https://themusicnetwork.com/vinyl-sales-2021/

........and Taylor Swift's 'Evermore' two disc vinyl edition is leading the way!

While this is somewhat good news, until they start releasing top 40 on 45 rpm, it still be a niche market.

What's really fueling this is CD sales have fallen off a cliff.

That isn't saying much because most music is streamed these days. Young people are buying "vinyls" today, mostly because they are the latest fad. I'm sure it won't last forever. As for Taylor Swift.... yawn.

Well, I am not jumping on the bandwagon until reel-to-reel comes back

I've bought nothing but CDs for years.

It's almost three years since I've been to a book sale, but the CDs that show up are much more interesting. For a long time, it was either fairly generic, "101 samba instrumentals" or last week's hits. But in 2018, I was thinking of buying a Buffy Sainte Marie collection, and there it was the next week at a book sale, $1. So stuff that I actually want. I'm finally getting songs from the seventies when I actually listened to music on the radio, never wanting to spend the money. But at a dollar per CD, I can grab them even if I want only one song on the CD. I even have a few Time-Life sets, great at the used price.

So it seems like older people are gettig rid of their CDs, like they did with vinyl decades ago. Not music to be discarded when the next hit arrives, but music to keep, except they've moved to digital.

They are still digging through the vaults to release to release old material on CDs, but they must be smaller pressings because I',ve delayed, and then missed out.

I've collected pop and country music in just about every physical format; R to R, 8 Track, cassette, 45, 33, 78 RPM, & CD, but haven't listened to them in ages. Instead I simply play the music files on this PC or the tablet in my den, and can broadcast from either to any AM radio on the property.

So while a nostalgic urge might cause me to play a record or two in one of those physical formats (including my 45 jukebox), practicality sorta dictates O/W, as I can do other things while listening to a continual music stream.

I guess my point is in agreement that vinyl is and will always be just a niche in an overall market that is declining in popularity, due to obsolescence.

How are these being listened to? On the crappy players that are always being complained about on the Phonographs forum?

https://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Single-Li ... B07VR8T8PJ

In fact, I can't speak for the other artists, but Taylor Swift had released several of her Top 40 hits on 7" singles.

I'm sure a lot of them are, but there are actually a lot of decent turntables being made today. And, good vintage ones sure are selling for a premium. Especially on Ebay. I'm glad that I already have more than I need, and I bought them when they were still reasonably priced.

I have a LOT of records, and they are fun to play, but for me, digital files are the way to go. I transfer the more rare stuff to digital, and clean it up with software so it sounds perfect, or darn close.

That said, I just don't understand buying new, expensive records just so you can listen to the added distortion and surface noise. Especially when most new records come from the exact same digital source that the CD or streaming version comes from. Doesn't make sense to me, but whatever.

I read an article some years back that some buying vinyl are doing it because it's an object. You do get the larger album cover. For indie releases, they include a download, so no need for a turntable. I have no idea how wide spread this is.

Forty years ago I bought a 3? record set of blues songs. 1930s. And it retained all the scratchiness and noise of the early recordings. Buying that vontage music on CD, I was surprised, and pleased, that that the scratchiness had been erased.

I just download the best images of the artwork that I can find and put them in the folders with my music files. I usually grab them from Discogs or Ebay. Some of them, I even touch up with Gimp so they look better. It's the best of both worlds for me. I can look at them any time I like, and they don't take up space.

I use ClickRepair for removing pops and clicks from my vinyl (or shellac) to digital transfers. It generally does an EXCELLENT job at cleaning up the noise even from fairly trashed records. Anything it misses, I edit out manually with Audacity. I imagine professionals have even better tools. Although, some releases of older music that I have heard sound like crap, and you can hear surface noise that wasn't removed.

They really need to get more vinyl pressing plants in operation as there still remains a three month backlog before any new vinyl releases hit the retail market.

Not in my house! Mostly classical music Vinyl is played on decent, near transcription quality TT's (have four) and tube amplifiers!
Cheers,
Roger
PS. I also play CD's a few cassettes. R-to-R went decades ago! Never had 8-track.
PPS.. I've had two Ferrograph R-to-R machines, the last one stereo... both sold decades ago. I always wanted a Revox but the price was too high!

The only turntable I've ever had is my Lenco L133 that I bought new in 1978, with a Grado cartridge. Biggest purchase I made up till then. I haven't used it in decades, but I never hot rid of it when I started buying CDs.

I have several decent turntables hoarded. Mostly Technics direct drive models. A few of them I modified to add 78 RPM. I also have a Pioneer PL550, a Dual 1219, and a few others that I should sell off.

I never got into CDs much. Early on, they were expensive, and at the time, I didn't care about music as music as I have grown to. What I did listen to then was mostly records because people were dumping them and cassettes. Before car stereos that play music files became popular, I had some store bought CDs and some that I burned. Some a-hole stole them out of my car while it was parked in my driveway , and I pretty much never bought any more. Now, the JVC stereo that I just put in my car doesn't even have a CD player. Good riddance.

The last time that I purchased a CD was at least some 10 years ago. After that, it had been vinyl all the way. To each his own I guess, but I was always at a loss as to how anyone could claim that digital music was somehow superior to vinyl, and despite indisputable evidence to the contrary. I mean, whatever meets their fancy I suppose.

What evidence?

Even aside from "sound", CDs beat vinyl. They are smaller, you don't have to turn them over half way, they can fit more material (I have lots of double LPs that are a single CD). I'd worry about playing a record on a bad turntable or record player, but I'll.pop CDs into any old junk, little chance of damage. I don't have to carefully clean a CD every time I play one. It's a lot easier to skip tracks, or play one again, no need to get up and move the needle. They were expensive when introduced, but not by the time I started buying them in 1997. I gladly buy them used, less fear of getting a noisy one, or ruining my turntable needle.

They really are a lot more universal than vinyl.

Yes, I'd like to hear the OP's theory on that one as well.

Digital doesn't even have to mean a CD. Lossless FLAC and WAV files are great too. They can technically do even higher resolution than regular CD's and you don't have the fragile optical media to worry about. A lot of the golden-eared Audiophile claim that lossy formats like MP3 are the devil, but when saved at high bitrates, even they sound perfectly fine.

The digital files that I make from records sound pretty much indistinguishable from the source.... except that they don't have the noise that all records have some degree of.

That judgement would be subjective, and in the determination of the listener. Back in the '90's when I bought CD's, and even a carousel player for them, I did notice a difference in the oldie songs I had grown up listening to on the radio and record players, vs the new digital CD format.

The audio was just different in some small regards, but I noticed it. A younger listener W/O that early experience very likely would not. I can't express in words what the difference was, just that it was.

Yes, the versatility and durability of CD's does beat vinyl, as well of course as their greater capacity of music storage.

But to make a blanket statement as you have, is simply not accurate for all PPL.

https://nirvanasound.com/wp-content/upl ... ressed.pdf

Well, for one thing, the vinyl record typically has a far wider dynamic range than the CD (please refer to the above link). Sure, don't get me wrong, CD's are very convenient, but is convenience your definition of a superior format? Well yes, one does have to regularly maintain the vinyl discs and stylus, but that seems to me to be a small price to pay if one really expects to hear the ultimate in music performance. Well yes, I would worry about playing a record on a bad turntable too, but how many serious audiophiles would ever consider such a thing? I mean, I think that even my 1963 Zenith AM/FM/PHONO Stereophonic wood floor console might meet the minimum requirements in that regard. Say, lest I miss my guess, sound is inherently analog in nature.