[bugufu8f83]

First of all, vinyl is still relatively niche in absolute terms. Second of all, the popularity of vinyl, such as it is, has absolutely nothing to do with availability. It's largely driven by a kind of retro nostalgia (as the technology itself is, of course, inferior from a technical sense of faithful reproduction) plus a desire for personal physical ownership of something.

[ButlerianJihad]

I was a zealous collector of records when we made the switch to digital audio. And let me tell you, there was a significant artistry to the thing: a vinyl record was a standardized work of art. Every album cover was the result of careful design, photography, layout. The inner sleeve oftentimes contained more art, or if we were lucky, all the lyrics we wanted to sing along with. The record label itself, a masterpiece of design. All the smells and all the feels of merely collecting vinyl--even without playing it--are indescribable today.

When CDs came into the market, they were horribly clacky and just clad in layers of tacky plastic. The album art was shrunken, misshapen... and the objects themselves stank of polycarbonate, rather than delicious vinyl. Sure, they sounded great and they lasted a long time, and maintenance was dead simple. But so much artistry was lost. I was still collecting lots of CDs when purely digital distribution hit us, but by then, the smells and feels and experience of collecting vinyl were distant memories.

And that entire experience may be why people argue for the technical superiority of vinyl recordings, and analog tube amplifiers. Because it was all self-reinforcing, and it all fell apart once the clacky, tacky, plasticky CDs took over.

[bugufu8f83]

Yeah, that's all part of what I meant by "a kind of retro nostalgia". People enjoy the experience of buying vinyl and of putting on vinyl records. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, for what it's worth. I'm just claiming that this is what's driving vinyl's popularity right now, rather than because people are turning to it due to music availability issues (which is much more of a factor for DVDs/Blu-rays right now).

[otabdeveloper4]

There's a shitload of valuable vinyl records that don't have any art at all or even any cover. Paper and cardboard doesn't last as long as the record itself.

No, the reasons for this are entirely technical.

[ButlerianJihad]

de gustibus non est disputandum

Look, I am telling you about my own lived experience with collecting vinyl. You can speak for yourself, but I carefully stored all my items in archival sleeves, and the jacket, art, and inner sleeve were often just as important as the disc and the music encoded on it.

There was a real thrill and reward that came from collecting LP albums in particular, and that meant 12" discs, and I also had a particular specialty in finding 12" remixes and DJ versions of singles.

Yes, there were shaped discs, and colored vinyl, and white-labels and acetates that came with no art or plain sleeves, and I collected those with just as much alacrity, but it really was a pleasure to flip through my collection, or someone else's, and drink in that large-format album art.

[account42]

Interestingly the higher-end physical movie releases have moved to metal cases and/or paper sleeves to hide the plastic. Perhaps that's also what digital music would have moved to if the physical market didn't get eaten by streaming. The artwork would still be smaller than vinyl but if you have broad tastes and limited space that may actually be a feature.

[otabdeveloper4]

I'm just saying there is a market for vinyl records with no art or sleeves, but no market for sleeves and art with no record.

Clearly the art isn't the driver of this market niche.

[otabdeveloper4]

> It's largely driven by a kind of retro nostalgia

Incorrect. The reasons why vinyl specifically is still relevant (as opposed to any other "retro" audio format) are technical.

Vinyl avoids compression issues by design. (Compression both in the computer science sense and in the audio engineering sense.)

[kmeisthax]

You are correct that you can't lossily compress a vinyl, but you absolutely can master a vinyl for maximum loudness. It's harder to do, and some of the techniques are different, but it can be done, people did it, and this was actually where the loudness war started. And notably, unlike digital, vinyl does not impose a maximum loudness wall. If you find a way to make the groove wobble more than before, the player will absolutely produce a louder signal than before, whereas with digital you have a strict limit to your levels at +/-32768.

To make matters worse, people aren't doing separate masters for audiophile formats anymore, so vinyl is getting the ultra-compressed, low-dynamic-range master anyway. That is because the vast majority of people buying vinyl were doing so as merch, not so much as a way to buy better-mastered albums.

[carlosjobim]

The music is digital before it gets pressed on vinyl. They're not recording directly from microphone to vinyl.

[tclancy]

Maybe you aren’t today, but buy my Monster Cable Golden Wax Cylinder and a set of titanium needles and you can too!

[mghackerlady]

Give me a break. CDs aren't compressed and sound flawless if the mixing is good. it also isn't dependent on things like the quality or age of the disc. And sure, a bad player might sound a bit worse than a high quality one, but that mostly comes down to the DAC in it, whereas with vinyl depends on the player a lot more by virtue of being a mechanical format

[marysol5]

All audio is "compressed" to an element, there are frequencies that aren't reproduced

[bugufu8f83]

This is complete bullshit, sorry. Digital is more capable of faithfully reproducing sound than vinyl is. Vinyl does not have technical advantages when it comes to faithful sound reproduction. I mean, it literally degrades over time, for chrissake!

I don't know what kind of "compression issues" you're talking about but I strongly suspect you'd be well served by learning about the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem.

[otabdeveloper4]

> Digital is more capable of faithfully reproducing sound than vinyl is.

That's exactly the problem that makes digital unsuitable.

Theoretically digital can reproduce sound faithfully, but if the medium allows sound engineers to compress the hell out of music, then they will abuse the opportunity.

Vinyl is a very limited format and you can't really do any sort of "creative" audio optimization bullshit with it.

[account42]

Compression in the audio waveform sense has nothing at all to do with the medium. You can absolutely press the same compressed masters on vinyl or release the uncompressed masters digitally. It's a matter of what the customer base is looking for. Digital music is made for the mass market where "louder" means standing out and thus more success while contemporary vinyl is made for the enthusiast who can afford high-end equipment and clean listening environments.

[otabdeveloper4]

> You can absolutely press the same compressed masters on vinyl

Nah, there's physical limits of the needle-in-a-groove medium that prevent this.

> or release the uncompressed masters digitally.

Technically yes, but nobody is gonna do this and risk not "standing out".

> who can afford high-end equipment

The average vinyl record player nowadays costs less than $150. The market is absolutely flooded with low-end Chinese turntables.

When a modern person listens to vinyl records for the first time, the immediate reaction is "how the hell do I make this louder so it pops out more".

And the answer is that you can't, the medium just doesn't work like that.