What is the actual percentage of people exclusively listening to vinyl vs digital?

80/20 vinyl to digital ratio 

I don’t know the definition of what some refer to as: “young generation,” and I can’t relate to all the changes that took place in the 1980’s, but I can relate to the different aural experiences from listening to my father’s CD / Vinyl / Tape collections. Overall, I feel that Digital vs. Analog have their own merits with unique musical qualities, therefore I cherish all formats equally. 

I’m old enough for LP’s to have been the only album format available (my first records were 7" 45RPM singles). I never went for pre-recorded 8-tracks or cassettes, already being an audiophile by the time they were introduced. I held out against CD’s for as long as possible, always buying a new release on LP if it was offered. By sometime in the early-90’s, very few new releases were being offered on LP. What was I gonna do---not buy a new release just because it was on CD only? By that time I had a collection of somewhere around 5000 LP’s. I accepted the situation and began acquiring new music on CD, over the next coupla decades amassing a CD library of in the neighborhood of 7000-8000 of the little silver devils.

In 2015, after the deaths of quite a few longtime friends and musical comrades (including hi-fi retailer Brooks Berdan, whose LP collection dwarfed mine by multiples), the matter of my mortality and remaining time left on Earth came into focus for me. How many hours of music listening time do I have left?, I wondered. With that consideration as well as an upcoming major relocation approaching, I decided to go through all my discs and get rid of the titles that, though cool albums, I knew I was never going to listen to again. Why have an album you’re never going to play? Just to have it? Those and the titles I had never cracked the shrink-wrap on, and admitted to myself were no longer of interest to me.

I know the used product manager at Amoeba Records in Hollywood (he was a sales rep for one of the larger Indi record distributors when I was the Indi product buyer at a Tower Records), and he gave me top dollar for the discs I brought him: around 1500 LP’s and a few thousand CD’s. He couldn’t use the 1000 Classical CD’s I had to sell, but Atomic Records on Magnolia Blvd. (a very cool little shop, owned by two Jazz-loving brothers. They have and use a VPI or Nitty Gritty RCM---I can’t remember which, better than most shops.) in Burbank bought them all.

It wasn’t until I started reading all you LP hounds posting in the "What’s On Your Turntable Tonight" thread here on Audiogon, and watching all the Vinyl Community members posting videos on YouTube in which they showcase their collections and/or new LP acquisitions---especially this past year, everyone sitting around the house for months at a time---that I started buying new and used LP’s again on a regular basis. They’re SO much more fun and engaging than CD’s, regardless of the difference in sound.

I have a lot of music I love that has been released only on CD. I know @slaw (and maybe some others) is an LP purist, but I can’t do that. Many of my favorite Classical albums have never been available on anything other than CD, and plenty of Pop (all non-Classical genres) too. I’m a bi-guy, okay? ;-) It’s all about the music, before the format, or even the recorded sound quality for that matter.

"It sits idle 99% of the time as I am just not motivated to listen to it, but it does look good on my rack..."

Are you talking about my turntable?

 listen to streaming and lp almost daily. have cd too.

digital streaming or replay much easier to hit a high level. especially with current r2r. my system is already maxed out with digital. 

while vinyl is the most interesting medium. every combo can give you a different dac. really keep me interested and fun. being able to collect stuff.

is my vinyl better than digital? not subjectively. but emotionally vinyl is da best. when vinyl system is in good form it's like heaven. appreciate that moment.