21 ms·

Vinyl records are now outselling CDs

119 points by ofou 5y ago

8bitsrule 5y ago
Take me out to the black, Tell them I ain't comin back. Burn the land and boil the sea, You can't take CDs from me. ~~ (My 35yo CD still sounds like it did the first time.)
crossroadsguy 5y ago
Simply put - nobody wants/needs CDs. They are too bloody fragile and get damaged real fast. At least that's how I remember them based on my experience with them years ago. So let's say CD usage is going towards ZERO. Vinyl is more of a fad/hobby/experience/collection thingie? So their sale is going up i.e above ZERO?
- anyfoo 5y ago
  They do?! I don't remember that. Damaged CDs that would skip or hang were not super uncommon, but they had to take quite a lot of abuse until problems even became audible. But especially in comparison with vinyl records, which was the context here, CDs seemed almost indestructible. It was one of their selling points: Even visibly fine vinyl records still skip sometimes, while a CD that picked up tons of scratches sitting on someone's desk would still play fine. Not a big surprise given that CDs have their data with lots of redundance below a protective coat, while on a vinyl record the surface is the data...
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  None of my CDs are damaged, well maybe one out of a hundred? I mean, you do have to put them back in the case after listening.
CarVac 5y ago
I can't trust CDs or digital downloads to not be Loudness War mastered.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  This is often overlooked. In many cases vinyl gives much better dynamic range than CD or WEB rips.
- ehutch79 5y ago
  This is changing. You can actually thank youtube and spotify for the win here. Since they normalize volumes, there's no point to try and make things as high volume as possible. you're actually better making a fuller sounding track that uses the dynamic range.
  - glenstein 5y ago
    You're right, and that's genuine good work by YouTube and spotify. I wonder, though, if that practice has had any ripple effect into recorded mediums such as cds?
- moogly 5y ago
  Many vinyl releases use the digital master.
  - CarVac 5y ago
    And yet the newly released album I just bought has plenty of dynamic range on the vinyl and heavily clipped FLAC downloads.
    - moogly 5y ago
      I'm glad you like that particular album. You used the word "trust". Just pointing out that you can't always trust the audio that was cut to vinyl to not just be the same old "loudness war" master. However, as someone else pointed out, the peak (heh) of the "loudness war" has been over for a while now. That doesn't mean there aren't new albums (be it on vinyl or CD, or lossless digital) that are still terribly mixed and mastered. After all, it's easier than ever to get your music to be published these days.
- 5y ago
sys_64738 5y ago
I only buy CDs and haven't bought an LP since 1992.
criddell 5y ago
This is US only. CDs are much more popular in a lot of other countries.
gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
I started collecting vinyl as a preteen in the mid 2000s because I was (and still am) into rave music and at that time vinyl was THE format to find it on. I’m not sure if I got in before the greater vinyl revival, but I wonder if it will prove to have just been a bubble, or if there are really enough audiophiles, DJs, etc to keep it going once the hipster chic wears off (if it hasn’t already)
lastofthemojito 5y ago
I initially thought that because the graph cites "Revenues by format" that it likely meant that CDs were still selling more units than vinyl records. But it appears that's not the case. At least according to another RIAA doc, in 1H 2021 they shipped 16.1m CDs and 17m LP/EPs. https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Mid-Year-2021-RIAA-Music-Revenue-Report.pdf https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Mid-Year-202...
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  ...in the USA.
scarecrowbob 5y ago
As a musician, I've always been just used CDs as a surface for which people can feel good about giving me a bigger tip at the small places I play; lots of folks are fine with high markups on merch, but won't tip musicians at all for some reason. I've been on vinyl albums... I don't think they are great for a lot of reasons. They do encourage folks to give you money, though. And they certainly show a commitment to artistry that CDs never quite had. If you just want the music, streaming is better on almost every front. If you collect them and need to move, they get to be super heavy. They are bad for the environment. Your acoustics are probably the limiting factor in your listening environment, so on and so forth. It's an interesting moment to mark, to me, not because vinyl is selling more, but because the industry is doing so poorly in general that the relatively niche format has overtaken what was the dominant physical medium for decades. That is to say, this is the point where we might understand physical recording distribution to have finally died.
- bonestamp2 5y ago
  Vinyl is about active listening. Yes, it's much easier to put on a CD or stream the music, but when I want to sit down and really listen to the music... Vinyl is the perfect medium for that ritual. It's about the more visceral experience, not the fidelity or simplicity.
- xondono 5y ago
  > And they certainly show a commitment to artistry that CDs never quite had. To me that’s one of the ironies of the whole thing. Producing vinyl records is way harder for a starting up musician. I don’t know how hard is to get listed on Spotify/Apple Music, but I would be curious about if starting has become easier or harder in net terms.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Adam Savage did a pretty cool tour video[0] where he went through the Third Man Record's vinyl production process. It's not a particularly deep dive into the processes used, but it gives a great idea of how much work it takes to publish truly analogue recordings. Plus, Jack White makes an appearance to chat about the ways digital recording shaped music production. I don't really like vinyl that much either, but I love music and simply can't help but respect the few people dedicated to such an arduous process. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF4A4wdnXkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF4A4wdnXkU
filoleg 5y ago
My personal pet theory: CDs were kind of like an in-between format between vinyls (nice and feel good, but inconvenient and not as mobile) and hard digital storage/streaming (zero feeling, because it is just digital files on your storage device or streamed to you, but super convenient on the go). Until we all got devices that became able to stream music or upload music to it, CD addressed the mobility problem. But streaming/file storage is definitely a way more mobile and convenient solution than CDs in every way. With a more convenient option such as streaming, all the benefits that CD provided over vinyl became meaningless, as streaming/file storage beat it in every aspect. But vinyl still stayed, as it provides something that neither CDs nor streaming/digital file storage can provide. So as CDs got wiped as a medium, vinyl rose back. I have observed a similar situation in a completely different industry too. More specifically, with book stores. Before big bookstore chains, we had a lot of independent small book stores (following my earlier analogy, the vinyl). Big chain book stores started appearing and dominating, such as Barnes&Noble (the CD), squeezing out smaller independent book stores. Then came Amazon (the streaming/digital file storage, still following my earlier analogy with music), wiped the floor with the in-betweener medium (Barnes&Noble), and the number of small independent book stores (vinyl) has increased over that entire time period as the in-betweener got wiped. For specific numbers, the number of small independent book stores in the US has increased by about 50% over the past decade (from around 1,600 to 2,500)[0]. Unlike with the in-betweener formats, the original ones will always have something to provide that the future iteration of a "more advanced format" (CD=>streaming) won't be able to provide. And with this in mind, I am happy, as it indicates that physical books and vinyls will be here to stay (albeit not for mainstream usage, but as personal preference pieces for enthusiasts). This isn't some hard rule that is guaranteed to be the case forever, but the current numbers and observations seem to support the idea that this trend will likely last for quite a long time, beyond lifetimes of people currently alive. That's just a pure guess based on the gut feeling. 0. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2020/02/12/how-indie-bookstores-beat-amazon-at-the-bookselling-game-lessons-here-for-every-retailer/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2020/02/12/how-indi...
