A Flash of Vinyl?
We crave convenience—convenience in our busy lives and convenience in our audio. The cassette was a whole level of convenience over vinyl records; plus, you could record on it and take it with you. The CD was another level of convenience over cassettes—and without the noise inherent in those two mediums. Then the five-disc changer took the CD to another level of convenience after that. Then came digital media, like the iPod, which took convenience to still a higher level yet.
SACD failed as a mass-market medium because it was a regression in convenience and also required the listener to stay seated in the sweet spot of his listening area, something few people are willing to do outside of golden-eared enthusiasts, who I affectionately call the lunatic fringe, like your own Mike Mettler. But now we seem to be having a renaissance of sorts with vinyl, completely reversing our improvements in convenience. We’ve gone from maximum convenience back to minimum, which begs the question, why?
The golden ears claim they hear an improvement in sound quality with vinyl. OK, maybe they do. To each his own. But surveys have shown that this is a very small percentage of the buying public and doesn’t come close to accounting for the surge in record sales. A large group are status-hungry millennials in the 25-to-34 age group who show how cool they are by having records and even (sometimes but not always) a changer. But far and away the largest group of vinyl buyers are the over-34s, and here’s where it gets interesting. Many of them do not own a turntable, but many of them who do own a turntable, at least for the first month, don’t even play their new records. The main thing they have in common, however, is that they display them, making sure they can be seen. What’s driving them? Status, nostalgia, the tactile feeling of holding a vinyl record? Apparently the last thing they do is listen to the perceived improvement in vinyl over CD or digital media players, although many of them like to brag about a sound improvement they don’t even listen to.
The bottom line? Record producers beware. The current fad in record album buying will peak in the not too distant future and then reverse itself to become strictly the province of our golden-eared lunatic fringe.
Herb Goldman Hollywood, FL