Vinyl Bargain or Rip off?

caoleuk

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Hi, I have made this post to hopefully start a conversation on the state of the vinyl record market, please feel free to post with your comments It would be great to see what others think?

Have you been looking for a good copy of your favorite record lately? Tried all the usual places Ebay, boot sale, Doscogs? even HMV.

If you have you will have noticed the recent price hike.
I used to work in the record industry in the 70's and 80's and I can tell you that back then there was a price for a single album and a price for a double album, but today....

If you want a record by let's say the Beatles chances are you will not find one under £30 (and I'm talking new press not collectible) Yet you you can find say The Band for £8.99.

My point is this.... We are being ripped off! It cost's no more to make a Beatles record than it does a record by the band, and that includes royalties the cost of Vinyl and VAT! If they are going to milk the new record buyers in this way they are going to kill the vinyl market again!
It's the same with these sill plastic record players with plastic needles that they are selling! It's all a cynical attempt to maximize profit and it's wrong!
I feel so sad that teenagers are coming to the market and discovering the beauty of vinyl for the first time and they are not getting what they paid for! It's such a shame that they have no one to teach them what vinyl is all about how to play it, how to look after it and how to get the most out of it.

So what do you think? What do you think can be done to solve the issues raised?
 
Supply and demand. If the public are prepared to pay for it the companies will remain with those prices. As for quality the vinyl you now see on the supermarket shelves are probably from the same mix as the current CDs. I not into snap, crackle and pop any more and prefer SACD where the market seems to be focused on re-mixes of old titles and they rarely hit the market new in the UK but are around $30 from the likes of MoFi or Analogue Productions making them even more expensive in the UK as they have to be imported.
 
Supply and demand. If the public are prepared to pay for it the companies will remain with those prices. As for quality the vinyl you now see on the supermarket shelves are probably from the same mix as the current CDs. I not into snap, crackle and pop any more and prefer SACD where the market seems to be focused on re-mixes of old titles and they rarely hit the market new in the UK but are around $30 from the likes of MoFi or Analogue Productions making them even more expensive in the UK as they have to be imported.
Sick to vinyl for me, but you are still being ripped of at $30 that's the point. It may take some kind of intervention from readers via to music mags but what ever it is the industry needs to be shown way on this one.
 
I think you're going to find that SACD and to a lesser extend that vinyl, especially on 180g discs, are a minority and somewhat niche market. Even those with quality kit are listening more and more to streamed music and the young generation are more than happy with MP3 on their phones. There are up and coming artists that I can't get even on redbook and discs both CD/SACD or vinyl are the minority, hence the high prices.
 
I think you're going to find that SACD and to a lesser extend that vinyl, especially on 180g discs, are a minority and somewhat niche market. Even those with quality kit are listening more and more to streamed music and the young generation are more than happy with MP3 on their phones. There are up and coming artists that I can't get even on redbook and discs both CD/SACD or vinyl are the minority, hence the high prices.
I think there is more to it than that, last Christmas vinyl sales reach a record high and the record companies were caught out but now they are geared up to cash in
 
The only thing we can do is not buy at that price.
I tend to buy at the £15 to $20 mark, plus I have favourites already bought from the 80s when they were a fiver tops... :)
 
It's a rip off, pure and simple.

Why buy a Vinyl album for £20 when you can get the CD for £10?

When the two formats were side by side in the past (I didn't buy anything on cassette and MiniDisc passed me by) there wasn't such a huge discrepancy.

Supply and demand is always trotted out as an explanation as if it's a form of justification for greed. It's not. But then the music industry doesn't really care about music, just business.
 
Why buy a Vinyl album for £20 when you can get the CD for £10?
Especially when the majority of vinyl is taken from the same highly compressed masters as the CDs. With old titles you're better off looking for CDs in charity shops or the local market music stall.
 
It's a rip off, pure and simple.

Why buy a Vinyl album for £20 when you can get the CD for £10?

When the two formats were side by side in the past (I didn't buy anything on cassette and MiniDisc passed me by) there wasn't such a huge discrepancy.

Supply and demand is always trotted out as an explanation as if it's a form of justification for greed. It's not. But then the music industry doesn't really care about music, just business.

Derek you're forgetting the difference in sound quality. You don't get the absolute clarity of the snap, crackle and pop with CD. Quite a while back I posted about this. Is most of the vinyl really that more expense in real terms? If you factor in inflation the prices might not be that expensive compared to back in the day.

Like @gibbsy I'd rather have the higher end CD style formats like SACD, DVD-A and Blu Ray Audio. The sound quality is often excellent with no snap, crackle and pop. Also their much smaller size has got to be better for the environment. Blu Ray Audio often has loads of different mixes and additional material.

Bri
 
I think you get more of a "physical" product with a Vinyl album compared to the equivalent CD. The artwork usually looks better and you can actually read the text as it's not so bloody tiny! :mad:

It still doesn't justify the huge price discrepancy, though.
 
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As an owner of a sugarcube SC1 i go down the route of SH vinyl not mint but good condition vinyl. We still have muppets that want a fortune for a S/H LP, because 'vinyl is in'- nope its only worth want i am willing to pay!
As for new stuff, i have to be careful i am not buying digital remastered rubbish put onto vinyl .....and paying £15 to £28 for the privilage.
 
Derek you're forgetting the difference in sound quality. You don't get the absolute clarity of the snap, crackle and pop with CD. Quite a while back I posted about this. Is most of the vinyl really that more expense in real terms? If you factor in inflation the prices might not be that expensive compared to back in the day.

Like @gibbsy I'd rather have the higher end CD style formats like SACD, DVD-A and Blu Ray Audio. The sound quality is often excellent with no snap, crackle and pop. Also their much smaller size has got to be better for the environment. Blu Ray Audio often has loads of different mixes and additional material.

