless purchase option is when it's actually a physical-only release.
- criddell 7y ago
  I just looked on those services for a few CD's I recently bought and Qobuz is the only one that had them. The price for a download from them is more than the price to get Amazon to deliver the physical discs to my door. For now, that doesn't make any sense to me especially since I actually want the physical media. It's what I listen to as I work. If I only wanted the files, then I would be on board.
  - thirdsun 7y ago