- dTal 5y ago
  >all the benefits that CD provided over vinyl became meaningless, as streaming/file storage beat it in every aspect The sound quality of CDs is superior to any stream. But alas, "worse is better".
p1mrx 5y ago
Makes sense to me. If you're going to collect music in the form of physical objects, then it might as well be physically encoded. Otherwise, you can just fill a hard drive with FLACs and make backups. CDs are in the "uncanny valley" of digital, but impermanent.
- criddell 5y ago
  I still buy CDs for a lot of the same reasons people buy vinyl. * I like the physical interaction with my music (choosing the CD, putting it in the player, pressing play and getting 40-60 minutes of music) * I like the artwork and liner notes (although the larger format of records wins there) * I like the record store experience I prefer CDs to vinyl because they sound better IMHO, are more durable, can be backed up and re-burned as needed, and are (slightly) smaller.
  - p1mrx 5y ago
    If the music industry could figure out a model where you bring a vinyl record to the store, and they give you a lossless digital copy, then that would be the best of both worlds. Basically the record serves as a physical license key. You could also have a smart turntable with a camera on it, that automatically cues the digital version of any known record.
    - criddell 5y ago
      A lot of records come with download codes already. People who want a physical way of interacting with their digital collection have done things like print tiny record sleeves that contain an NFC chip. Hold the sleeve up to your reader (like your phone) and that triggers the the songs on that record to play.
klelatti 5y ago
Another theory - CDs popularity was always mainly about convenience and not sound quality. They lose out massively to streaming on this. Streaming leaves music fans with money left over to spend and they buy vinyl to have something nice looking to put on the shelf (and play occasionally).
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I prefer CDs to vinyl because: 1. higher dynamic range needed for classical music 2. don't have to clean the disk every time I play it 3. doesn't skip 4. no snap crackle pop that happens even on the first play 5. vinyl takes up too much space 6. the needle doesn't turn into a furball after a few plays 7. the needle doesn't need to be replaced after 300 plays 8. the speakers don't cause feedback with the needle 9. you don't need to tread softly lest the needle picks that up mp3s, however, trump CDs.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    > dynamic range > mp3s, however, trump CDs. What? If CD's have better dynamic range than vinyl then how does mp3 trump CDs?
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      With high quality mp3s, dynamic range is no longer a perceptible difference.
    - KennyBlanken 5y ago
      Because at a certain bitrate it is impossible for listeners to distinguish it from the uncompressed audio. I think at 160kbit for mp3 damn near 99% of the population couldn't tell even with a very high quality set of gear. With AAC and other modern codecs it's probably closer to 128. For me the biggest annoyance is that some bluetooth audio codecs are pretty trash (thankfully most everything supports the ones that are decent), you can't configure any of it or even tell what codec has been negotiated between your phone and stereo, and I don't think any car company publishes what codecs their radios support.
LeoPanthera 5y ago
This comes up every year. It's not true. It's only true by value, because records cost a lot more than CDs do. By unit sales, CDs are still outselling records, and both are irrelevant when compared to streaming revenue.
- klelatti 5y ago
  This may have been true last year but is no longer true - see comment by lastofthemojito
gpcr1949 5y ago
What is interesting about this to me is that 99.9% of music mastered and produced in 2021 has a digital step somewhere along the chain i.e. whatever perceived technical advantage the physical medium has in terms of sound fidelity is actually not really there and in any case limited by digital to analog conversion and vice versa. Vinyl as a music format has certain limitations [0] which will mean that even a perfect digital master may have some problems that need to be addressed to not cause problems when pressing to vinyl. I certainly understand the appeal of a nice physical package, though I project that sometime soon, the humble cdr might make a comeback and satisfy that need too. From my acquaintances involved with releasing stuff on vinyl I know that for a few years there have been huge queues and delays at all common pressing plants, which seems to match with the data reported in the tweet. [0] https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-vinyl-tips-for-digital-mastering-engineers.html https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-vinyl-tips-fo...
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  Most professionally recorded music is recorded and mastered at 24-bit resolution, which has a theoretical maximum SNR of 144.49 dB. Fresh virgin vinyl has an SNR of 70 dB, which reduces each time it is played. Even 16-bit audio (96.33 dB) exceeds the SNR of vinyl recording.
  - gpcr1949 5y ago
    To be clear, I'm not arguing vinyl is a superior format, personally I strongly believe a humble (and typical) 16bit 44.1 KHz "consumer cd" type ready for delivery digital file is for 99.9% of listener use cases completely fine, and in any case far superior over any practical analog medium including vinyl. This is why I added "perceived" to the supposed technical advantages of vinyl. From the audio quality point of view, to me there is no point to using vinyl even if the chain is fully analog. It's just a funny thought to me that whatever claims of analog superiority (however fake or misguided they may be) are undone anyway by the digital part of the chain.
  - zepolen 5y ago
    Vinyl is analog, this means it has infinity SNR, the audio store salesman assured me this before I purchased a $20,000+ pickup. You do not understand music, my hdmi cables cost $1,000, so as you can see, I understand music.
shampto3 5y ago
Like a lot of people, I don't buy a lot of music anymore now that streaming is so easy. But when I do buy music, I buy a vinyl. And it's not because of the sound quality, because I can't tell the difference. I buy vinyl because I like having a large version of the album artwork. Most vinyl albums come with a digital copy of the music, which is what I use to actually listen to the album (if not on a streaming platform). I rarely listen to the actual vinyl version. There's not really a reason for me to buy a CD. I can just buy the digital version and store it on my Plex server if I want just the music. If I want the physical copy, I want it to look really nice so I go with vinyl.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  > Most vinyl albums come with a digital copy of the music Been a while. What does that mean? They put a download URL or cheap SD Card in the package?
  - drdrey 5y ago
    If you buy a vinyl through Bandcamp, the album automatically gets added to your account, which is pretty neat.
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    Depends Most come with a URL and a download code. Bandcamo automatically gives you the digital if you buy a record through the service. Amazon used to have "auto rip" where you could download the digital from Amazon music if you bought some records from them. I haven't seen that in a while though
