Vinyls Difficult Comeback

Good piece. John Harris is one of the Graun's better writers.

A very interesting piece. 

I think that further investment in pressing plants will come down to whether the industry collectively feels that the present rise in vinyl sales will continue, or whether it is just a temporary fad driven spike.  Then again, if demand continues until it vastly outstrip supply capabilities, and the supply side does not increase capacity (resulting in long lead times and sub-standard pressings) then ultimately demand will fall.

Some companies are investing: United Recording Pressing, the Nashville pressing plant that Jack White used for Lazaretto is actually planning to increasing their number of presses, from the 18 they had last year to 46, they now have 30.  These presses are not new though, the last vinyl presses were actually manufactured in the 1980s.

Interesting read. Thanks for the link.

As dry_stone points out, the real question for vinyl's future may be whether companies are willing to design and build new presses once the capacity of existing machinery reaches its maximum. That may be a long time away as there seems to be enough old presses and parts around to satisfy demand for the near term.

It would be interesting to see if new presses could add quality to the industry. Better control of production issues like warpage, centering, etc. Likely robotics and clean room quality would be used with new machinery. I hope it becomes worth the investment, although I could see the QC listeners might be replaced by a USB TT connected to "listening" software.