Well I'm going to take your challenge, which I think is timely.
I have to say that I was taken up short this week in the Twin Cities about all this. The news papers and TV news have been all of a buzz about a
2 million dollar plant to press 23 million vinyl discs a year that has just opened in Osseo MN, just outside the Northwest Twin Cities Metro.
This has been built by Copycat records, based in the suburb of Plymouth in the Northwest Metro. They manufacture CDs, DVDs and Blu Ray discs. According to their vinyl plant manager interviewed on news bulletins, vinyl disc production now exceeds all digital disc production on a world wide basis. They say that their demand for digital disc production is in decline, and that getting into vinyl disc production was an imperative.
Now last time I looked there were about two or three vinyl disc vendors in the Twin Cities metro, all of them looking to be somewhat grungy unwashed outfits. Now, on my research I find there are no less then 20 serious vendors of vinyl records in the Twin Cities Metro. Not only that but more then a few offer turntables, cartridges, turntable set up and stylus replacement services.
So the question to me becomes why? A change on this scale can not come about just form audiophoolery and digital phobia.
This suggests to me that the leaders of the audio and AV industry have made some major misjudgments.
So I hope members really look at this thread and think about the issues this raises.
Back when vinyl was king almost every home had an audio system. In the early years of the CD this remained constant.
Then the audiophhools stated to question the validity of digital audio, error correction and daft pictures of "staircase" waves, and totally misunderstanding dither. The fact is that the audio CD is more then adequate. Its FR is wide enough, and it dynamic range wide enough for all but a minute body of work, largely unheard and unknown by the vast majority of the general public.
The next issue is streaming. In my view this is not handy, especially for presenting classical music, and it has often been presented with less than stellar digital compression. Sure there are high res streams, but it all get complicated. It takes skill to properly download a CD. Even if you do, getting it to play seamlessly often presents a challenge.
Worse we have outfits like Apple Music where you have to subscribe to Apple TV to get decent quality. I can tell you that the quality from apps not on that device is a disgrace. There is no need to this sort of gratuitous corporate abuse.
I think the next issue is complexity.
Wrongly I believe the industry has concentrated on surround audio systems and codecs to the neglect of two channel audio. I think this has been a massive miscalculation.
People do not want the clutter of all of this including multiple speakers in most homes. History shows they tolerate two channel systems quite well.
I would also venture to state that that good two channel bests less good multichannel by a big margin. So most, including probably most members here, would be far better off putting the same dollars into a two channel system rather than 5 to 11 channels. Also I remain unconvinced that multichannel audio has any place at all in the vast majority of homes. I personally would not dream of putting one in a room that was not custom for the purpose. I think most of the public intuitively know this.
It tells me that the industry need to make a massive reinvestment in two channel audio, and I admit that these days it should be 2.1.
Today, I listened to a live concert from the BPO in our in wall great room system. I listened in 2.1. It was absolutely superb, and I could listen easily at concert hall levels without distress.
I can see why my wife likes that system so much. Yes, she really takes ownership of that rig, and thanks me for it continuously. In addition I have found that it really does not matter whether you use it in 2.1 or 3.1 mode. There really is no significant difference.
In that system and our family room system, the center image does NOT collapse outside the center spot. Not at all. I know I will get push back from Shady here, but I can assure the center image does not collapse even wide of the right and left speakers. This confirms my strong view that most need better speakers and NOT MORE speakers.
To cut this long story short, I think this vinyl revival is actually a reaction and protest to audio in the home going way off the rails in the last 20 years.
