IS THE LP BACK?

[executioner]

It is showing some signs of a rebirth; Aerosmith's latest album will be released in Nov on LP, CD, & DL, and other bands like Switchfoot released their latest on LP. I've seen other bands in the last year do the same thing.I saw on another forum(Stryper) in the spring where Michael Sweet made a comment about a chance of rereleasing their albums in LP form; I wonder if To Hell With The Devil would have the original art form? What about Petra's Albums? I'm sure the demand for those would be high.

I was in a Radio Shack not too long ago and noticed they are stocking in store Phonographs again because of demand. I was talking to the manager about it and he was telling me that up until last winter they were only selling them online, but now because of demand they are shelf worthy. He said he sells about 3-4 a week.

[brent]

No. In fact, some of the major chains that were hoping it would come back have stopped buying as much and are decreasing floor space. There number of major pressing plants worth-a-crap are down to one. There is not enough interest or industry infrastructure to bring it back completely. Everything about vinyl is about three to four times as expensive as CD to produce, and the breakage percentages are through the roof. You basically lose about 10-15% of your shipments to breakage. CDs are a fraction of that. The novelty (USB) turntable sales did ok for a year or two, but they have slowed way down. There are hardcore audiophile labels, but honestly, they are not putting out music worth listening to, and because of their "less is more" mentality, they strip everything that protects the recording, the media and then the sound system away, so that is sounds like doodoo.

In 2010, sales were up 10% from almost nothing the year before, and in 2011, up 39% from almost nothing. So a sales increase percentage means little to nothing when there is not enough pressing to keep for than one legit, high quality plant operating in the USA. The rest are small revived plants under new ownership with no one from the LP era to really do them right, or Mexican plants for the DJ market. If the mastering isn't done on the lathe, then it just isn't a really good job, and there are few people left that know how to. The few that are left are very old, and I would not trust my sonics to old people.

[executioner]

It's Official: Vinyl Sales Up 39 Percent In 2011...

Wednesday, January 04, 2012
by paul

We've seen some conflicting data on vinyl sales this year, especially from indie stories. But this is looking pretty bullish: according to stats just released by Nielsen Soundscan, vinyl sales in the US topped 3.9 million in 2011, a 39.3 percent gain over 2010. The modern-day LP resurgence now looks like this...

This is from Digitalmusic.com; I will admit that 3.9 million is somewhat small compared to the market as a whole, but it has increased every year since 1999, and the % of increase gets larger every year. The sign that there is a market for the LP is by record labels wanting to pay to put new music in this format and put it on the shelves.

[brent]

4 million is one artiats successful sales. Thos would be like selling Adeles record and nobody else's. It is not enough to make it more than a novelty.

[LivingRock]

I wish cassette players were more popular, it's really hard to find a good one nowadays!

[brent]

Here is your best bet...many options: http://tascam.com/applications/recording/cassette_deck/

Tascam has tried to stop production many times. They tried twice last year. But, Kingdom (church catalog company) keeps sales coming, ordering a couple of hundred skus at a time, and so Tascam keeps them around. D&M Pro (Denon Professional & Marantz Professional) have stopped production and are only making solid state recorders now. CD recorder production is waaaay down for both.

[Petrafan327]

They need to make a reissue of Washes Whiter Than on LP or CD, with the two songs they left off of the CD version. [Couldn't Find Love (Without You) and Magic Words].

[LivingRock]

They need to make a reissue of Washes Whiter Than on LP or CD, with the two songs they left off of the CD version. [Couldn't Find Love (Without You) and Magic Words].

Agreed!! ^

[Boray]

And a new version of "Come and join us" with the original version of Killing my old man would also be nice.

[Boray]

They need to make a reissue of Washes Whiter Than on LP or CD, with the two songs they left off of the CD version. [Couldn't Find Love (Without You) and Magic Words].

In case someone haven't heard them, here is Magic Words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNgiSZC3gS8

Couldn't find love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r2bs42FVkg

Terrible quality though. I have better mp3s copied from LP to cassette to CD-recorder to mp3...

[Petrafan327]

They need to make a reissue of Washes Whiter Than on LP or CD, with the two songs they left off of the CD version. [Couldn't Find Love (Without You) and Magic Words].

In case someone haven't heard them, here is Magic Words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNgiSZC3gS8

Couldn't find love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r2bs42FVkg

Terrible quality though. I have better mp3s copied from LP to cassette to CD-recorder to mp3...

Yes, I have them both too, but they sound pretty bad... I would love to hear them in a clear quality like all the rest.