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Comment by thinkmassive | Hacker News Reader

By revenue, not by units sold.

Still interesting, and not really surprising based on my anecdotal experience of artists I follow. Streaming audio is good enough for most sound systems commonly in use.

Vinyl serves as a better collectible from a favorite artist for a few reasons.

  - more room for cover art

  - physical analog medium (superficial, but has value to some)

  - requires more care than CDs (proves the owner’s dedication to maintaining the collection)

  - limited production runs make it more scarce than easily copied CDs

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I think the "good enough" phrase you used really touches on the reason vinyl still exists.

Streaming is "good enough." But physical media is a different experience. It's more intimate. You can touch, feel, and examine the music and the packaging. Some bands (REM is one) even put Easter Eggs in their physical media that can't be reproduced by digital.

Streaming is fine for when you want to fill your space with sound. Physical media is for when you want to really enjoy the music. Read about what you're listening to, see the artwork and photographs, and experience an album of music on the order it was meant to be heard.

As one of many examples, a streaming service can play "Home by the Sea" by Genesis. But I've never encountered one smart enough to then follow that with "Second Home by the Sea," which is how the music was made to be heard. Some services will even play "Second Home" on its own, which is jarring.

Music is one of the increasing number of areas where people are figuring out that abdicating human curation for machine selection just isn't the same thing.

> Physical media is for when you want to really enjoy the music.

Wow this is some condescending, pretentious nonsense. Also, every streaming service I've ever used is perfectly capable of playing an album in order.

At a minimum they're different experiences.

Sitting down and listening to an album is different to playing your mp3 collection on random. You're listening to a collection of songs, as intended. You're listening to songs that perhaps aren't your first choice and in other circumstances would just skip over, but those songs often turn out to be the 'best' songs. I think there's also something to be said for having the physical disc. It just makes it more deliberate.

I don't think it's a limitation of streaming technology. If anything it's a limitation of physical media. Infinite, zero friction choice doesn't necessarily make us happier though.

Nothing is stopping anyone from listening to whole albums with streaming. I do. It's cultural, not media carrier dependent.

Agreed. I think you're understating the importance of culture though.

You're discounting the value of physically experiencing the media you're consuming. Pretentious or not, it really is a different feeling, something that streaming can't replicate.

For you maybe. It gets pretentious and condescending because obviously it's an important and strong sensation for him, maybe not as important to others. Diminishing someone else's experience of music as being less whole than your own is nonsense.

Enjoy the pleasure's you've found in life, but recognize they're not universal. I would also argue that the experience described has to do in part with nostalgia, since my young nephews feel very passionately about music and have never owned a physical album and I wouldn't dare tell them that an album they've loved or experienced and been moved by was some inferior experience because they listened while staring at their ceilings in their beds rather than looking at a gatefold.

I don't care about physically experiencing musical media. I grew out of that in the 80s when I moved around a lot and had to keep moving multiple boxes of vinyl up and down multiple flights of stairs.

If my FLAC collection was on vinyl I'd have to buy it a house of its own. Moving would require a military budget and a series of strategic planning meetings.

That would rather more physical experience than I care for.

I'm not saying one should listen to vinyl exclusively, I agree that's ridiculous. But it is important to maintain and curate a physical collection of music -- wthether it's vinyl, CDs, FLAC, or MP3, and that is something that streaming makes impossible.

Important to you. Not me

Physically experiencing? You mean the act of placing a record on the player, or something else?

So only the person who touches the album gets the full experience?

Not quite so literally, but yes. Placing the record on the player, admiring/flipping through the album art, passing it around amongst friends, actually caring/worrying about the state of the record player, all sorts of things.

Why the mocking tone?

I wasn't trying to be mocking, just more incredulous. I grew up with albums as our primary source of music, but it was always just put the record on and listen. It was purely functional, being the best way we had to listen to music.

When CDs came out, it was so nice because it was easier to handle and care for.

I guess it is just the strange feeling of someone describing something that was just the functional way of doing something in such a romantic way.

It would be like if someone in the future invents a device that perfectly cleans your teeth in seconds, and someone describes a toothbrush as being this great thing because you can physically scrub your teeth with it.

I only used it because I had to, and was happy something easier came along.

There's definitely a happy medium here which involves all of CDs, streaming and vinyl. I like listening to vinyl records (as I am right now http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/20190908_183833.jpg) but only because it's a lazy Sunday afternoon. There's a joy (really) to the ritual of getting up and changing the record over, and admiring the 12 x 12 inch artwork. But the rest of the week I'm busy and listening to MP3s off a USB stick.

Exactly. Those of us who grew up with albums aren’t buying them now. We’re intimately familiar with the limitations of that medium. I have zero interest in going back. And this from someone who still buys a lot of music.

I grew up with albums (plus learned to DJ with vinyl) but I also strongly believe in physical ownership and find this rental/streaming model abhorrent. It boils down to feelings and one's relationship with their music

Those of us who grew up with albums aren’t buying them now

I grew up with albums. I even played vinyl on the radio for years. I still buy vinyl now.

