Vinyl Outsells CDs for First Time Since 1987

[Anderton]

41 million vs. 33 million units. The breakdown of revenue is 84% streaming, 11% physical, 2% sync licenses, and - get this - only 3% for digital downloads. The conclusion I draw is:

 

• Streaming is all about convenience, minimal expenditure, and de-cluttering
• Ownership isn't as important as owning something tangible (especially when it has cool artwork), or digital downloads wouldn't keep sliding down.

 

Overall, sales of physical stuff is increasing.

 

Another interesting trend: the return of the DVD and Blu-Ray. People are finding out that video streaming isn't all it's cracked up to be, what with shows appearing and disappearing on a regular basis, and dozens of subscription services competing for your dollars. 

 

 

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

Then there's the fidelity of mp3 downloads and streaming. Not so great, reminds me of AM radio broadcast that I listened to as a kid. 

CDs and LPs both sound better than most .mp3 files. Live concerts have become tragically expensive as the paradigm shifted. 

 

Long ago and far away I saw The Who on the Tommy tour, they played the entire album straight through - $3.50. I paid $7.50 to see Rory Gallagher, Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple. Those days are gone forever, recorded music has become very high sales availability at low prices and very low % goes to the songwriter or band. 

 

[Nathanael_I]

The record thing puzzles me greatly. They don’t sound that good. Do people really like surface noise?  I do not understand the cognitive dissonance required to assert that records sound objectively good. There’s good music that’s been released on record, but the recordings are not amazing compared to well-done digital. I have a daughter who owns some records and never plays them. Just owns them. So odd.  I took the DVD player out of the studio 2-3 years ago and have never needed it. Modern digital is completely superior for accurate reproduction. 
 

The issue of what to sell as an artist is real. Vinyl & CDs are a way to create scarcity. But it’s an artificial scarcity. I wonder if it will be a thing when everyone knows it’s not real. I don’t want a CD. And definitely not a record.  High end classical is paid download for hi-res master files.  I don’t have a high end music server to manage this stuff, so it generally gets listened to once or twice. Convenience matters. And the sound quality can be high (Tidal).  Artists have to sell something, but I’m not sure that recordings are that thing. Global distribution costs less than $100 a year.  The issue is being heard at all, long before it’s monetizing an audience. 
 

But artists or bands that do a vinyl only release are just not on my radar. I wouldn’t hear about them, and even if I bought the album, what am I going to do with it?  

[Stokely]

I have absolutely no interest in vinyl, never did from the day I got my first cd.

At this point, no interest in cds either!

And I get a chuckle out of cassette tape plugins...who on earth wants to go back to *that*?  When cds came out there were celebrations as they sounded so much clearer and noise-free!

I don't actually listen to music I don't already own these days that often.  When I've wanted to buy something high quality for referencing that I didn't have, I've bought wav files via download (from HDtracks).  Comparing to some high-quality mp3s of the same album, quite a difference.  You wouldn't think the mp3s were bad at all until A/Bing against the wavs...and they weren't "bad" for just general listening, but they lacked the clarity you'd want for referencing mixes against.  I wouldn't say decent mp3s are like AM radio, heck they sound better than FM radio to me by a fair bit.  But they are still compressed and "smeared" compared to something better.

[AnotherScott]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

41 million vs. 33 million units. The breakdown of revenue is 84% streaming, 11% physical, 2% sync licenses, and - get this - only 3% for digital downloads. The conclusion I draw is:

 

• Streaming is all about convenience, minimal expenditure, and de-cluttering
• Ownership isn't as important as owning something tangible (especially when it has cool artwork), or digital downloads wouldn't keep sliding down.

 

Overall, sales of physical stuff is increasing.

 

Another interesting trend: the return of the DVD and Blu-Ray. People are finding out that video streaming isn't all it's cracked up to be, what with shows appearing and disappearing on a regular basis, and dozens of subscription services competing for your dollars. 

 

 

41 million albums and 33 millions CDs... In 1983, Thriller sold 32 million copies all by itself! I guess you could say that another takeaway is that, relative to the old days, we're almost at the point where nobody is buying any of it anymore.

 

I am surprised that digital downloading is as minimal as it is, but I guess that between the streaming services and youtube, it is pretty much possible to hear almost any song any time you want, whether you own it or not. At least almost all the popular stuff, which, by definition, is what most people bought anyway. (Though the revenue breakdown may be a bit deceptive... per unit revenue for physical is much higher than per unit revenue for digital, so despite the 11% vs 3% figure, there could still be more people buying digital downloads than physical media.)