- BuildTheRobots 5y ago
  It sounds silly, but I find it extremely comforting to know I can play back my vinyl using entirely mechanical components. I don't expect the world to forget how to decode mp3s, or even loose the ability to generate electric to power my computers/storage to retrieve it. But, in the event all technology collapsing I've got a vibration trapped in a piece of vinyl, and I can play back by scraping a nail over it. There's something quite beautifully "pure" or simple about this. As much as analogue audio tape is doing similar, vinyl is a physical waveform. Sure, in any world where this could happen there's going to be far more important things to worry about than playing back Paul Simon, but it seems easier to believe I could build a gramophone from first principals than a CD player. Comforting.
rossdavidh 5y ago
Last I checked (a few years back), vinyl sales were also supply-limited rather than demand-limited, since there was (again, last I checked) a shortage of equipment for producing vinyl records. If the supply capacity had been available, vinyl would have passed CD's a few years ago. Of course, this year sales of just about everything are supply-limited...
aidenn0 5y ago
What I want to know is, if CDs are so unpopular now, why is it so hard to find used CDs for sail? I can buy DVDs and BluRays off of craigslist for cheaper than CDs...
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Not sure but, but music has higher repeatability than movies. Amazon is an option for used.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  Find some used record stores (they usually sell any used media) in your area. You'll usually find prices way below what you're going to find online. Even when the unit price is on par with online prices you're not paying any shipping.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Yeah, the last used record store in town went out of business 5 years ago.
AlbertCory 5y ago
I thought I'd posted this, but now I don't see it, so: I bought 100 boxes for shipping records, and listed my collection on Discogs. Now I've used up all the boxes. For me, I digitized the ones I wanted, and now they're on a microSD card in my phone. That works for me, since I can play it in the car, but I'm happy that someone who really wanted the vinyl now has it. I know I never played them. A brand new vinyl record? I doubt it's worth it, but hey, if that's what you like, go for it.
cosmotic 5y ago
Wait till the Gen-Z-ers discover CDs where with superior sound, durability, and the ability to skip tracks.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sidpatil 5y ago
  I'm all about CDs. I can play them in my car without worrying about battery levels or data caps.
  - TacticalCoder 5y ago
    Same... Except that in addition to a CD player my car also has its own "jukebox": a HDD on which I can upload either mp3 or wav files (but no FLAC sadly). The nav system shares the same HDD. To me its great: it's just enough technology, while still being off the big nasty Internet grid. No worries about neither battery levels nor data caps nor corporate surveillance.
    - grillvogel 5y ago
      I've got a ~10 year old audi with the HDD as well as Dual SD Card Readers. When i first bought it I thought that was absurd, but now that i have it loaded up with multiple 128GB SD cards its actually a pretty good feature.
- FalconSensei 5y ago
  But, if I want digital, and ability to skip tracks, I can just stream, no?
  - cosmotic 5y ago
    Most streaming services offer streams that are less than the quality of CDs since CDs are uncompressed PCM. I don't know what compression streaming services use and most people probably couldn't tell the difference between them and CDs. Though, with CDs, you own the license forever, there's no DRM, and you never have to pay again. You can use the music however you want within fair use.
squarefoot 5y ago
How good is the quality of newly reissued vinyl of old material? I'm not making comparisons to digital or CD versions but to old vinyl issues. The reason is that I heard from multiple sources that new vinyl records quality isn't on par with original ones. Did anyone experience that? If true, might it be related to new records being printed off a mastering copy that was intended for CDs?
- philistine 5y ago
  I know one recent example: Billie Eilish's record was supposed to sound bad on vinyl because it was not mastered for the format. If it happened to her, I'm sure it happens all the time.
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    Thanks, I hope they don't sound like many records from the mid-late 90s whose duration was aligned to the CD version, around 1 hour, and therefore the print had to reduce significantly the grooves width and space between them to fit the material on a single record. This was accomplished also by lowering the sound level, therefore ruining the already not great signal to noise ratio of that media.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Both are now nostalgia formats, and Vinyl is nostalgia for people with more money and free time. So, wins.
philistine 5y ago
I understand the people buying Vinyl. It's a beautiful piece of decorated cardboard. It has a sentimental effect on you. But who is still buying CDs?
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  Several of us in this thread. My reason is simple: I do like the "CD quality" and do like to own my music. I do buy CDs and I do rip them to FLAC (for listening at home and as a backup) and convert them to mp3 for my silly car (which accepts mp3 and wav but not FLAC). I do agree that vinyls do look better though.
  - mahoho 5y ago
    Do you?
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    I have a pioneer car stereo that plays flac.
- onecommentman 5y ago
  I, for one. I still own well over 1500 vinyl albums from the 1960s to 1980s. (From a tape mastering service that closed down in the 1990s, so pristine vinyl, radio stations would play the tapes made from the records.) Sentimental value…never played now. Own lots of music digitally purchased or copied from owned CDs. Over the years most of the transferred-from-CD music has been replaced by purchased digital for the convenience of using iTunes. My iTunes library is very large. I can listen to my library for half a year without ever repeating a track. I own 1000+ CDs. And I regularly purchase more. Often after having purchased one or more tracks from the album online. If I find an entire album I really like, I don’t mind the expense of purchasing a CD and online content. But it has to be really good and an artist I want to support. 1. I don’t need an Internet connection to play my CD. A $30 CD player will suffice. 2. My CD will still be making its music freely available for 50-100 years. 3. There is no recurring per-use/per-month fee for playing my CD. 4. No company can arbitrarily make my CD music unavailable. 5. My CD tracks are good enough sound quality for me, except perhaps loudness war legacy tracks. Skip-free, scratch-free, high fidelity, great dynamic range. On a $30 CD player. 6. My CD isn’t part of any playlist market manipulation. My CD isn’t trying to sell me anything other than itself. It’s all about the music, man. 7. I can resell my CD if I so choose to someone else who shares my interest in my CD. After deleting any backup digital copy I may have made of my CD. 8. My CD is part of a simple musical ecosystem. I can take my CD from my home stereo to my portable player to my car player without Internet glitches or firmware updates or software incompatibilities or rights management nightmares. 9. My new CD costs $15-20, as little as $2-3 in boxed sets or used. One time, upfront. Every use for the next 50 years or more costs nothing…it doesn’t degrade with wear. 10. With CD changers, a set of my CDs can provide much of the same functions as online or streaming playlists. For a one-time $150 cost. No Internet. No hassles. 11. My CDs reflect and physically document my (hopefully) evolved taste in music. I do trust other music enthusiasts’ recommendations on what I might eventually purchase, but wouldn’t trust your average SV algorithm for immediate shut-up-and-listen playlists. I like my CDs. I selectively want to add to my collection. And the relative difficulty in getting used CDs that are out-of-print nowadays suggests that others share my predilection. My CD collection might be worth today more than its original purchase price, or may be in the future if streaming doesn’t clean up its act.