Bri

Ahh, I didn't want to bring that up in case it started lots of shouting (not from you!)!

I know lots of people abandoned Vinyl for CD, but I never did, I've always had both and never regretted it, especially when a lot of rarities were issued on Vinyl only.

The sad thing is that both formats are on borrowed time anyway, we all know that. It's only us fogies who are still into physical formats, da kidz seem perfectly happy with their compressed downloads and streaming. :(
 
I think you get more of a "physical" product with a Vinyl album compared to the equivalent CD. The artwork usually looks better and you can actually read the text as it's not so bloody tiny!

It still doesn't justify the huge price discrepancy, though.

Indeed the covers are better. It was the same with Laserdisc over DVD. The very fact that vinyl uses more material in both the disc and it's packaging is going to rack up the price. Transport costs will be more expensive too. Frankly I'm amazed that it's made any form of come back at all but that's an issue for another thread.

Bri
 
And, you know, depending on the quality of the Vinyl obviously, if you've got a good turntable and a decent cartridge, then background noise can be significantly reduced (though never completely silent like CD).

I'm lucky enough to have a Linn Sondek with an Ittok IV arm and Adikt MM cartridge, and I think it sounds great!
 
Ahh, I didn't want to bring that up in case it started lots of shouting (not from you!)!

I know lots of people abandoned Vinyl for CD, but I never did, I've always had both and never regretted it, especially when a lot of rarities were issued on Vinyl only.

The sad thing is that both formats are on borrowed time anyway, we all know that. It's only us fogies who are still into physical formats, da kidz seem perfectly happy with their compressed downloads and streaming. :(

I still have my old vinyl and deck. I keep meaning to set the deck up again to listen to some of the stuff I haven't been able to get on CD. I've never got round to it though. When HMV expanded their range I saw quite a few youngsters looking at them. The trouble was that some of them then went on to look at the rubbish turntables they sell. I think the 12 inch sleeves were a bit of a novelty for them. I suspect the expense will have stopped many/all of them actually buying into the format. As you say most of them will be happy with downloads which are also much cheaper.

Bri
 
The record industry has always tried to rip off the public.
CDs were vastly cheaper than vinyl to produce once the start up costs were swallowed but the public had to pay through the nose to get the new format and continued to do so for decades.
Vinyl is being produced now on old machinery, much of it in Eastern Europe. So the public is being ripped off again.
 
It's a rip off, pure and simple.

Why buy a Vinyl album for £20 when you can get the CD for £10?

When the two formats were side by side in the past (I didn't buy anything on cassette and MiniDisc passed me by) there wasn't such a huge discrepancy.

Supply and demand is always trotted out as an explanation as if it's a form of justification for greed. It's not. But then the music industry doesn't really care about music, just business.

But the Music industry is a business,and alway has been,how many times have you seen artist turn down big multi million deal ?
We live in an capitalist system at the end of the day,which mean people are out to make money

:confused:
 
da kidz seem perfectly happy with their compressed downloads and streaming.
I always find this amusing, as someone who got into music by listening to mono MW transmissions from the North Sea fading in & out with atmospherics, on a transistor radio with a 2" speaker. ;)
 
I always find this amusing, as someone who got into music by listening to mono MW transmissions from the North Sea fading in & out with atmospherics, on a transistor radio with a 2" speaker. ;)
Old fart!

Nothing quite like listening to the Top Twenty on Radio Luxembourg on a Sunday night.

Kids today. Don't known they're born.
 
Old fart!

Nothing quite like listening to the Top Twenty on Radio Luxembourg on a Sunday night.

Kids today. Don't known they're born.


The altternative with a decent radio was AFN from Germany.
 
The altternative with a decent radio was AFN from Germany.
When I was listening to Luxembourg there was nothing else. No rock music at all on main stream radio. No pirate radio that was still to come. We all use to meet in a local café where the owner allowed us to play records in there as his son was one of our friends. Singles cost 5/6d. That would be a staggering £4.25 at todays value, so perhaps £20 for a current vinyl album represents excellent value for what we had to pay back in the day.

If I remember correctly then the first album I ever bought was Beatles For Sale which cost £1/12/6d.
 
When I was listening to Luxembourg there was nothing else. No rock music at all on main stream radio. No pirate radio that was still to come. We all use to meet in a local café where the owner allowed us to play records in there as his son was one of our friends. Singles cost 5/6d. That would be a staggering £4.25 at todays value, so perhaps £20 for a current vinyl album represents excellent value for what we had to pay back in the day.

If I remember correctly then the first album I ever bought was Beatles For Sale which cost £1/12/6d.

In my teens in 1959, most of the jazz albums I bought {which I still have and play) cost nearly £2.

That's nearly £45 in today's money.
 
In my teens in 1959, most of the jazz albums I bought {which I still have and play) cost nearly £2.

That's nearly £45 in today's money.
All music was expensive, apart from live shows which were gloriously cheap, and took up a big part of my income. There was a little music shop in the town where I worked and on pay day I'd put a couple of bob away until I had enough money saved there to buy an LP. Beer was cheap though, 1/7d for a pint of Ansells Bitter.
 
All music was expensive, apart from live shows which were gloriously cheap, and took up a big part of my income. There was a little music shop in the town where I worked and on pay day I'd put a couple of bob away until I had enough money saved there to buy an LP. Beer was cheap though, 1/7d for a pint of Ansells Bitter.




At seventeen in 1958, I bought a little pre-war Austin Seven Ruby. I was living in Surrey (it's now South London) and driving up to work in Knightsbridge in it every day.
London prices were dearer.
Flowers Keg bitter went up to 2/- a pint and petrol to 4/- a gallon. The ratio between those two prices stayed the same for decades.
 

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