Analog is the new pink

It's hip to listen to vinyl. The attraction is only the "coolness" factor. It has nothing at all to do with sound quality or even music. If you don't understand this either you don't remember being cool, you never were cool or you don't have kids who are cool.
Will some of these new vinyl buyers become converts to hifi? We can hope.

I was going to disagree with some of the above comments point for point, but I think it's fair to say that there isn't much I can agree with at all. If by "taking younger people's interest in vinyl too seriously" you mean that they will abandon "easier" media, then you're probably correct, but I think some of you underestimate the impact of vinyl (analog) and young people in general.

As a present this past Xmas I gave my 20 yr old son a basic vinyl setup consisting of a '70's vintage DD table (SL something or other), AT cartridge, Cambridge Audio phono stage and decent IC. It was accompanied by original copies of Beatles "Sergeant Pepper's LHCB", Michael Jackson "Thriller", Miles Davis "Bitches Brew", Tokyo String Qt.'s "Bartok/String Quartets", and "The Godfather" soundtrack (he is an aspiring film maker/director). This is a young man who is already living on his own and supporting himself :-) , and not easily swayed by pressure and trends. His text message to me that night after going home and listening to his records: "Holy shit, this is the first time that I have really heard music in my apt.!"

He is now actively hunting vinyl on weekends.

I think vinyl on a "garage-sale" TT sounds better than most digital. Timrhu, perhaps I'm not "getting" you but, if you're serious, I wholeheartedly disagree with your comment about analog playback merely being "cool" rather than actually sounding better.

Frogman, good to hear your son is on the right track for life-long music listening and enjoyment. I will have to temper this by stating that I don't think he would be in the majority of the "younger people" crowd I was refering to-rather the exception. I was of course speaking in generalities. We audiophile denizens as a group are the 1/10 of 1% of the normal listening and music buying population. The other posters makes some excellent points as to how things have changed since our generation was first exposed to stereo systems back in the 60/70/80s. Timrhu's comments basically endorse my original statement. They like vinyl 'cause its cool. Nothing wrong with that, but I can't extrapolate this trend into the next generation's burgeoning interest in all things audiophile. As usual, the 1/10 of 1% of them will move into the twisted and demented ranks of "soundstage" grail chasers like us.

To echo here.

Vinyl playback among the youth is not much different that when other gens were younger. Its about hip, cool and not really about or if analog sounds better. Of course back in the 60's and 70's there were less options in recorded music for the masses. You had vinyl which offed the most availability and best general quality of sound be it on a higher end setup or a more modest one. You had 8 tracks which had all sorts of reliability issues and less penetration at home. The audio cassette was still rather new and teething. It did not become a credible audio format until the 80's. Reel to Reel was too expensive and too fussy that only the most audiophile-like persons bothered.

Today the youth, well all of us if need be have numerous digital formats to which most are based on ease of use not quality. But again most people regardless of era did not listen to music only on quality of sound and did not buy high quality gear. The price to good gear relative to income was higher back in the day. Today, yes many youth will be fans of quality sound, they will invest in better gear be it new or search out good vintage gear. They like us and others before us will be a minority though.

Enjoy what they bring to it all and by making vinyl hip, cool they help keep it alive and for us, even those who are audiophile geeks it's a good thing.

Vinyl on modest gear can still sound great. The vinyl collection with the album art and liner notes are all a part of it all and that's why its special compared to digital especially downloads.,