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Vinyl Buyers: The Premium Price Vinyl v. Cheap Vinyl Ratio

The market share of vinyl in new recordings is driven to a large degree by willingness of vinyl buyers to pay premium prices. Nevertheless, there is a huge pool of cheap vinyl out there; records that sold millions so there's hundreds of thousands of copies on the market and on down. To listeners who buy a lot of vinyl these days, what is the ratio of your budget between premium price/collector price albums vs. low price albums?

Personally, when I buy vinyl it's usually things that never came out on CD, which is often quite reasonably priced, but the sticking point is the price of pandemic era shipping, which is staggering. There was a seller of English folk music on Discogs who offered free shipping on orders over the equivalent of US $250, so I started tossing things and tossing things into the shopping cart (or basket, as they call it in Blighty) to get up to that figure. I finally wound up spending $350. I would say about $150 of that was collector-price items.
heretobuy
vinylshadow
489 posts
 
@millercarbon 

I'd love to hear your Hot Stampers! Would there be a 2 drink minimum cover charge to contribute to the $600 Mingus? :)

I tell ya though, I am curious about them. But paying $300 on up for a standard issue will take a special record to me that I know the sonics of very well to even consider. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Angel's Envy Finished Rye will get you an all day Hot Stamper demo. I know what you're thinking, this is gonna be one of those strain to hear it kinda things. Not even. This is more like can't believe this is so obvious. This is like you don't even need to compare, simply hear Sinatra-Basie and done. The worst one I have, in terms of the non-Hot Stamper coming close, is Silk Degrees. But with that one it is only close because the Hot Stamper has so much more surface noise. Sound-quality wise even that one is no-contest.  

The eponymous Fleetwood Mac, and Rumours. Nilsson Schmilsson and A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, TP Southern Accents (another one so good no comparison necessary, you just use one hand to keep the jaw off the floor), Damn the Torpedoes, Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me, GBYBR, Tchaikovsky 1812, Paul Simon, some others I'm forgetting. You'll get your Finished Rye's worth.
vinylshadow
489 posts
 
Jeez. I'll have to take another look and see if any LP's they have I'd be interested in trying.

I'm not a Rye drinker(may never have even had Rye except in a Manhattan decades ago) but I'm going to buy a bottle of Finished and see what the hub bub is. 


millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
There are so many guys who rave about their favorite whiskey that even though I never found one I liked all that much I kept an open mind and keep looking. One time at Mike Lavigne's I take a sip of one or two and decide to try Angel's Envy Finished Rye. Next thing you know I am Gollum jealously guarding My Precious, warming it so as to maximize its intoxicating fragrance, swirling its sensuous savoriness until the optimal point of swallowing, lost in pleasure as it slithers its way down warming to where we become One. 

I can't promise it will be like that for you, with the Finished Rye or with the Hot Stamper. But I am sure you will never know until you try.
jbhiller's avatar
jbhiller
1,399 posts
 

millercarbon, what town are you in?  Day's drive from Chicago?  I'm on my way!

Hot stampers are everywhere but hard to pin down. Better Records is an interesting idea.  Their labor and experience set the price.  

Reissues.  It depends. 

Seems to me vinyl can be done right or wrong at any level.  Identifying it is the chore!

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