Recording Industry Ass. says vinyl and CD sales beat digital downloads

For the first time in seven years, Americans spent more on CDs and records than digital downloads. This according to the Recording Industry Ass. of America, who says in its 2017 music revenues report [PDF] that sales from vinyl and CD recordings accounted for 17 per cent of revenues last year, compared to a 15 per cent share …

[vir]

"Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

Composing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

Compromising.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll thank yourself later on.

I can still play a classic Tracy Chapman debut Album CD from 1988, but the downloads I bought using Microsoft Groove are already history.

You should always (ideally) own (your) music with no copyright protection, on physical media.

You'll thank yourself later on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

"own (your) music with no copyright protection, on physical media."

RAID5 or RAID6 though?

[elip]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

Neither needed. Backups, backups, backups.

[Joerg]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

LTO tape drives for backup

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on. LTO tape drives for backup

Who remembers 120Mb Zip drives? 44Mb Syquest Drives? The Domesday Book on Laserdisk?

http://www.obsoletemedia.org/obsolescence-decade/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project

Museums have a big problem in reviewing their archive material to ensure it gets safely migrated to newer media before the devices capable of reading it are extinct. Then there is the data structure that has been used in writing it. If encrypted, has the relevant key been archived too?

[Korev]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

You should always (ideally) own (your) music with no copyright protection, on physical media.

Why the need for physical media? You can buy downloads in decent quality these days with no DRM and it's much more convenient than having hundreds of CDs taking up space.

[Milton]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

Dunno why people disagree with buy-once-copy-forever downloads. I am happy with decent MP3s or MP4a files, of which we now have 103Gb on our server. About half were ripped during a fortnight's CD frenzy 15 years ago (which opened up a lot of space on our shelves). The remainder have accumulated insensibly from mostly Amazon or Google since then as paid downloads. The fact that we can copy them onto a chip/whatever for playing absolutely anywhere, connected or not, is a boon, as is the fact that about once a month the whole thing gets backed up.

Given that most music, especially the modern stuff, is 99.7% absolute shit, we have most of what we really like already. Perhaps if we listened indiscriminately a lot of the time, streaming would make sense?

[spinynorman]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

Oh how I pity your aural sense. I think that your statement should really read: "is 99.7% not engaging for me". I don't subscribe to the idea that there is such a thing as "bad music". If there is, it would be something that not one person finds engaging, and if that's the case then I would suggest that it should not be categorised as music anyway.

At 62 I always have, and can still, certainly on a weekly if not daily basis, find music that I find engaging. After a short blip during the sixth form at school, when I decided that anything that was in the singles chart was sh*te, I came to my senses and realised that if any particular music brought pleasure to my aural sense, then it was good for me. My music discovery isn't hampered by 'genre' or location boundaries. Of course, that is a problem ... being able to afford the next biggest microSD to keep my ever growing music collection on (I buy in most formats). I also stream music (even if I 'own' it), as another way of supporting an artist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

" You can buy downloads in decent quality these days with no DRM"

Really? Where? And I don't mean *any* pieces but those pieces I want, of course. Also, 'decent' quality is very subjective: CD or near CD is good enough.

Almost anything with DRM is dead in ~10 years (even itunes has pieces 'disappearing') and that's pathetic compared to CD which lasts so long that those will be inherited by next generation.

I should know, I bought first ones in early 80s and those are still as good as new.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: a classic Tracy Chapman debut Album CD from 1988

Talking bout a revolution

She was the first support act to John Martyn when he played Sadlers Wells almost exactly thirty years ago to the day. Anyone still in the bar missed an absolute gem of a performance by her. Nobody appeared to know of her at that time and she wasn't even listed on the billing. IIRC our seats were near the front of the stalls. Pity that Tanita Takaram took the edge off the evening sandwiched between TC and JM singing about her hot pork ones.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: John Martyn

I saw him at the Royal Festival Hall in '71 or '72. Blew my mind away with the sounds he could get from an acoustic guitar. Saw him several times after that as well.