 

It's not surprising that people prefer convenience over quality. It's part of why laserdisc never took off, and why MP3s did. I think the people who put a premium on quality over convenience is always a minority.

 

Movie buffs will prefer DVD/blu-ray for things like commentary tracks and supplemental features. Most people are fine just streaming the movie. And I think a high percentage of viewers are people just looking for entertaining diversions, so if the movie they're looking for isn't there (or isn't there anymore), they'll probably be perfectly happy to just watch something else.

 

[BMD]

I was more than happy to get rid of my vinyl albums in the 90s. Vinyl was, is, and always will be a terrible music delivery system. CDs are so much better

[KuruPrionz]

I agree that high resolution digital downloads are going to be the best sounding if the playback system is good. 

Not all CDs sound good, some are definitely better sounding than others. Some playback systems sound better than others as well. 

 

I was recently at a friend's home and he has thousands of vinyl records and an expensive "hi-fi" system. 

 

Clean vinyl played on good gear does sound good. Most vinyl played on most systems has more noise. 

There are too many variables!

[K K]

37 minutes ago, BMD said:

Vinyl was, is, and always will be a terrible music delivery system.

 

It's because they don't turn fast enough. 78 RPM were much better. 🤪

 

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, Nathanael_I said:

The record thing puzzles me greatly. They don’t sound that good. Do people really like surface noise?  I do not understand the cognitive dissonance required to assert that records sound objectively good.

 

Here's my theory. CDs have superior sound quality. Consumers by and large don't listen to sound quality, they listen to music.

 

Those old vinyl records were mastered in a more musical way. They had more dynamics, didn't have absurd amouts of treble boosts and gimmicky effects, and took advantage of the fact that vocals were mixed high (which is the primary focus for most listeners). You also had be careful about distortion. You can't have square waves on vinyl because a stylus can't snap instantly from one physical location to another. 

 

So vinyl doesn't sound better, but it  has a musical quality because the medium could not be abused the same way digital can (and usually is). I keep mastering my own music to ever-lower LUFS values, and just turn up the volume. It kinda sounds like vinyl

[zxcvbnm098]

2 hours ago, Nathanael_I said:

The record thing puzzles me greatly. They don’t sound that good. Do people really like surface noise?  I do not understand the cognitive dissonance required to assert that records sound objectively good. There’s good music that’s been released on record, but the recordings are not amazing compared to well-done digital. I have a daughter who owns some records and never plays them. Just owns them. So odd.  I took the DVD player out of the studio 2-3 years ago and have never needed it. Modern digital is completely superior for accurate reproduction. 
 

The issue of what to sell as an artist is real. Vinyl & CDs are a way to create scarcity. But it’s an artificial scarcity. I wonder if it will be a thing when everyone knows it’s not real. I don’t want a CD. And definitely not a record.  High end classical is paid download for hi-res master files.  I don’t have a high end music server to manage this stuff, so it generally gets listened to once or twice. Convenience matters. And the sound quality can be high (Tidal).  Artists have to sell something, but I’m not sure that recordings are that thing. Global distribution costs less than $100 a year.  The issue is being heard at all, long before it’s monetizing an audience. 
 

But artists or bands that do a vinyl only release are just not on my radar. I wouldn’t hear about them, and even if I bought the album, what am I going to do with it?  

Like your daughter, almost half of vinyl buyers don't listen to their vinyl albums. For that generation it's more of a collectable rather than a vehicle for listening. 

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, zxcvbnm098 said:

For that generation it's more of a collectable rather than a vehicle for listening. 

 

Buy the artwork, get the album thrown in for free!

[Joe Muscara]

2 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

Here's my theory. CDs have superior sound quality. Consumers by and large don't listen to sound quality, they listen to music.

 

Those old vinyl records were mastered in a more musical way. They had more dynamics, didn't have absurd amouts of treble boosts and gimmicky effects, and took advantage of the fact that vocals were mixed high (which is the primary focus for most listeners). You also had be careful about distortion. You can't have square waves on vinyl because a stylus can't snap instantly from one physical location to another. 

