Vinyl vs CD prices

Vinyl is now a niche market, especially 33rpm records. Most people that buy vinyl will be audiophiles, and thus tend to spend rather a lot on their music anyway.

I don't mind a few quid extra for the vinyl rather than CD (although, I'd rather pay less!), as long as the pressing is good. I'll be very unhappy if we end up paying extra for pressings of the quality which was normal at the end of the '70's and early '80's.

Chris L

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Last week I bought the three Neu! repressings, and the vinyl was more expensive than the CD. by £2.00 each

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Dave, what are they like quality / pressing wise? I have 1 and 2 on order so will find out soon enough (I have an original copy of Neu! 75).

As for your original question, most LPs seem to be cheaper than CD unless they are either a double or triple or are a low volume high quality audiophile pressing. I can understand both examples costing more to manufacture, and that cost will inevitably be passed on to the consumer. There does however seems to be little consistency to pricing, with some items seeming very dear, and others seeming very cheap. Selectadisk tend to be very fair at pricing, and usually undercut the major high street chains by about 3 quid an item.

Tony.

However, I don't anticipate buying much new vinyl. I really like the convenience of CDs, and given my recent acquisition of a CDS2, the sound is quite comparable to a good turntable. Instead, I will buy records as I happen upon them, usually used. I'm normally paying less than 50p per LP.

Maybe I'll become more of a vinyl lover as I begin to use it. However, I've got about 1200 CDs, but only 50 LPs. All the new music will come out on CD, but only some is available on vinyl (and it's often hard to get). For me, CDs make more sense.

Therefore, I don't mind it if new vinyl costs more than the equivalent CD, as I probably won't be buying it anyway.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

1. increase in sales and general demand in vinyl -not just from the 12" dance community but for LP's too.

2. compny's like EMI no longer pressing vinyl - friends who get small number of promo copies tell me they are struggling to get stuff pressed.

So the increase in demand is not being met by an increase in supply?!?

Well all I know is that Radiohead's Amnesiac is retailing for 17.99 and that is a 10". Knowing there is a deacrease in supply of vinyl is one thing but this is taking the biscuit!

Later

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2. compny's like EMI no longer pressing vinyl - friends who get small number of promo copies tell me they are struggling to get stuff pressed.

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The Neu! albums have all just been reissued on vinyl on the EMI label, and the EMI Millenium series of the last few years had some good stuff issued.

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Well all I know is that Radiohead's Amnesiac is retailing for 17.99 and that is a 10". Knowing there is a deacrease in supply of vinyl is one thing but this is taking the biscuit!

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Its a double!

Tony.

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Most people that buy vinyl will be audiophiles

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That's not true. Audiophiles are a tiny minority - the record pressing plants are running at capacity because of dance and rap music, not because they're busy with reissues of "Kind of Blue". There's little or no new classical music being released on vinyl now, but if your taste runs to just about any genre of pop music there's still plenty of records available. Unless you live in a major city or near a university you may not be able to buy records locally, but there are numerous online and mail order retailers ready and waiting. Even online megastores such as CDNow.com sell vinyl. A little further from the mainstream are independant labels such as Hopeless Records. Hopeless sell LPs by their artists for only $10 including shipping in the US (Hopeless' astoundingly great "Vs. God" by Dillinger Four was even mastered by audiophile cutter Stan Ricker!).

Here's a few more sources for vinyl:
Music Direct

Red Trumpet

Roots and Rhythm

Mordam Records

Sundazed Records

Norton Records

That's why I qualified that with 33rpm. The dance dj's are using 45rpm 12 inchers.

Further, the cost of an item is not directly connected to it's cost of manufacture, but more to what people are willing to pay. As has been seen here, many people (myself included) are willing to endure to _slightly_ inflated prices in order to get the sound and quality we like. We'll also be willing to pay higher prices than the dj's, who must regard their vinyl as an essentially disposable item - they do run their cartridges at up to 7.5 grams!

Chris L

Well

1. There is a lot of dance 12" recorded at 33RPM. Infact 80% of my 12" are at 33RPM. This is prolly thanks to Progressive House and Trance going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ;-)

Hmmm DJ's treating records like disposable item - try getting a copy of leftfields not forgotten out of my clutches and you'll soon feel a boot connecting to your arse ;-) Well yes some dj's do wack things upto 7.5 (so the needle doesn't jump when scratchin'), but if you aren't scratching then we don't. Another thing tracking weight is not as important as pressure ie amount of weight over surface area. the newer dj carts have high tracking weight but the the pressure level is the same as normal hi-fi carts (thanks to companies like Ortofon getting in on the act). this is actually explained a lot better in Hi-Fi World magazine - either latest issue or the one before, a good informative article, which has been passed on to DJ friends so they know what they are doing with their records.