fmakunbound 5y ago
I love vinyl vs. whatever threads. Rationality flies out the window and everyone spontaneously grows golden ears, except they can’t hear pops and hisses with them.
Arubis 5y ago
My favorite detail about vinyl is precisely the counter-narrative to how CDs were marketed when they first landed: they are impermanent. Playing a vinyl record is a physically destructive process, so every time you listen to a record, that’s the best it will ever sound again. I personally find that alluring; it helps me listen more attentively. Disclaimer: I no longer own any physical media music; mine was lost years ago, and acquiring more stuff doesn’t play nice with raising young kids.
jensgk 5y ago
Vinyl record is just a temporary fad. CDs will be the next thing. After all the only advantage vinyl records have over CD's is the bigger artwork on their covers. All the disadvantages: worse sound, scratches, getting worse for each play, storage, maintenance of the record and record player etc. will come back in mind. People would still like to own their favorite music, however, both because you can't always rely on streaming having the right edition of your favorite records, but also because you can show off your collection as a cultural signifier in your home, - just like books.
- lc9er 5y ago
  The sound quality is worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s not preferable. If you listen to music with a decent dynamic range and has some breathing room, then the sonic qualities of vinyl can enhance that. The same goes for cassettes. There’s been a (small) resurgence of cassettes, mostly from heavier types of music. There’s something about the harshness and hiss to tapes that fits really well with metal and punk. As to the collection thing - a buddy has a growing vinyl collection and a decent, mid-range stereo that he pieces together. It’s a system much like my dad put together when I was growing up. Listening to music on a real sound system that you’ve tweaked to a particular room is a far more rewarding experience than ear buds or even the best headphones. I find headphones to be isolating and uncomfortable after a short time. And playing music from a phone speaker is dreadful.
  - dbtc 5y ago
    I'm still not sure if I agree with McLuhan that "the medium is the message", but I think it is definitely at least part of the message. There will always be something special about a first edition, an original manuscript, and hearing music on its native media. And between headphones, phone speakers, audiophile sound systems, and live music, I choose all of them.
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    I think that playing music on real speakers and 'for the room' is the actual magic. If you put the same time and energy into just setting up a decent stereo system that works well then the medium doesn't mater.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
I buy vinyl mostly to support artists (I maintain a streaming account too because it's more convinient), but also because I inherited my mom's collection and my kids will be able to inherit mine. I've got vinyl from 60 years ago that still plays just fine. It's like a book for music really. Plus they look nice. It's a fine medium.
beezischillin 5y ago
I just ordered a turntable and some records recently, I caved. Not gonna lie, I love the ritual and physicality of it. I'm just going to go bankrupt because I can't help myself :)
visiblink 5y ago
The formats have different qualities. I buy records because I like physical objects and reading the liner notes. I've been listening to music, sitting in the midst of a pile of records, since the 70s. But I buy CDs too -- mostly used -- because it's a great, inexpensive way to get high bitrate music.
anm89 5y ago
I can't believe it's even close. Who the hell is still is buying CD's ?
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  I buy them. They get immediately ripped but now I have uncompressed audio originals, compressed versions with the settings I want, and an album's worth of music played in the order intended by the artist. Streaming individual tracks sucks for live albums and concept pieces that depend on the flow between tracks.
  - anm89 5y ago
    I'm honestly shocked that anyone even still makes them. Like I don't even own a device that is capable of reading a CD anymore. I'd imagine 90+ plus of Americans don't. Interesting anyway.
    - mixmastamyk 5y ago
      I don't have a single tool for woodworking, or uhh, knitting, or a piece of jewelry. They all exist, I'm told.
analog31 5y ago
I tend to follow musicians who are outside of the popular mainstream, such as fiddling, chamber music, jazz, etc. Many of the musicians still bring a briefcase full of CDs to each performance. I have asked them the hypothetical: Suppose I want to buy your recording but want you to get the biggest possible cut of the sale. Should I buy the CD or a download? Answer: The CD. It is very hard for them to make money from streaming. Something like that might be happening in other musical genres that I'm not as familiar with. If people are buying vinyl but digital music is effectively free, then of course vinyl will have more sales than digital.
- techsupporter 5y ago
  > Should I buy the CD or a download? > Answer: The CD. It is very hard for them to make money from streaming. For what it's worth, and I am not a musician and maybe every deal is different, the people I know who earn a living from playing music have told me that buying the physical CD or buying a digital download from an online store like iTunes or HDTracks nets them within a dollar or two of the same payout. There's a substantial, as we all know, earnings difference between buying a CD and streaming the artist on a platform like Spotify or Apple Music. But the difference between buying the CD and buying a set of MP3s or FLACs or the like is, supposedly, far smaller. (If your preferred artist is on BandCamp, I've been told it's even smaller or almost to the point that the CD makes them less money than the download.)
  - anyfoo 5y ago
    That's what I heard from a musical artist (who is quite successful in their niche), too: The money from streaming is surprisingly little, so fans who want to support them should buy the music in whatever medium (CD, vinyl, download...). They do put a lot of emphasis on their vinyl records, though. I don't know whether that's because it's also the most popular (you get the big physical disk with artwork and everything and a download code included), or whether that nets them more. I can ask.
brailsafe 5y ago
I don't know where I'd buy a new CD, but somehow there's still a vinyl store just down the street. Maybe Best Buy still has a CD section? Idk
Fezzik 5y ago
The incongruity of there consistently being anti-plastic and also pro-record articles and comments on HN has me scratching my head. Do people not care that records are made of PVC and that the pressing process results in loads of toxic chemicals or does their weird obsession with a clunky format and bad audio justify all the negatives? I am truly perplexed by this one. Edit: grammar.
krylon 5y ago
This makes sense. I have not bought a CD in well over a decade, because high bitrate MP3 or FLAC are so much more convenient. I doubt a lot of people buy CDs because they like CDs. Vinyl is something else, though, especially if you consider electronic music and DJ culture. And then there's people who insist Vinyl just sounds better, which may or may not be a placebo effect. And I remember when CDs became popular, some people complained that Vinyl was just more aesthetically pleasing because of the cover art and picture discs. So yeah, it makes sense. I guess Vinyl is going to stay around much longer than CDs.