 

So vinyl doesn't sound better, but it  has a musical quality because the medium could not be abused the same way digital can (and usually is). I keep mastering my own music to ever-lower LUFS values, and just turn up the volume. It kinda sounds like vinyl

Are you talking about the Loudness Wars? There are some artists and albums and songs that I find are pretty unlistenable, and I think it's largely because of the Loudness Wars. When you look at the audio files, they're pretty much peaked start to finish. But, vinyl can't handle that, right? If that's the case, then those same albums would have to be remastered to work on vinyl. I'd love to hear those same records on vinyl and see if I like them any better.

[Anderton]

5 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

But, vinyl can't handle that, right? If that's the case, then those same albums would have to be remastered to work on vinyl. I'd love to hear those same records on vinyl and see if I like them any better.

 

You probably would. As you may know, I've mastered hundreds of tracks over the years. At the peak of the loudness wars, I often did two versions - the one the artist wanted so they could win the loudness, and the one I wanted so I'd listen to it more than once   When given a choice, they almost invariably chose the one I wanted to listen to themselves, but wanted the loud version for their CD. 

 

The LUFS standard can help end the loudness wars, but this article I wrote explains why there have been, and continue to be, some bumps along the way. 

 

FWIW here's what my masters look like these days...multiband limited, but not squashed. Just about right IMHO for rock and electronic-based music.

 

[David Emm]

Its an odd debate for me. I always bought foreign imports or audiophile versions of what I could. Domestic releases were often lacking. I'd commit a new LP to cassette on the first playing and then listen to the tape, shelving the LP for safety's sake. Hell, I once bought an RCA classical LP and there were actual bits of paper in the thing! I had a record rep tell me that returns were sometimes melted down as-is and the vinyl re-used. Barf, I say! 

 

So yes, I loved the pristine sound of ECM records in particular. I have no problem in grasping the argument for "analog warmth." I came to prefer properly mastered CDs as lacking annoying artifacts. OTOH, I have cassettes that are over 40 and they still sound incredible. They also reveal which ones were recorded with properly aligned and cleaned heads vs. the times I had to slap a bargain cassette in a dubious deck on the run. 

 

Being a decaying old fart, I'm past arguing the point with much vigor. I'm mainly glad that my own work comes out of Logic in the same pristine shape it had as I built the composition. Vinyl is a great way to get good album art, but it also collects dirt, pet hair, people hair and body oils. I'm perfectly happy to have things on SanDisk flash drives and several SSDs.    

[KenElevenShadows]

It's largely about the experience and physicality of LPs and the purposefulness of listening to 21 minutes at a time.

[AROIOS]

On 3/10/2023 at 8:48 AM, KuruPrionz said:

Then there's the fidelity of mp3 downloads and streaming. Not so great, reminds me of AM radio broadcast that I listened to as a kid. 

CDs and LPs both sound better than most .mp3 files...

 

There's been countless blind tests online where tens of thousands of participants can't distinguish between 320Kbps mp3 and CD. Heck, even at 256Kbps, vast majority of listeners won't be able to.

And this is the result of careful listening and comparison. For the average casual listeners at home, in the gym, on public transit, the bar for perceived "CD quality" audio would be even lower.

[KuruPrionz]

4 minutes ago, AROIOS said:

 

There's been countless blind tests online where tens of thousands of participants can't distinguish between 320Kbps mp3 and CD. Heck, even at 256Kbps, vast majority of listeners won't be able to.

And this is the result of careful listening and comparison. For the average casual listeners at home, in the gym, on public transit, the bar for perceived "CD quality" audio would be even lower.

All true.

I'm a bit of a studio rat and listen to music rarely and carefully. 

It takes time and effort to hear compression codex, just for one. 

 

Bear in mind that McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the US, which means that many people do not know or care much about what they stuff in their pie hole either. 

Mediocrity is one of our finest values. 

[AROIOS]

On 3/10/2023 at 7:56 AM, Anderton said:

41 million vs. 33 million units. The breakdown of revenue is 84% streaming, 11% physical, 2% sync licenses, and - get this - only 3% for digital downloads. The conclusion I draw is:

 

• Streaming is all about convenience, minimal expenditure, and de-cluttering
• Ownership isn't as important as owning something tangible (especially when it has cool artwork), or digital downloads wouldn't keep sliding down.

 

Overall, sales of physical stuff is increasing.

 

Another interesting trend: the return of the DVD and Blu-Ray. People are finding out that video streaming isn't all it's cracked up to be, what with shows appearing and disappearing on a regular basis, and dozens of subscription services competing for your dollars.

