Is vinyl dead ?

Oh no it's not dead.
Neither is new music with good lyrics.
This place is turning into a gloomy catacomb of dead enthuasiasm.
Arise Audiogoners arise and play yer systems even with ye olde vinyl and ye olde artists.
Rejoice, rejoice we are alive and we have systems that Rawk!
Get me a beer I'm gonna crank that amp up......

The wake is now in process. This is it. Say nothing bad about the dear departed.

The reports of analog's death have been circulating since the introduction of the CD about 20 years ago. Amazing how it is still kicking the butt of the CD after 20 years, isn't it?

As a owner of a record/cd store(thank God not my day job) I can say vinyl is not dead but is on life support. As far as sales goes, vinyl is probably less than 5 percent industry wide. It has become a niche market. Yes there are more lps available on vinyl than past years and yes analog is selling but compared to the digital market it is quite small. That said, I prefer vinyl over cd and still buy records but the future of music reproduction and music sales is digital. I think there will always be a vinyl(remember when it was just called records)market but it will grow smaller over the years. I still have folks walk into my store looking for 78s.

07-14-03: Twl - Amazing how it is still kicking the butt of the CD after 20 years, isn't it?

In what respect? Where do you get your numbers/information from?

I agree with Egrady. I agree with him that the majority of consumers out there think that CD sounds good enough and, in fact, superior to what vinyl sounded like on their mass market turntables (hiss, pops, and all of the bad TT specs).

Add to this the added convenience of being able to take their music anywhere in this form; no "tweaking" hassles of TT's; etc., and you find that in fact the CD may even be short-lived. Again, the large majority of consumers want good enough quality in favor of convenience. I believe that MP3's (or some similar digital file format) will send the CD/SACD/etc. to a similar end result as vinyl is currently seeing today (small/niche market). You don't have to worry about "skipping" problems with solid-state players. Even the best portable CD players today cannot resolve this problem completely (100%). And, you get even more storage capability to play even more songs. All at even less quality (more loss of information due to compression, file sizes, etc.) than CD - much less SACD!

Although, I believe that vinyl will continue to live a fairly long and continued life...but as a "niche" or seemingly underground (not meant in a negative context ;) market like it lives in today. I also believe that the CD will soon (relatively speaking) follow in its footsteps. :)

Twl - Vinyl may be kicking CDs' butt for quality (to a relatively small group of consumers, like those here on AudiogoN), but to the majority of consumers...CD has been kicking vinyl's butt where it counts (numbers sold/$$). Sure, there is a small group of consumers like those here on AudiogoN that will continue the "niche" audiophile market and who love the "best" quality that can be obtained by one's current budget, including vinyl. But, for the masses - convenience is "king". That's the way it's always been, and always will be. :)

Wes