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[antenna]

Ikea is introducing a fresh take on a product it hasn't sold since 1973: The record player.

Introduced as part of the upcoming Obergränsad collection, the turntable was designed in collaboration with Swedish electronic music group Swedish House Mafia, and serves as a reminder of how much vinyl has surged in the past several years.

Record collecting has been growing in the past few years to the point where in 2021, Statista said, LP sales jumped by more than 50 percent year-over-year to beat both digital and CD album sales. Keeping it in context, that figure shrinks to a meager 4.7 percent when streaming and downloading of music is included.

Over the past year, vinyl sales spiked another 61 percent and topped $1 billion for the first time in more than 35 years, with the top-selling records coming from new artists like Adele, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish....

In other words, those who are serious about actually owning a physical music collection are reaching into the analog past for the technology to do it, and most weren't even alive when records were the standard format. It's young people buying the records and the players, boosting not only vinyl sales, but the new turntable market as well - it reached $361 million in 2020....

https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/11/ikea_record_player/

[larryrup]

I loved records.  Having lived through the various formats, my memory is pretty clear that LP's sounded way better than CD's, at least for much of the 1st decade of the CD.  I say the greatest audio attribute of the LP was the presence the sound had. It's been quite a while since I've listened to a record but I imagine they still have this. Somewhere in the 80's I stopped buying records. My heart wasn't in it, but seemed at the time the wise think to do.  I wasn't all that happy for a while.  Some of those older recordings that were converted to CD were pretty terrible.

What I miss most about records beside the actual listening, is getting intimate with the whole album.  I'm too track driven now, at least I cannot seem to break that habit.  I guess the IPOD really caused the mix or shuffle habit.  I miss the album jackets, both for the photos and mostly  the liner notes.  I thought for sure CD's would have a liner notes replacement...something like a PDF included with the CD.  That never happened.  Any time you saw a photo that happened to be on a LP jacket you immediately identified with the record it was on.  Same with a musicians that contributed to the recording.  Back in the day album jackets, especially the fold out ones, were great to remove seeds from....well you know.  I kept 4 crates of the most iconic albums.  I found that even these they had little no resale value, and I cannot imagine listening to them as I did not take very good care.  Pretty sure the scratches and surface noise would drive me crazy.   I moved a few years ago and disposed of hundreds and hundreds of albums.  The City Recyling rules said vinyl in the metal and plastic pale and the jackets in the paper pale, so I had one last look at them as I separated.  Just  from a quick look at the jacket, I remembered with tracks I loved from the lesser good ones.  It was a nostalgic, melancholy  afternoon.

I'm all for a cozy evening with some records.  Do you think the record resurgence is purely the sound, or the overall experience of sitting back with a side or two of an album?

Larry

[KingSparta]

Do they even have albums nowadays?

[JimH]

Do they even have albums nowadays?

They have pretty much everything.  Toothpaste aisle, for example.

[antenna]

...  Do you think the record resurgence is purely the sound, or the overall experience of sitting back with a side or two of an album?...
Larry

From what I've read, a lot of the popularity of records is because of the ability to have the album cover in your hand, and read it as you listen, i.e., the tactile feeling and visual aspect of having something physical representing the music you are listening to.

Also, like you, I had been album-side oriented, but now seem to be more track oriented.  When I first started ripping my vinyl, I had just ripped them to "side 1" and "side 2" (more for multi-disc albums, or in the case of a Firesign Theater album, "side1" "side 2" and "side 3" for a single disc album.

Nowadays, I tend to be more track-oriented, but sometimes with a theme in place.

And yes, vinyl albums are still being issued by some current bands (Caamp, for instance).

 
 

[KingSparta]

there are some that will always be Album oriented, Like

Dreamboat Annie (1975), Hotel California 1976 ect...

the new stuff is not the same to me, I am not trapped in the '70s Music but somehow it means more to have the whole album.

[Scobie]

Grew up on Vinyl but now a full digital convert. Have boxes of vinyl but may need to go to Ikea to get something to play them on.

To quote the poet Keith Richards: "You can't roll a joint on the back of an MP3 player."

[larryrup]

That is not to say, I did not get track driven by attempting mix tapes from records, to either a cassette or reel tape.  I do remember taking a lot of abuse over my terrible queuing.  Twas not easy in the analog days!  Oh, we had it tough in the olden days.

Larry

[antenna]

... Twas not easy in the analog days! ...

I still remember the splicing block I used to piece together a mix tape by physically piecing together a mix tape.

 

 

[KingSparta]

I still remember the splicing block I used to piece together a mix tape by physically piecing together a mix tape.

 

You were dedicated.

I did have a nice stereo back when I was a private in the army, replaced the needle with a Pickering needle. 500 watts.