Consumers are free to pay for any fad they like, as long as they don't throw around BS "theories" of "why" their fad is better.

The most typical BS "theory" these morons spread on the Interweb is that digital audio will never produce smooth sound waves like analog media do, usually accompanied by an illustration of "stepped digital waveform" they pull out of their a**es.

It's this kind of idiotic justification for their purchasing behavior that's most misinforming for the public.

[AROIOS]

23 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

Here's my theory. CDs have superior sound quality. Consumers by and large don't listen to sound quality, they listen to music.

 

Those old vinyl records were mastered in a more musical way. They had more dynamics, didn't have absurd amouts of treble boosts and gimmicky effects, and took advantage of the fact that vocals were mixed high (which is the primary focus for most listeners). You also had be careful about distortion. You can't have square waves on vinyl because a stylus can't snap instantly from one physical location to another.

But that wouldn't explain the current fad of most vinyl releases going from digital mixdowns to the cutter.

I think you're giving the average consumer too much credit. They are an easily influenced and deceived bunch that simply conform to fads. This is well studied in social psychology and marketing.

[RABid]

As services like Apple Music kept increasing the bit rate of their songs, and increased the size of the available library, I, like the rest of the world I began to find the convenience irresistible. As blue tooth specs kept improving my tolerance for bluetooth speakers became bearable. Now, for the first time ever I have gone a year without buying a CD. I did buy a few albums to give my great niece and nephew as Christmas presents.

 

I have bought some DVD's and blue ray disks. Mostly because I'm tired of chasing those moves and shows around the streaming services.

[Anderton]

7 hours ago, AROIOS said:

But that wouldn't explain the current fad of most vinyl releases going from digital mixdowns to the cutter.

 

I don't know about other engineers, but I've mastered digital releases specifically for vinyl. I really do believe the constraints improve the musical experience. There is zero margin for error.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, RABid said:

As services like Apple Music kept increasing the bit rate of their songs, and increased the size of the available library, I, like the rest of the world I began to find the convenience irresistible.

 

The tipping point is when audio is uncompressed. I was listening to a mix of my album the other night after testing it out using AAC 512 kbps data compression. There was this fuzzy, almost subliminal distortion.

 

It turns out I had forgotten to adjust the True Peak values. A lot of the songs were less than 1 dB over true peak, but it still made an audible difference. As soon as I re-exported the master with -1 dB true peak, the fuzziness was gone - and there were other improvements as well.

 

So someday, yes, the CD will be obsolete because streaming will be better quality. Let's just hope mastering returns to rationality. Perhaps someday consumers will understand why the volume control was invented

[Dave Bryce]

19 hours ago, AROIOS said:

I think you're giving the average consumer too much credit. They are an easily influenced and deceived bunch that simply conform to fads. This is well studied in social psychology and marketing.

 

When it comes to records, I don’t think I fall into that category.

 

I love my vinyl collection.  For the life of me, I don’t understand how anyone can argue that CDs are better, per se - they’re just different.  Yes, they tend to sound cleaner, but there’s a dynamic that the records have that the CDs simply don’t.

 

As has been observed earlier in this thread, the LPs have a vibe to them that CDs miss, and streaming totally loses.  The 20 minute slice of time is really fun IMO, and I seriously love the act of essentially DJing for myself, my wife and my friends.  The process of choosing a record, then picking a side you want to hear is my kind of good time.   Because of all this, I find I sit and listen to the records when I put them on.  CDs are too long for that most of the time, and streaming is essentially just background.  I do tend to stream in the car, on planes, when I walk my dogs, etc…but at home, it’s either records, CDs or 5.1 remix discs for me.

 

Since I started listening to records, there’s this big touch of nostalgia that gets scratched.  It’s like an old friend is back.  It feels comfortable.  I really like it.

 

To each their own. 😊

 

dB

[Anderton]

Just now, Dave Bryce said:

there’s a dynamic that the records have that the CDs simply don’t.

 

Exactly!!!!!! But there's no reason why CDs can't have that dynamic. If you listen to some ancient CDs where analog masters were just transferred 1:1 to CDs without the dreaded "remastering," the CDs have dynamic range. But when you play them back in the middle of contemporary CDs, it sounds like you turned the volume control down 2/3 of the way. Thus began the scourge of "remastered" releases.

 

@Dave - my releases these days are always 20 minutes   Totally agree about that! It's the sweet spot for attention spans.