119 points by ofou 5y ago

Take me out to the black, Tell them I ain't comin back. Burn the land and boil the sea, You can't take CDs from me. ~~ (My 35yo CD still sounds like it did the first time.)

crossroadsguy 5y ago

Simply put - nobody wants/needs CDs. They are too bloody fragile and get damaged real fast. At least that's how I remember them based on my experience with them years ago. So let's say CD usage is going towards ZERO. Vinyl is more of a fad/hobby/experience/collection thingie? So their sale is going up i.e above ZERO?

anyfoo 5y ago
They do?! I don't remember that. Damaged CDs that would skip or hang were not super uncommon, but they had to take quite a lot of abuse until problems even became audible. But especially in comparison with vinyl records, which was the context here, CDs seemed almost indestructible. It was one of their selling points: Even visibly fine vinyl records still skip sometimes, while a CD that picked up tons of scratches sitting on someone's desk would still play fine. Not a big surprise given that CDs have their data with lots of redundance below a protective coat, while on a vinyl record the surface is the data...
mixmastamyk 5y ago
None of my CDs are damaged, well maybe one out of a hundred? I mean, you do have to put them back in the case after listening.

CarVac 5y ago

I can't trust CDs or digital downloads to not be Loudness War mastered.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
This is often overlooked. In many cases vinyl gives much better dynamic range than CD or WEB rips.
ehutch79 5y ago
This is changing. You can actually thank youtube and spotify for the win here. Since they normalize volumes, there's no point to try and make things as high volume as possible. you're actually better making a fuller sounding track that uses the dynamic range.
- glenstein 5y ago
  You're right, and that's genuine good work by YouTube and spotify. I wonder, though, if that practice has had any ripple effect into recorded mediums such as cds?
moogly 5y ago
Many vinyl releases use the digital master.
- CarVac 5y ago
  And yet the newly released album I just bought has plenty of dynamic range on the vinyl and heavily clipped FLAC downloads.
  - moogly 5y ago
    I'm glad you like that particular album. You used the word "trust". Just pointing out that you can't always trust the audio that was cut to vinyl to not just be the same old "loudness war" master. However, as someone else pointed out, the peak (heh) of the "loudness war" has been over for a while now. That doesn't mean there aren't new albums (be it on vinyl or CD, or lossless digital) that are still terribly mixed and mastered. After all, it's easier than ever to get your music to be published these days.
5y ago

sys_64738 5y ago

I only buy CDs and haven't bought an LP since 1992.

criddell 5y ago

This is US only. CDs are much more popular in a lot of other countries.

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago

I started collecting vinyl as a preteen in the mid 2000s because I was (and still am) into rave music and at that time vinyl was THE format to find it on. I’m not sure if I got in before the greater vinyl revival, but I wonder if it will prove to have just been a bubble, or if there are really enough audiophiles, DJs, etc to keep it going once the hipster chic wears off (if it hasn’t already)

lastofthemojito 5y ago

I initially thought that because the graph cites "Revenues by format" that it likely meant that CDs were still selling more units than vinyl records. But it appears that's not the case. At least according to another RIAA doc, in 1H 2021 they shipped 16.1m CDs and 17m LP/EPs. https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Mid-Year-2021-RIAA-Music-Revenue-Report.pdf https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Mid-Year-202...

LeoPanthera 5y ago
...in the USA.

scarecrowbob 5y ago

As a musician, I've always been just used CDs as a surface for which people can feel good about giving me a bigger tip at the small places I play; lots of folks are fine with high markups on merch, but won't tip musicians at all for some reason. I've been on vinyl albums... I don't think they are great for a lot of reasons. They do encourage folks to give you money, though. And they certainly show a commitment to artistry that CDs never quite had. If you just want the music, streaming is better on almost every front. If you collect them and need to move, they get to be super heavy. They are bad for the environment. Your acoustics are probably the limiting factor in your listening environment, so on and so forth. It's an interesting moment to mark, to me, not because vinyl is selling more, but because the industry is doing so poorly in general that the relatively niche format has overtaken what was the dominant physical medium for decades. That is to say, this is the point where we might understand physical recording distribution to have finally died.

bonestamp2 5y ago
Vinyl is about active listening. Yes, it's much easier to put on a CD or stream the music, but when I want to sit down and really listen to the music... Vinyl is the perfect medium for that ritual. It's about the more visceral experience, not the fidelity or simplicity.
xondono 5y ago
> And they certainly show a commitment to artistry that CDs never quite had. To me that’s one of the ironies of the whole thing. Producing vinyl records is way harder for a starting up musician. I don’t know how hard is to get listed on Spotify/Apple Music, but I would be curious about if starting has become easier or harder in net terms.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Adam Savage did a pretty cool tour video[0] where he went through the Third Man Record's vinyl production process. It's not a particularly deep dive into the processes used, but it gives a great idea of how much work it takes to publish truly analogue recordings. Plus, Jack White makes an appearance to chat about the ways digital recording shaped music production. I don't really like vinyl that much either, but I love music and simply can't help but respect the few people dedicated to such an arduous process. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF4A4wdnXkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF4A4wdnXkU

filoleg 5y ago

My personal pet theory: CDs were kind of like an in-between format between vinyls (nice and feel good, but inconvenient and not as mobile) and hard digital storage/streaming (zero feeling, because it is just digital files on your storage device or streamed to you, but super convenient on the go). Until we all got devices that became able to stream music or upload music to it, CD addressed the mobility problem. But streaming/file storage is definitely a way more mobile and convenient solution than CDs in every way. With a more convenient option such as streaming, all the benefits that CD provided over vinyl became meaningless, as streaming/file storage beat it in every aspect. But vinyl still stayed, as it provides something that neither CDs nor streaming/digital file storage can provide. So as CDs got wiped as a medium, vinyl rose back. I have observed a similar situation in a completely different industry too. More specifically, with book stores. Before big bookstore chains, we had a lot of independent small book stores (following my earlier analogy, the vinyl). Big chain book stores started appearing and dominating, such as Barnes&Noble (the CD), squeezing out smaller independent book stores. Then came Amazon (the streaming/digital file storage, still following my earlier analogy with music), wiped the floor with the in-betweener medium (Barnes&Noble), and the number of small independent book stores (vinyl) has increased over that entire time period as the in-betweener got wiped. For specific numbers, the number of small independent book stores in the US has increased by about 50% over the past decade (from around 1,600 to 2,500)[0]. Unlike with the in-betweener formats, the original ones will always have something to provide that the future iteration of a "more advanced format" (CD=>streaming) won't be able to provide. And with this in mind, I am happy, as it indicates that physical books and vinyls will be here to stay (albeit not for mainstream usage, but as personal preference pieces for enthusiasts). This isn't some hard rule that is guaranteed to be the case forever, but the current numbers and observations seem to support the idea that this trend will likely last for quite a long time, beyond lifetimes of people currently alive. That's just a pure guess based on the gut feeling. 0. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2020/02/12/how-indie-bookstores-beat-amazon-at-the-bookselling-game-lessons-here-for-every-retailer/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2020/02/12/how-indi...

