32 ms·

There are a couple of things that have pushed me towards buying more vinyl: - Increased prevalence of bundling high quality MP3 downloads with a vinyl purchase

by wheels 12y ago

There are a couple of things that have pushed me towards buying more vinyl: - Increased prevalence of bundling high quality MP3 downloads with a vinyl purchase. Independent artists often do this and (at least in Germany) Amazon's autorip also is usually good for vinyl purchases. - Flea markets. I often find albums I'd like to own for €3. I kind of have mixed-mode listening -- in the living room, when guests are over, it's nicer atmosphere-wise to say, "Nobody's plugging in their smartphone to play some track from YouTube; we're listening to records." But on my own, even when I buy CDs (which I still do) I usually rip them and then listen to them exclusively from my MP3 collection. With the bundling of vinyl and MP3s, it makes it easy to replace the album that goes in my physical collection (I have several hundred CDs and about 100 records) with an LP, and still get the benefits of having high quality digital music. For those of us that still have a bit of a fetish for physical collections of things (I like paper books for the same reason), that hits a nice sweet spot.

Schlaefer 12y ago
Mp3 redeeming and Amazon's DRM-free AutoRip (Germany here too) is a real game changer buying Vinyl. It's a convenience that makes me happily pay 20 bucks for an LP without thinking twice. Most of the time you consider it creepy when big company knows your buying history, but in this case amazon wraps it in such a nice package it's hard to resist.
soylentcola 12y ago
Yeah, digital bundling makes a huge difference. Digital files are the clear overall winner in terms of convenience, portability, and flexibility but even leaving aside any audiophile debates over sample rate and analog vs digital, there's something a lot of people enjoy about tangible items, big cover art, and the feeling that paying (or paying more) is justified when you get a physical thing as opposed to a bunch of bits. Bundling lets you have it both ways and since the cost of distributing the digital version is very low, it's not much of an added cost (even if either way you're primarily paying for the cost and value of the actual data whether you buy vinyl, CD, or mp3).

by wheels 12y ago

Schlaefer 12y ago

Mp3 redeeming and Amazon's DRM-free AutoRip (Germany here too) is a real game changer buying Vinyl. It's a convenience that makes me happily pay 20 bucks for an LP without thinking twice. Most of the time you consider it creepy when big company knows your buying history, but in this case amazon wraps it in such a nice package it's hard to resist.

soylentcola 12y ago

Yeah, digital bundling makes a huge difference. Digital files are the clear overall winner in terms of convenience, portability, and flexibility but even leaving aside any audiophile debates over sample rate and analog vs digital, there's something a lot of people enjoy about tangible items, big cover art, and the feeling that paying (or paying more) is justified when you get a physical thing as opposed to a bunch of bits. Bundling lets you have it both ways and since the cost of distributing the digital version is very low, it's not much of an added cost (even if either way you're primarily paying for the cost and value of the actual data whether you buy vinyl, CD, or mp3).