[Anderton]

23 minutes ago, Dave Bryce said:

streaming is essentially just background.  I do tend to stream in the car, on planes, when I walk my dogs, etc…but at home, it’s either records, CDs or 5.1 remix discs for me.

 

Same here. I will be buying a turntable soon, though. I have too many LPs that I treasure.

[Anderton]

23 hours ago, David Emm said:

Being a decaying old fart, I'm past arguing the point with much vigor. 

 

I don't think the goal is to argue subjective opinions. If someone prefers artwork, something tangible, the scent of vinyl, nostalgia, whatever, that's fine with me. It's also irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

 

BUT I do think it's worth exploring why musicians and critical listeners feel the way they do about vinyl sonically. 

 

I really do think I'm on to something with the theory that both vinyl and CDs influenced the way mastering engineers worked, and perhaps more importantly, who could be a mastering engineer. To master and cut vinyl, you had to have a ton of experience. Now, anyone with a computer and plug-ins can call themselves "mastering engineers."

 

I think the above has a lot to do with why people insist that vinyl "sounds better." From the standpoint of specs, no way vinyl is better. But from the standpoint of whether vinyl forces the preservation of more of the musical intent, that's at least a possibility worth considering.

[bill5]

On 3/10/2023 at 2:12 PM, Anderton said:

 

Here's my theory. CDs have superior sound quality.

As far as noise reduction, yes. Otherwise? phblblblblt.   The analog vs digital thing isn't an either/or. Analog has a warmer, more "saturated" sound. That isn't necessarily better or worse and subjective.

 

That said, as for vinyl vs CDs, I contribute that to CDs no longer holding any value. Vinyl has that nostalgic/analog vibe going for it...CDs have nothing going for them any more really now that you can have "CD quality" soft copies on your computer/device/whatever....same quality, far more convenient.

 

I also don't get the MP3 snobbery frankly and would love to have a blind test of MP3s vs .wav or .flac files and suspect few if that could tell a diff in most if not all cases.

[Anderton]

10 minutes ago, bill5 said:

As far as noise reduction, yes. Otherwise? phblblblblt.   The analog vs digital thing isn't an either/or. Analog has a warmer, more "saturated" sound. That isn't necessarily better or worse and subjective.

 

But what I'm trying to look at are the objective elements. CDs have lower distortion, that's objectively provable. But what the eff is good is that if engineers squash the crap out of the music to where it's distorted? In that reality, the music coming off the CD can be much more distorted than the same music coming off vinyl. So if something thinks CDs sound more distorted...well, unfortunately in a lot of cases involving popular music, they're right. 

 

Another aspect that the anti-digital crowd never brings up, but I believe is one of the strongest arguments for analog, is that with digital technology, distortion increases at lower levels. With analog, distortion increases at higher levels - just like the real world. Granted, analog has a noise floor when the level gets really low. Think about it, though: this problem with low-level digital distortion is/was considered serious enough that dithering was added to - wait for it - add a noise floor. 

 

As to whether anyone can hear data compression, I think it depends on the material and the listener's ear training more than anything else. There are programs that can isolate what data compression omits from the music. Once you've heard that, you know what to listen for, and you start hearing it in data-compressed music - mostly transients. It's like how after hearing Auto-Tune a few times, you hear it ALL the time on recordings.

 

So many times the discussion gets into emotions and subjective terms that have no standardized meaning (the only standardized meaning I know for "warm" is somewhere between "cold" and "hot"  ). But, we don't have to go there. So many factors are objective and provable, and are worthy of discussion. I see no technical reason why digital sound can't have the same character as analog sound. However, it won't until that character is identified in objective terms. For example with digital, if you consider the low-level distortion aspect, then 24-bit resolution is not going to have the same issues with low-level digital distortion as 16-bit resolution.

 

[Anderton]

30 minutes ago, bill5 said:

As far as noise reduction, yes.

 

Well...I used to drive the digital fanatics crazy when DAT came out, and I pointed out that tape with Dolby SR had a better signal-to-noise ratio.

 

I really don't take sides in any of this. I just want to know the truth.

[bill5]

1 minute ago, Anderton said:

 tape with Dolby SR had a better signal-to-noise ratio.

In pristine conditions maybe, OK. But the thing is tape so easily compromised due to heat, someone touching it, jamming, etc etc etc. From a practicality standpoint, arguing for tape is IMO roughly the same as arguing for floppy disks.