dTal 5y ago
>all the benefits that CD provided over vinyl became meaningless, as streaming/file storage beat it in every aspect The sound quality of CDs is superior to any stream. But alas, "worse is better".

p1mrx 5y ago

Makes sense to me. If you're going to collect music in the form of physical objects, then it might as well be physically encoded. Otherwise, you can just fill a hard drive with FLACs and make backups. CDs are in the "uncanny valley" of digital, but impermanent.

criddell 5y ago
I still buy CDs for a lot of the same reasons people buy vinyl. * I like the physical interaction with my music (choosing the CD, putting it in the player, pressing play and getting 40-60 minutes of music) * I like the artwork and liner notes (although the larger format of records wins there) * I like the record store experience I prefer CDs to vinyl because they sound better IMHO, are more durable, can be backed up and re-burned as needed, and are (slightly) smaller.
- p1mrx 5y ago
  If the music industry could figure out a model where you bring a vinyl record to the store, and they give you a lossless digital copy, then that would be the best of both worlds. Basically the record serves as a physical license key. You could also have a smart turntable with a camera on it, that automatically cues the digital version of any known record.
  - criddell 5y ago
    A lot of records come with download codes already. People who want a physical way of interacting with their digital collection have done things like print tiny record sleeves that contain an NFC chip. Hold the sleeve up to your reader (like your phone) and that triggers the the songs on that record to play.

klelatti 5y ago

Another theory - CDs popularity was always mainly about convenience and not sound quality. They lose out massively to streaming on this. Streaming leaves music fans with money left over to spend and they buy vinyl to have something nice looking to put on the shelf (and play occasionally).

WalterBright 5y ago
I prefer CDs to vinyl because: 1. higher dynamic range needed for classical music 2. don't have to clean the disk every time I play it 3. doesn't skip 4. no snap crackle pop that happens even on the first play 5. vinyl takes up too much space 6. the needle doesn't turn into a furball after a few plays 7. the needle doesn't need to be replaced after 300 plays 8. the speakers don't cause feedback with the needle 9. you don't need to tread softly lest the needle picks that up mp3s, however, trump CDs.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  > dynamic range > mp3s, however, trump CDs. What? If CD's have better dynamic range than vinyl then how does mp3 trump CDs?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    With high quality mp3s, dynamic range is no longer a perceptible difference.
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Because at a certain bitrate it is impossible for listeners to distinguish it from the uncompressed audio. I think at 160kbit for mp3 damn near 99% of the population couldn't tell even with a very high quality set of gear. With AAC and other modern codecs it's probably closer to 128. For me the biggest annoyance is that some bluetooth audio codecs are pretty trash (thankfully most everything supports the ones that are decent), you can't configure any of it or even tell what codec has been negotiated between your phone and stereo, and I don't think any car company publishes what codecs their radios support.

LeoPanthera 5y ago

This comes up every year. It's not true. It's only true by value, because records cost a lot more than CDs do. By unit sales, CDs are still outselling records, and both are irrelevant when compared to streaming revenue.

klelatti 5y ago
This may have been true last year but is no longer true - see comment by lastofthemojito

gpcr1949 5y ago

What is interesting about this to me is that 99.9% of music mastered and produced in 2021 has a digital step somewhere along the chain i.e. whatever perceived technical advantage the physical medium has in terms of sound fidelity is actually not really there and in any case limited by digital to analog conversion and vice versa. Vinyl as a music format has certain limitations [0] which will mean that even a perfect digital master may have some problems that need to be addressed to not cause problems when pressing to vinyl. I certainly understand the appeal of a nice physical package, though I project that sometime soon, the humble cdr might make a comeback and satisfy that need too. From my acquaintances involved with releasing stuff on vinyl I know that for a few years there have been huge queues and delays at all common pressing plants, which seems to match with the data reported in the tweet. [0] https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-vinyl-tips-for-digital-mastering-engineers.html https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-vinyl-tips-fo...

LeoPanthera 5y ago
Most professionally recorded music is recorded and mastered at 24-bit resolution, which has a theoretical maximum SNR of 144.49 dB. Fresh virgin vinyl has an SNR of 70 dB, which reduces each time it is played. Even 16-bit audio (96.33 dB) exceeds the SNR of vinyl recording.
- gpcr1949 5y ago
  To be clear, I'm not arguing vinyl is a superior format, personally I strongly believe a humble (and typical) 16bit 44.1 KHz "consumer cd" type ready for delivery digital file is for 99.9% of listener use cases completely fine, and in any case far superior over any practical analog medium including vinyl. This is why I added "perceived" to the supposed technical advantages of vinyl. From the audio quality point of view, to me there is no point to using vinyl even if the chain is fully analog. It's just a funny thought to me that whatever claims of analog superiority (however fake or misguided they may be) are undone anyway by the digital part of the chain.
- zepolen 5y ago
  Vinyl is analog, this means it has infinity SNR, the audio store salesman assured me this before I purchased a $20,000+ pickup. You do not understand music, my hdmi cables cost $1,000, so as you can see, I understand music.

shampto3 5y ago

Like a lot of people, I don't buy a lot of music anymore now that streaming is so easy. But when I do buy music, I buy a vinyl. And it's not because of the sound quality, because I can't tell the difference. I buy vinyl because I like having a large version of the album artwork. Most vinyl albums come with a digital copy of the music, which is what I use to actually listen to the album (if not on a streaming platform). I rarely listen to the actual vinyl version. There's not really a reason for me to buy a CD. I can just buy the digital version and store it on my Plex server if I want just the music. If I want the physical copy, I want it to look really nice so I go with vinyl.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
> Most vinyl albums come with a digital copy of the music Been a while. What does that mean? They put a download URL or cheap SD Card in the package?
- drdrey 5y ago
  If you buy a vinyl through Bandcamp, the album automatically gets added to your account, which is pretty neat.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  Depends Most come with a URL and a download code. Bandcamo automatically gives you the digital if you buy a record through the service. Amazon used to have "auto rip" where you could download the digital from Amazon music if you bought some records from them. I haven't seen that in a while though
BuildTheRobots 5y ago
It sounds silly, but I find it extremely comforting to know I can play back my vinyl using entirely mechanical components. I don't expect the world to forget how to decode mp3s, or even loose the ability to generate electric to power my computers/storage to retrieve it. But, in the event all technology collapsing I've got a vibration trapped in a piece of vinyl, and I can play back by scraping a nail over it. There's something quite beautifully "pure" or simple about this. As much as analogue audio tape is doing similar, vinyl is a physical waveform. Sure, in any world where this could happen there's going to be far more important things to worry about than playing back Paul Simon, but it seems easier to believe I could build a gramophone from first principals than a CD player. Comforting.

