Vinyl Outsells CDs for the First Time Since 1987

Lagduf

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You’re wrong. Sorry.

Here is one of the companies that still makes it: https://www.nationalaudiocompany.com/

What has been discontinued are metal tapes. I believe they were type three or four I can’t remember offhand. Also, no new tapes use Dolby noise reduction anymore because no one wants to pay Dolby for that.

Cool to know! I'm impressed the demand is there for them to produce the cassettes. I wonder if they are using original equipment that was never destroyed. I poked around a bit on that website and the price for tapes seems pretty reasonable for a consumer or small run of tapes. Only slight more than a dollar per cassette.

I doubt dolby would even license their tape noise reduction. I mean, why?

Did we even have CDs in 1987?

Yes, CDs existed in the 80s but I think most were using tape or vinyl.
 

joe8

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CDs used to be very expensive in Australia. In the 90s/ early 2000s there was an embargo on cheap imports (the same album by the same artist, but made in another country, and sold for a much lower price). The standard price for most music CDs was $30 AUD for single CD album, and $50 for a double CD (which would be double that in today's dollars- $60 and $100 respectively). Those were the prices, for years and years. The CDs were often made in Australia, though. The record companies/ record stores knew they could get away with setting those prices, because there was an embargo, and nobody bought them online back then. Only the real bargain-basement, or unpopular music CDs would be priced less than that.
The embargo has since been lifted, probably because of pressure from sales over the internet.

So, especially in those days, there was a feeling that you weren't really getting what you paid for- paying so much for a bunch of 1s and 0s on a plastic disc, and a small printed insert/booklet. But most people, including the shops that sold them, saw them as being better quality sound than vinyl records, which you could buy second-hand. It wasn't like now, where stores sell brand new, or audophile vinyl records, or you can buy vinyl online.
 
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Lagduf

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I don't remember seeing or even hearing about CDs until at least late 1988.

According to wikipedia CD sales exceeded vinyl sales for the first time in 1988. Commercial audio CDs came out in 1982.

Obviously I'm younger than you but first time I remember seeing a CD was probably 1990?
 

wyo

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Vinyl was always cheaper than CDs when I used to buy records. First CDs I bought were Batman soundtrack, KLF The White Room and Iron Maiden Somewhere in Time
 

HellioN

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As a side note last time I was in a best buy you could get vinyl but not a single CD was in the building.
 

Dr Shroom

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CDs are going to keep trucking along for a while till something more resonable comes out that even your grandmother with dementia can operate and enjoy.
They still keep producing DVDs well into the 4/8k blu ray age after all.

Vinyl you buy for the ritual, package design and fooling yourself into thinking it sounds better than CD while sipping PBR.
 
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joe8

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CDs are going to keep trucking alone for a while till something more resonable comes out that even your grandmother with dementia can operate and enjoy.
They still keep producing DVDs well into the 4/8k blu ray age after all.

Vinyl you buy for the ritual, package design and fooling yourself into thinking it sounds better than CD while sipping PBR.
Vinyl sounds warmer than CD, and arguably more musical. Personally, I think hi-res digital files (24-bit) trump them both.
I would say optical media in general is on the way out, although I don't think that it should be.
When it's digitial files (instead of optical), there's often some compression applied, which reduces the quality.
Blu ray doesn't have 8K, as of yet. There haven't even been any 8K movies or TV shows released yet, which is strange. You'd think there'd be film studios who would want the publicity of getting in first with an 8K release.
 

theMot

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Why do I feel like I've read this same headline every year since 2009?
It’s like when the last soldiers from the First World War were dying off. The last one kept dying over and over for about a decade.
 

theMot

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Vinyl sounds warmer than CD, and arguably more musical. Personally, I think hi-res digital files (24-bit) trump them both.
I would say optical media in general is on the way out, although I don't think that it should be.
When it's digitial files (instead of optical), there's often some compression applied, which reduces the quality.
Blu ray doesn't have 8K, as of yet. There haven't even been any 8K movies or TV shows released yet, which is strange. You'd think there'd be film studios who would want the publicity of getting in first with an 8K release.
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BeefJerky

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I've been piling up CDs over the last year. CDs are the new vinyl. Cassette tapes had their hey day in the 2010's. Sadly, Minidiscs weren't prolific enough to warrant a revival.

Fuck, man, bring back MDs, fuck it.

PS: I got super rarez CDs for sale, hit me up. Oh okay.

PPS: WIR MUSSEN DIE JUDEN AUS ROTTEN!
 

terry.330

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As a side note last time I was in a best buy you could get vinyl but not a single CD was in the building.
They don't even sell Blu-rays or 4k movies anymore. They sell the players but not the discs. You'd think they'd at least stock a few new releases for people buying 4k players and giant TVs but nope.

The entire movie section was replaced by E-bikes lol.
 

joe8

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They don't even sell Blu-rays or 4k movies anymore. They sell the players but not the discs. You'd think they'd at least stock a few new releases for people buying 4k players and giant TVs but nope.

The entire movie section was replaced by E-bikes lol.
Best Buy has stores you can go to? I thought they were just a website?
 

HellioN

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They don't even sell Blu-rays or 4k movies anymore. They sell the players but not the discs. You'd think they'd at least stock a few new releases for people buying 4k players and giant TVs but nope.

The entire movie section was replaced by E-bikes lol.

It was late last year when I was there, they still had several isles of DVDs and Blu-ray available.
Might be interesting to pop in there next time I'm nearby and see if it's still like that.
 

NeoSneth

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Off topic storytime for tapes.

my first job out of college was as a fine particle chemist, and one of the things they made was the high end magnetic particles for tapes. data, vhs, cassette. etc... I remember they gave a tour of the manufacturing plant to a bunch of Japanese scientists who bought from us. Turns out they were just reverse engineering everything for their own plants. Stopped buying from us a few months afterwards. It's not just the chinese stealing techniques...
 

ggallegos1

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I usually buy my vinyl in bulk at either vinyl swap meets or during a sale. Records over $25 have to really have a lot of music i want to hear and not sound like ass. Last vinyl swap meet I went to i was able to get a lot of hip hop and rock I've been looking for at around $210 for 25 records.
 

Lagduf

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Off topic storytime for tapes.

my first job out of college was as a fine particle chemist, and one of the things they made was the high end magnetic particles for tapes. data, vhs, cassette. etc... I remember they gave a tour of the manufacturing plant to a bunch of Japanese scientists who bought from us. Turns out they were just reverse engineering everything for their own plants. Stopped buying from us a few months afterwards. It's not just the chinese stealing techniques...

That’s wild.

I always forget that tape is still used for data storage.
 

SignOfGoob

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You’re wrong. Sorry.

Here is one of the companies that still makes it: https://www.nationalaudiocompany.com/

What has been discontinued are metal tapes. I believe they were type three or four I can’t remember offhand. Also, no new tapes use Dolby noise reduction anymore because no one wants to pay Dolby for that.

There are no good tape decks being made today, period. It’s all total crap compared to even the average stuff from the peak of cassette, 1988 or so.
 
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Lagduf

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There are no good tape decks being made today, period. It’s all total crap compared to even the average stuff from the peak of cassette, 1988 or so.

He was talking about compact cassettes, not decks.
 

SignOfGoob

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The same thing applies for the same reason. There are no Type IV tapes because there are no Type IV decks. They don’t sell buggy whips anymore because they don’t sell any buggies.
 
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