[antenna]

You were dedicated.

Ya do what ya need to do.  Focus on the goal.

 

 

[antenna]

... and, fwiw, I am so glad that that splicing block is a distant memory.

Sonic Factory's Sound Forge (now owned by a different, marketing-oriented company) is now a mainstay for me.

[antenna]

I loved records.  Having lived through the various formats, my memory is pretty clear that LP's sounded way better than CD's, at least for much of the 1st decade of the CD.  I say the greatest audio attribute of the LP was the presence the sound had....

Yes.

I remember back in the day here on this message board when a member gave me grief to espousing analog vinyl.  That member posted a faked noise sample (one it admitted was fake) to highlight how bad vinyl was.

Yes, I will say that vinyl can have some surface noise problems, but really.

Just listen to the tunes from vinyl that I upload in the playlists here.


For example... the "1980's EP Singles (mostly 'new wave', mostly vinyl)" playlist.

YMMV ...

[bob]

I have a couple of turntables that I'm using more lately than in decades.
The B&O needed a new cartridge, fortunately still can get ones new.
Had to get a preamp for the B&O since amps don't have phono inputs any more. Got one with a tube stage for fun.

The Technics linear I've had since high school. Needed to do a few repairs on it but it works well too.
The phono input for that is built into my Technics rack mount preamp.

[antenna]

> I have a couple of turntables that I'm using more lately than in decades.

A DJ on the radio station I like to listen to (  https://www.1071thepeak.com/  ) has said that he is listening to vinyl at home now.   Of course, I doubt if that station has a turntable in their studio.

But they do broadcast, and note when they do, high resolution masters of the songs they play (usually 96/24 or greater).

 If you're listening to their streaming, that won't matter.  But I listen on my McIntosh tuner, and it sounds quite good.

 > The B&O needed a new cartridge, fortunately still can get ones new.

Yeah, fortunately, I thought ahead and purchased a replacement stylus for my cartridge.  Will it last through the remaining digitization I need to do?  I wish I knew.

 

 

 

[bob]

> I have a couple of turntables that I'm using more lately than in decades.

A DJ on the radio station I like to listen to (  https://www.1071thepeak.com/  ) has said that he is listening to vinyl at home now.   Of course, I doubt if that station has a turntable in their studio.

But they do broadcast, and note when they do, high resolution masters of the songs they play (usually 96/24 or greater).

 If you're listening to their streaming, that won't matter.  But I listen on my McIntosh tuner, and it sounds quite good.

 > The B&O needed a new cartridge, fortunately still can get ones new.

Yeah, fortunately, I thought ahead and purchased a replacement stylus for my cartridge.  Will it last through the remaining digitization I need to do?  I wish I knew.

Just searched on your equipment list. Very impressive. I'm in the stone age in comparison 

[antenna]

> Just searched on your equipment list. Very impressive.

Thanks for that.

I have always been concerned about audio quality.  As an aside, I hope the playlists I upload to the awesome CloudPlay service here convey what I hear on my vinyl to reflect that concern about audio quality.   Such is the issue with older analog.

Back when I was a teen, I opened up the back of the TV in my bedroom, and put an audio tap on the volume control.  I fed that tap into the stereo system I had at the time.  So, instead of listening to TV shows on a 3" speaker in the TV, I listened to it via the stereo I had at the time.  A huge difference.

Fortunately, back then, I lived in the New York City television realm, so the stations I watched and listened to were full fidelity, not the reduced fidelity that the networks imposed upon their affiliates before satellite transmission came into being.  New York City was a network origination point, so the shows were not subject to traveling over lower-quality means.

It wasn't until the mid- late-1980's when stereo audio for television emerged that the networks seemed to care about the audio quality they passed to to their affiliates. 

Stereo in TV represented, imo, a major change.  Instead of the low bandwidth feeds to affiliates over phone lines, the networks seemed to move to satellite feeds which gave a wider bandwidth for the audio.  Stated subtly differently, if you lived outside of the New York City or Los Angeles network origination areas, you could now receive a much higher quality of audio.

Of course, then digital TV came along, and we're back to 162kps audio on the networks.

 

 

[antenna]

Just searched on your equipment list. Very impressive.

Thanks again.

But I also want to add to my reply ...

Analog is an interesting concept.

When someone on CloudPlay service plays a playlist I uploaded, and if that playlist is based in analog (a.k.a. vinyl), then that person is experiencing what I hear here on my audio system.

Digital-oriented playlists, on the other hand, are more indicative of what the issuers of those digital versions want you to hear.

Do the record companies intentionally release lower quality versions so that they can, at a later date, sell you the 96/24 version?

I wish I knew.

But, is there a pattern?

 
So many questions??