rossdavidh 5y ago

Last I checked (a few years back), vinyl sales were also supply-limited rather than demand-limited, since there was (again, last I checked) a shortage of equipment for producing vinyl records. If the supply capacity had been available, vinyl would have passed CD's a few years ago. Of course, this year sales of just about everything are supply-limited...

aidenn0 5y ago

What I want to know is, if CDs are so unpopular now, why is it so hard to find used CDs for sail? I can buy DVDs and BluRays off of craigslist for cheaper than CDs...

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Not sure but, but music has higher repeatability than movies. Amazon is an option for used.
giantrobot 5y ago
Find some used record stores (they usually sell any used media) in your area. You'll usually find prices way below what you're going to find online. Even when the unit price is on par with online prices you're not paying any shipping.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  Yeah, the last used record store in town went out of business 5 years ago.

AlbertCory 5y ago

I thought I'd posted this, but now I don't see it, so: I bought 100 boxes for shipping records, and listed my collection on Discogs. Now I've used up all the boxes. For me, I digitized the ones I wanted, and now they're on a microSD card in my phone. That works for me, since I can play it in the car, but I'm happy that someone who really wanted the vinyl now has it. I know I never played them. A brand new vinyl record? I doubt it's worth it, but hey, if that's what you like, go for it.

cosmotic 5y ago

Wait till the Gen-Z-ers discover CDs where with superior sound, durability, and the ability to skip tracks.

deleted 5y ago
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sidpatil 5y ago
I'm all about CDs. I can play them in my car without worrying about battery levels or data caps.
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  Same... Except that in addition to a CD player my car also has its own "jukebox": a HDD on which I can upload either mp3 or wav files (but no FLAC sadly). The nav system shares the same HDD. To me its great: it's just enough technology, while still being off the big nasty Internet grid. No worries about neither battery levels nor data caps nor corporate surveillance.
  - grillvogel 5y ago
    I've got a ~10 year old audi with the HDD as well as Dual SD Card Readers. When i first bought it I thought that was absurd, but now that i have it loaded up with multiple 128GB SD cards its actually a pretty good feature.
FalconSensei 5y ago
But, if I want digital, and ability to skip tracks, I can just stream, no?
- cosmotic 5y ago
  Most streaming services offer streams that are less than the quality of CDs since CDs are uncompressed PCM. I don't know what compression streaming services use and most people probably couldn't tell the difference between them and CDs. Though, with CDs, you own the license forever, there's no DRM, and you never have to pay again. You can use the music however you want within fair use.

squarefoot 5y ago

How good is the quality of newly reissued vinyl of old material? I'm not making comparisons to digital or CD versions but to old vinyl issues. The reason is that I heard from multiple sources that new vinyl records quality isn't on par with original ones. Did anyone experience that? If true, might it be related to new records being printed off a mastering copy that was intended for CDs?

philistine 5y ago
I know one recent example: Billie Eilish's record was supposed to sound bad on vinyl because it was not mastered for the format. If it happened to her, I'm sure it happens all the time.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  Thanks, I hope they don't sound like many records from the mid-late 90s whose duration was aligned to the CD version, around 1 hour, and therefore the print had to reduce significantly the grooves width and space between them to fit the material on a single record. This was accomplished also by lowering the sound level, therefore ruining the already not great signal to noise ratio of that media.

dragonwriter 5y ago

Both are now nostalgia formats, and Vinyl is nostalgia for people with more money and free time. So, wins.

philistine 5y ago

I understand the people buying Vinyl. It's a beautiful piece of decorated cardboard. It has a sentimental effect on you. But who is still buying CDs?

TacticalCoder 5y ago
Several of us in this thread. My reason is simple: I do like the "CD quality" and do like to own my music. I do buy CDs and I do rip them to FLAC (for listening at home and as a backup) and convert them to mp3 for my silly car (which accepts mp3 and wav but not FLAC). I do agree that vinyls do look better though.
- mahoho 5y ago
  Do you?
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  I have a pioneer car stereo that plays flac.
onecommentman 5y ago
I, for one. I still own well over 1500 vinyl albums from the 1960s to 1980s. (From a tape mastering service that closed down in the 1990s, so pristine vinyl, radio stations would play the tapes made from the records.) Sentimental value…never played now. Own lots of music digitally purchased or copied from owned CDs. Over the years most of the transferred-from-CD music has been replaced by purchased digital for the convenience of using iTunes. My iTunes library is very large. I can listen to my library for half a year without ever repeating a track. I own 1000+ CDs. And I regularly purchase more. Often after having purchased one or more tracks from the album online. If I find an entire album I really like, I don’t mind the expense of purchasing a CD and online content. But it has to be really good and an artist I want to support. 1. I don’t need an Internet connection to play my CD. A $30 CD player will suffice. 2. My CD will still be making its music freely available for 50-100 years. 3. There is no recurring per-use/per-month fee for playing my CD. 4. No company can arbitrarily make my CD music unavailable. 5. My CD tracks are good enough sound quality for me, except perhaps loudness war legacy tracks. Skip-free, scratch-free, high fidelity, great dynamic range. On a $30 CD player. 6. My CD isn’t part of any playlist market manipulation. My CD isn’t trying to sell me anything other than itself. It’s all about the music, man. 7. I can resell my CD if I so choose to someone else who shares my interest in my CD. After deleting any backup digital copy I may have made of my CD. 8. My CD is part of a simple musical ecosystem. I can take my CD from my home stereo to my portable player to my car player without Internet glitches or firmware updates or software incompatibilities or rights management nightmares. 9. My new CD costs $15-20, as little as $2-3 in boxed sets or used. One time, upfront. Every use for the next 50 years or more costs nothing…it doesn’t degrade with wear. 10. With CD changers, a set of my CDs can provide much of the same functions as online or streaming playlists. For a one-time $150 cost. No Internet. No hassles. 11. My CDs reflect and physically document my (hopefully) evolved taste in music. I do trust other music enthusiasts’ recommendations on what I might eventually purchase, but wouldn’t trust your average SV algorithm for immediate shut-up-and-listen playlists. I like my CDs. I selectively want to add to my collection. And the relative difficulty in getting used CDs that are out-of-print nowadays suggests that others share my predilection. My CD collection might be worth today more than its original purchase price, or may be in the future if streaming doesn’t clean up its act.

fmakunbound 5y ago

I love vinyl vs. whatever threads. Rationality flies out the window and everyone spontaneously grows golden ears, except they can’t hear pops and hisses with them.