RIP John, you were a one off and a true musician who knew how to play an instrument. Sadly far too many so called musicians today... well aren't and could not play an instrument or hold a tune to save their lives.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

@AC; "downloads I bought using Microsoft Groove are already history."

That much should already have been easily predictable by the time Groove started in 2012.

Microsoft are notorious for repeatedly launching services to suit themselves (usually a "me too" when they see someone else enjoying success with something and want a slice of the pie) then abandonding them- and their users- as soon as it doesn't work out. Which it usually doesn't.

For example, tracks supporting their ironically-named "Plays for Sure" initiative didn't "play for sure" when they launched Zune equipment- and what happened to Zune when *that* didn't work out? Also consider the likes of Windows RT, and their repeated chopping and changing of Windows Phone/Mobile... etc, etc.

DRMed music services whose downloads ceased to be playable when the plugs had been pulled on the servers had already happened by then.

Add the two together, and what did you *expect* from Microsoft?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You'll thank yourself later on.

"Add the two together, and what did you *expect* from Microsoft?!"

Google are far worse for just abandoning services and products.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

"Americans spent more on CDs and records than digital downloads"

Good, good. Why would anyone pay to download music when it's easily downloadable for free? No one wants to fund the copyright cartels.

[Korev]

Re: "Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

Good, good. Why would anyone pay to download music when it's easily downloadable for free? No one wants to fund the copyright cartels.

You're going to get some FLAC for that...

[Lomax]

Re: "Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

> "You're going to get some FLAC for that..."

Have a beer!

[The Nazz]

Re: "Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

Is this what you were looking for? It always amuses me. Easily done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjWPXybVjYE

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

No, it was this!

https://youtu.be/IeTybKL1pM4

[JLV]

>Composing.

com·prise

kəmˈprīz/

verb

gerund or present participle: comprising

consist of; be made up of.

"the country comprises twenty states"

synonyms: consist of, be made up of, be composed of, contain, encompass, incorporate; More

include;

formalcomprehend

"the country comprises twenty states"

make up; constitute.

"this single breed comprises 50 percent of the Swiss cattle population"

synonyms: make up, constitute, form, compose; account for

"this breed comprises half the herd"

Kinda pointless to correct folks' vocab when one's own is lacking, neh?

Really need 2 icons here: Pedant + Fail.

[ravenviz]

Really?

See icon

[vir]

Your source must be different from mine. Garner's Modern English Usage:

Comprise.

A. And compose.

Correct use of these words is simple, but increasingly rare. The parts compose the whole; the whole comprises the parts. The whole is composed of the parts, the parts are comprised in the whole. Comprise, the more troublesome word in this pair, means "to contain; to consist of"...

C. Comprise for make up or constitute. If the whole comprises the parts, the reverse can't be true - e.g.:

"Of the 50 stocks that comprise [read make up] the index, 40 had gains....

D. Comprise for are. This is an odd error based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of comprise. E.g.: "They comprise [read are] three of the top four names in the batting order of...

Maybe a BrE vs AmE issue, but its the Recording Ass. of America, so I'll take Garner's advice on this one.

[mevets]

how are the poets are doing...

Do the RAII break out how much money was paid to the artists by each of these pie slices?

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: how are the poets are doing...

In fact, yes: it's the white slice labeled "0% <--- Haha, FU".

[Dan 55]

Re: how are the poets are doing...

Do the RAII break out how much money was paid to the artists by each of these pie slices?

Yes, every time a new piece of music is instantiated.

[Martin Gregorie]

What about the artists?

Mildly interesting article, but what about money going to performers, song writers and composers?

When you consider that the "music industry" would not exist without the folks who write and perform music, not mentioning whether the move from downloads to disk purchase and streaming helps or harms them is a surprising omission.

[JLV]

Re: What about the artists?

hush now. This an article about the RIAA published statements. whatever makes you think they care about what the artists get paid, as opposed to how much the RIAA members make?

