What is the actual percentage of people exclusively listening to vinyl vs digital?
Yeah... vinyl 95% of the time. CD when it is the only copy readily available and Tidal, only when I can devote my entire session to it. Currently, my best vinyl sounds better than my streamed digital and I like "the process". It lends itself to listening to an entire side (or album) more easily. I believe in Albums over Songs.... My main "Audio Friends" are 99% vinyl, so some peer pressure involved, but it comes from a good place. We (the three of us) have all reduced, refined and concentrated our collections. Mine is the smallest (about 1500 listed on Discogs) by a substantial amount. Much of the material we listen to is only available on vinyl, not on streaming services (and CD is limited in selection also). It is ALL GOOD... but we all have our preferences . |
An easier answer to this question might be: Ask people if they have only one job, no kids or other responsibilities. You need to have ample time on your hands to listen to records. First you need to get it out of the sleeve, clean it. Put whatever your choice of cleaner on your stylus. Man! I just don't have the time for all that. Maybe when I'm retired and the kids no longer want or need anything from me, I'll join the vinyl group of listeners. Joe |
Hey chakster I'm 68 and play CD's exclusively but thank god my favorite amp has no remote and I'm not too lazy to get up and adjust the volume. I hope you can give me a pass. |
I recently sold all my vinyl gear and albums and have gone completely digital. I could not justify having 2 formats anymore. My vinyl setup was worth about $12,000, yet my digital setup that I had only 1/3 of that amount invested in was for the most part just as satisfying. The real kicker for me was when I began to stream Tidal. No, it’s not the MQA that made the difference. It was that I could now, in many cases access current better masterings of the music I loved. Many of these sounded superior to the initial digital masterings which produced the CDs I had in my collection for some time. Also, the best sounding vinyl were the few pieces I owned that were quite old and produced from analog masters. The vast majority of the vinyl produced today, comes from a digitized master anyways and sounds pretty darn similar to a digital source. The only vinyl that was truly worth it were some of the special pressings that are analog all the way and really pricey. I got tired of buying vinyl that I didn't want because it sounded the same as digital, or I didn't like the music. And how many of us had to deal with the accidental breakage a stylus of an expensive MC cartridge. No more for me! Lastly, I like to explore new music. With a streaming service I can access a world of music and listen to what I like. In the days before you could preview music online,, how many times did you buy a CD/Vinyl that you didn’t like or that was poorly recorded and you just wasted your money? I will admit, vinyl is such an engaging thing for audiophiles. So much to tweek, cartridge alignment, turntable set up, phono stages and loading, record cleaning, stylus cleaning, cueing up and down and so on. For many that process is fun, it was for me. But digital, when it’s done right (which it often is not) can sound just as good IMHO |