Arubis 5y ago

My favorite detail about vinyl is precisely the counter-narrative to how CDs were marketed when they first landed: they are impermanent. Playing a vinyl record is a physically destructive process, so every time you listen to a record, that’s the best it will ever sound again. I personally find that alluring; it helps me listen more attentively. Disclaimer: I no longer own any physical media music; mine was lost years ago, and acquiring more stuff doesn’t play nice with raising young kids.

jensgk 5y ago

Vinyl record is just a temporary fad. CDs will be the next thing. After all the only advantage vinyl records have over CD's is the bigger artwork on their covers. All the disadvantages: worse sound, scratches, getting worse for each play, storage, maintenance of the record and record player etc. will come back in mind. People would still like to own their favorite music, however, both because you can't always rely on streaming having the right edition of your favorite records, but also because you can show off your collection as a cultural signifier in your home, - just like books.

lc9er 5y ago
The sound quality is worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s not preferable. If you listen to music with a decent dynamic range and has some breathing room, then the sonic qualities of vinyl can enhance that. The same goes for cassettes. There’s been a (small) resurgence of cassettes, mostly from heavier types of music. There’s something about the harshness and hiss to tapes that fits really well with metal and punk. As to the collection thing - a buddy has a growing vinyl collection and a decent, mid-range stereo that he pieces together. It’s a system much like my dad put together when I was growing up. Listening to music on a real sound system that you’ve tweaked to a particular room is a far more rewarding experience than ear buds or even the best headphones. I find headphones to be isolating and uncomfortable after a short time. And playing music from a phone speaker is dreadful.
- dbtc 5y ago
  I'm still not sure if I agree with McLuhan that "the medium is the message", but I think it is definitely at least part of the message. There will always be something special about a first edition, an original manuscript, and hearing music on its native media. And between headphones, phone speakers, audiophile sound systems, and live music, I choose all of them.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  I think that playing music on real speakers and 'for the room' is the actual magic. If you put the same time and energy into just setting up a decent stereo system that works well then the medium doesn't mater.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

I buy vinyl mostly to support artists (I maintain a streaming account too because it's more convinient), but also because I inherited my mom's collection and my kids will be able to inherit mine. I've got vinyl from 60 years ago that still plays just fine. It's like a book for music really. Plus they look nice. It's a fine medium.

beezischillin 5y ago

I just ordered a turntable and some records recently, I caved. Not gonna lie, I love the ritual and physicality of it. I'm just going to go bankrupt because I can't help myself :)

visiblink 5y ago

The formats have different qualities. I buy records because I like physical objects and reading the liner notes. I've been listening to music, sitting in the midst of a pile of records, since the 70s. But I buy CDs too -- mostly used -- because it's a great, inexpensive way to get high bitrate music.

anm89 5y ago

I can't believe it's even close. Who the hell is still is buying CD's ?

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
I buy them. They get immediately ripped but now I have uncompressed audio originals, compressed versions with the settings I want, and an album's worth of music played in the order intended by the artist. Streaming individual tracks sucks for live albums and concept pieces that depend on the flow between tracks.
- anm89 5y ago
  I'm honestly shocked that anyone even still makes them. Like I don't even own a device that is capable of reading a CD anymore. I'd imagine 90+ plus of Americans don't. Interesting anyway.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    I don't have a single tool for woodworking, or uhh, knitting, or a piece of jewelry. They all exist, I'm told.

analog31 5y ago

I tend to follow musicians who are outside of the popular mainstream, such as fiddling, chamber music, jazz, etc. Many of the musicians still bring a briefcase full of CDs to each performance. I have asked them the hypothetical: Suppose I want to buy your recording but want you to get the biggest possible cut of the sale. Should I buy the CD or a download? Answer: The CD. It is very hard for them to make money from streaming. Something like that might be happening in other musical genres that I'm not as familiar with. If people are buying vinyl but digital music is effectively free, then of course vinyl will have more sales than digital.

techsupporter 5y ago
> Should I buy the CD or a download? > Answer: The CD. It is very hard for them to make money from streaming. For what it's worth, and I am not a musician and maybe every deal is different, the people I know who earn a living from playing music have told me that buying the physical CD or buying a digital download from an online store like iTunes or HDTracks nets them within a dollar or two of the same payout. There's a substantial, as we all know, earnings difference between buying a CD and streaming the artist on a platform like Spotify or Apple Music. But the difference between buying the CD and buying a set of MP3s or FLACs or the like is, supposedly, far smaller. (If your preferred artist is on BandCamp, I've been told it's even smaller or almost to the point that the CD makes them less money than the download.)
- anyfoo 5y ago
  That's what I heard from a musical artist (who is quite successful in their niche), too: The money from streaming is surprisingly little, so fans who want to support them should buy the music in whatever medium (CD, vinyl, download...). They do put a lot of emphasis on their vinyl records, though. I don't know whether that's because it's also the most popular (you get the big physical disk with artwork and everything and a download code included), or whether that nets them more. I can ask.

brailsafe 5y ago

I don't know where I'd buy a new CD, but somehow there's still a vinyl store just down the street. Maybe Best Buy still has a CD section? Idk

Fezzik 5y ago

The incongruity of there consistently being anti-plastic and also pro-record articles and comments on HN has me scratching my head. Do people not care that records are made of PVC and that the pressing process results in loads of toxic chemicals or does their weird obsession with a clunky format and bad audio justify all the negatives? I am truly perplexed by this one. Edit: grammar.

krylon 5y ago

This makes sense. I have not bought a CD in well over a decade, because high bitrate MP3 or FLAC are so much more convenient. I doubt a lot of people buy CDs because they like CDs. Vinyl is something else, though, especially if you consider electronic music and DJ culture. And then there's people who insist Vinyl just sounds better, which may or may not be a placebo effect. And I remember when CDs became popular, some people complained that Vinyl was just more aesthetically pleasing because of the cover art and picture discs. So yeah, it makes sense. I guess Vinyl is going to stay around much longer than CDs.