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Ain't it cool? Vinyl record sales surpass CDs for the first time since 1986


https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/tech/vinyl-records-cd-sales-riaa/index.html

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Interesting

I still use both but have not purchased either in years (the last vinyl I bought was A Night At The Opera...which turned out to be a new pressing ARRGGH! I was bamboozled but it was only nine dollars and I have an original anyway)

True confession...I installed that 'Alexa'
thing in a few rooms in my house and now I can just say 'Alexa, Play Billy Joel!' and it's just hours of music

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Interesting

Indeed..

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Indeedly-Do

Do you have a preference (vinyl, CD, streaming, good old fashioned FM??)

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CD actually...but I only buy a record if I fell it's worth it.

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I changed my wake up word from Alexa to one of the other options which is “Computer” . The funny thing is now when ever I have Star Trek on, my Echo thingy lights up and sometimes says something like “I cannot perform that function” when they ask the ship’s computer to do something like “Computer. Analyze the spacial anomaly for vertiform particles” .

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I remember when 'Siri' first came out, you could say dumb stuff to it and Siri would have a snarky comeback

I just told my Alexa she had a 'nice butt, legs for days and magnificent boobs' and all 'she' replied with was 'Sorry, I don't know that one'

I kind of miss perving on my Siri😬

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Siri was a slut! Alexa is too classy for that.

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LOL!

I would often ask my Siri what she was wearing and it would respond, 'Can you stop being a pervert for once?'

So funny!

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> The funny thing is now when ever I have Star Trek on, my Echo thingy lights up

I had a similar problem here. My local TV news programs are from Lexington, Kentucky. When one of the reporters says "Lexington," quite often my Alexa would catch the first syllable and respond to it.

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ALEXA,RELEASE POISON GAS INTO SHOGUN'S KITCHEN.

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Alexa is bougie, she's not that funny

Siri is my Girl!

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I HAVE NEVER USED ONE OF THESE ELECTRONIC HOOKERS YOU SPEAK OF...I DO ENJOY THE FILM "JEXI" THOUGH...SO I CAN RELATE TO YOUR TECHNO-EROTIC LIFESTYLE IN THAT WAY.🙂

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Wait, what?!?

Asking a circular disk made of plastic and copper wire 'how's them titties?' is weird now?

Call the FBI on me!
I talk stuff to this Alexa all day, I might be a kidnapper!

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A kidnapper is a person that puts kids to nap.

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I guess that's better than putting kids to sleep.

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That would be a kidsleeper.

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If they were over in Russia or China, it would be Youth in Asia.

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"...the last vinyl I bought was A Night At The Opera...which turned out to be a new pressing..."

I'm not familiar with "new pressings" or why they are inferior. Do they change the content of the album? Or is a "new pressing" like making a second or third generation copy, causing the sound quality to degrade?

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They are not inferior but I just prefer to own originals
I bought that Queen album on EBay and I thought it was an original pressing

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The new pressings are heavier and feel different too.

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I am often on an audiophile forum and am constantly befuddled by the remastering issues, compression, source materials, aribtrary production choices, all kinds of stuff.
I used to think the sound of the record I bought was the definitive sound, but I now feel that is far from the case, and in a lot of instances, the differences are substantial.
I heard a Dead song on the radio a few weeks ago, a song I am very familiar with, but I could hear instrumentation much clearer than I ever had in the past.

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Personally I prefer the remastered recordings. Like you were saying about the Grateful Dead song, you hear new things you missed years ago. It's the closest thing you'll get to a live performance and the songs are being heard as the artists intended.

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Okay. Thanks.

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[deleted]

lol...that is possible.

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rotary telephones

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I have rotary pulse dial phone as my landline, amazed telco has kept up compatibility

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can you still buy them?

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I doubt it , mines real old , found it at the back of a store room in my previous job.
so old the number written on it had 3 digits!
'70s i reckon

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that is old. does it have a jack?

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yeah it must have been one of the first to have a (rj11?) or whatever type plug it is we still use in the uk to this day, prior to that it would have been hard wired to the outside line with a junction box

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Not surprising. I love vinyl but have been avoiding new vinyl. Much of it is still compressed like a cd. Damn loudness wars!

I find that old vinyl from my original collection and used albums from record shows sounds superior.

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There is a certain charm to be felt when listening to a 40 year old record, no doubt

Maybe it's nostalgia but whatever, it adds to the moment

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i don't get this trend at all.

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There is something to be said for the initial scratch of the needle, you have to be so careful lest you ding the grooves

That white noise through the speakers...one of the greatest sounds ever

And the imperfections (I call them 'noise lint' but there is probably some better audiophile term for it) during the spin, it just makes me happy...hard to explain but records are pretty great imho Howey

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I avoid the new vinyl also. I shop the used vinyl stores in my area several times a month and I’ve been seeing new pressings increasing for years. There are five used vinyl stores in a city close to me and this year one of them has switched to almost exclusively carrying new pressings.

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For once I’m ahead of the curve. 😆

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Good. Now let's bring VHS back!

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Many of them command high prices online.

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If you were to time travel back to 1984 and told teenagers this, most would laugh out loud in disbelief.

They wouldn't be able to comprehend it."Do compact discs cause cancer or something??....No! No! The CD players THEMSELVES cause cancer!"

They wouldn't be able to reason it out if you just gave them that one sentence.
(I include my 15 year old self)

Good information for a scene involing time travel to the 1980's.

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I find it unbelievable now!
I'm sure you can get filters for your digital players to add cracks , pops , skips if you really dig that.

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I'm a gen Xer my nephew 20 something collects albums. I asked what is the appeal. He told me that his generation is so hyper connected, that slowing down, putting a album on a turntable...getting some wine... reading the cover, becomes a thing...a chance to slow down the hyper pace of the 21st century.

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One of my daughters who is 16 has over 2000 records in her vinyl collection. Several of her friends collect them also and they are regulars at the local used vinyl stores. So yeah, it really is a thing that’s taking off with young people too.

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I guess if people are just keeping the old vinyl alive thats great , especially as they are learning to appreciate music from different times .

seems a bit pointless presssuing new vinyl though , which im sure is a growing trend

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In the movie A Clockwork Orange, people of the future indeed use vinyl records to play music. They predicted the future correctly!

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Great movie, with the exception of Quentin Tarantino, could not made today.

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Makes sense to me. The only physical album I bought last year was on vinyl. I also got a sexy new turntable for Christmas.

I don’t care if it seems old fashioned or overly nostalgic, I’m glad vinyl is making a comeback.

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It's only logical. With the advent of digital downloads there is no incentive to buy CDs anymore.

To understand this we must know the history why did CDs prevail, decimating records in the process, in the first place.

Compact Disc's advantages againts records are obvious. It sounds better (technically anyway, because better "sound quality" is relative,) it's not prone to damage, it's cheaper to produce and it's easy to duplicate. Basically it's superior in every way.

This is still true today. That said, digital downloads (at least in lossless formats) have all that plus even more cheaper and convenient. Thus CDs are nferior to digital downloads in every single way. It's not surprising that digital downloads are destroying CDs the way CDs destroyed record sales.

If we compare digital download sales againts records it's obviously clear that records ain't gonna dominate anything anytime soon.

Saying record sales is higher than CDs is just like saying that today people ride horses more than they ride steam engine cars, while combustion engine cars have way, way larger sales.

In no way analog audio will ever beat digital audio in sales, except in apocalypse movie settings.

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