Speak for yourself.

This reminds me of the moment where there's always one person in a group who realizes that they are the only one in the group who wipes their ass standing up.

It's a tactile feedback thing, very similar to how physical keyboards are completely different in experience than touchscreens with a keyboard.

I have some newly-released vinyl and cassettes I bought partially for the novelty, partially to support the artists (one artist I listen to releases only on digital and cassette).

I also thought there would be more nostalgia and fun in listening to vinyl, but after 30 seconds I'm now lost in the music and there's absolutely no difference in the medium it's being played on.

Until I hit the end of side A and have to turn the disc over.

(of course I don't want to diminish anyone's enjoyment of what they like - I have the stuff I enjoy doing that others find a waste of time - your statements just come off as too absolute - it's definitely a personal preference!)

There's a middleground: I'm a music collector and enthusiast that maintains a lossless, digital-only library. All the benefits of truly owning music, including rare releases not available on any streamign service, with the convenience of a digital medium stored on my NAS and online (as a backup).

Obviously when it comes to rare music I have to buy and rip vinyl and CDs from time to time, but I couldn't care less about the physical medium or romanticizing nostalgic rituals. I care about the music. If I want to read background information and liner notes my iPad is always close by.

> Physical media is for when you want to really enjoy the music

You seem to have confused me with yourself.

Plenty of steaming services will play entire albums in track order.

How well do they do on albums with no gaps between some tracks?

Spotify used to not handle this well, but now it works perfectly.

They also support special-case DJ playlists for EDM etc: you can listen to the full track if you play it individually, but cue points and fade duration are stored in the playlist metadata such that the cross fade happens at the right point in the song so everything blends seamlessly. As far as I can tell you can’t configure this in user-created playlists though.

I haven’t paid attention, but from searching around it looks like they generally do this fine.

Yes, listening to Sgt. Pepper's from the Beatles this works fine in streaming.

SAGA: Goodbye / Once Upon A Time

...is another example.

Side note: That Genesis tune is amazing and I have not thought about it in years. I am off to have a listen.

Yeah, vinyl has a lot of love behind it because it has "object appeal" for the reasons you cite. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a niche thing. As are cassettes (which ALSO are making a comeback of sorts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EbJ4ZX4RIw)

None of these physical media are remotely comparable in terms of market-share to streaming, I expect.

It's just a thing, It won't last forever.

Good turntables are expensive and, let's face it, it's a pain in the ass to queue an LP.

I don't see it going away to be honest.

There will always be fluctuating amounts of people coming and going through enjoying records and record players. It's a hobby, and not even a particularly niche one. Plenty of inner city yuppies enjoy it.

They aren't exclusively buying records, they're collecting their most cherished works on LP and specially listening to them. It's not an all or nothing thing, which makes the pain in the ass aspect an important part of the hobby.

You want to listen to a specific song? Cast to your Chromecast with spotify.

You want to do a focused album listen? Chuck on a particularly cherished album? Show off to a friend? Then you switch to the Vinyl and do it.

Anyone know the environmental impact on the rise in vinyl? Probably so small it's nearly inconsequential but still (to me) a shame to see an increased focus on consuming physical items ultimately destined for the trash bin.

>physical analog medium (superficial, but has value to some)

I dissagree that vinyl medium is superficial. It is different entirely. Vinyl has a unique sound. Dynamic entropy is added during the playback from imperfections, many favor this outcome, not all.

Audio sources for vinyl duplication will undergo a seperate mastering process that is taylored for the vinyl version. Even if you do not request another mastering any good vinyl shop will have some adjustments they make before duplication.

All these variables will produce another version of the audio at the end. This will change propective and therefore put a perfect digital copy above or below the other in their mind.

‘Dynamic entropy’ - you mean ‘noise’, right?

You don't think all of those differences can be simulated digitally? I would be curious if people can't be fooled in a double blind test.

The sound is irrelevant. Taking out the record, putting it on a record player, placing the needle, and not being able to skip tracks without effort is a different experience than digital. Simulating the sound differences would be like cars that have the stereo speakers play exhaust sounds. It may sound the same as what you want, but it's inherently fake and viewed as a waste of effort by many.

The ritual of electromechanical device has some appeal. The arm, the spin up, the pops. Even CDs had some ~groove (yes intended), the tray and interface.

That's something digital media reduced almost to zero (I guess younger generations had the bliss of the ipod wheel).

I've sometimes thought about setting up my Shuttle Pro jog wheel to act like an iPod wheel...

While streaming is obviously the revenue king, the apples-to-apples soft-media comparison point for vinyl and CD is not streaming but digital downloads, which isn't covered in the OP article but is in the linked RIAA report. tl;dr: Currently digital downloads see about twice as much revenue as either CD or vinyl, but trending downwards while CD revenue is holding steady and vinyl experiencing mild growth.

Personally I like DRM-free digital downloads (as opposed to streaming) as they provide the best advantages of soft media while also being mine to fully control forever.

May I recommend Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior from Geoffrey Miller? Having a vinyl collection tells something about you...

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