In fact, I suspect that any discussion about how little $ artists make when a record does get sold is not in the RIAA's best interest. In years of RIAA whining about piracy, the amount paid out per album to artists has never been a very popular subject with them - you will feel guiltier about downloading that $15 album illegally if you don't know that the artist only sees $1-2 of it anyway, but even that only after the album's promotional costs have been recouped by the music company.

Bigger artists with good bargaining power get better deals, but the little folk don't. Rest assured that Bono has plenty to $$$ to salt away in his Ireland-Netherland non-profit U2 company while lecturing us all about not sending out enough $ to poor countries.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about the artists?

"Mildly interesting article, but what about money going to performers, song writers and composers?"

If you want to support them, pay to go to their concerts / gigs.

[genghis_uk]

Re: What about the artists?

At one time concerts/gigs used to be loss leaders for the album release and were affordable (the merchandise not so much!). As a teenager I regularly went to Hammersmith Odeon (remember that?) to see big bands.

Somewhere along the line the album release became secondary and now tickets are stupidly expensive. Coupled with the secondary sales racketeering, I don't think I could afford to see the same bands 30 years later...

[elgarak1]

That would be a meaningful statistic, if only the same content were offered on all channels. That is not the case. There are titles which are not on streaming services, others are not on downloads, and there's an awful lot that is ONLY available as physical media (some of those eventually find their way to pirate sites. But I doubt they counted those, and since they are not the big hit titles, they are often even hard to find as pirate downloads). One of the reasons I have not (yet) subscribed to a streaming service is the fact that they do not, and are unlikely to ever will, offer some of the obscure titles I have not yet in my personal collection.

[ravenviz]

I can still get everything I want off Amazon for cheap second hand. Entire back catalogues for a few tens of £. But then I'm an old git and still think Van Halen are cool! (which they are)

[Anonymous Coward]

Availability

There is an awful lot of really good music that never made it past Vinyl let alone Casette or CD and as for finding on streaming services? Are you mad?

Thankfully, my collection of 650+ Albums and 300+ 78's (mostly 1950's Jazz and Blues) are going nowhere.

Streaming? I don't need no stinking streaming services.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Availability

"There is an awful lot of really good music that never made it past Vinyl"

Luckily, lots of it is available on Demonoid in the form of needledrops for those of us who can't afford to pay the outrageous prices for old vinyl.

I wish there was a simple system for paying the artists directly. Mind you, most of the ones I like are dead.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Availability

@AC; "I wish there was a simple system for paying the artists directly. Mind you, most of the ones I like are dead."

Has anyone developed a protocol for transferring money to the dead via a ouija board? In fact, I'm sure that could be generalised to a data layer that existing protocols could run over (though they'd probably be restricted by that lower layer in terms of speed, which might be a problem).

Might even be able to transfer bitcoin over it.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: Availability

You are probably right, but let's test this theory anyway!

Mention a few of those things, and I'll check if they are available streaming!

(I'm just curious. I have LP, tape and CD here as well.)

[The Sprocket]

Re: Availability

Similar situation here. Scores of 'obscure' baroque music CD's along with jazz, and 80's UK independent vinyl singles, EP's and albums that never even made it to the CD world. Select chunks of this I've been able to digitize and re-route to iPod and other personal digital output, as I prefer to have total control over how my music gets digitized. Frankly, I still like buying CD's and vinyl, as I like to re-listen to music over and over. I have no interest in the streaming world other than as an occasional discovery resource. I also still listen to FM radio over the air too. CDs and vinyl taking ups space? Ha! Visitors LOVE to see what sort of music I listen to which is always a good conversation starter.

[JeffyPoooh]

Physical media

When civilization ends, I'll still have my solar panels, a vast assortment of media playing gadgets, and endless physical media disks. Y'all can come over to my cave to listen to some tunes, or watch a movie.

I hope that you like 'The Spice Girls', and the 'Paddington' bear movies. ;-)

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Physical media

don't forget the batteries!

You will need a good few kW of storage to power that lot once the sun goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Physical media

don't forget the batteries!

What's wrong with a slave on generator bike?

Unless JeffyPoooh is running a couple of class A monoblocs, the circa 100W output of a slave-powered generator would be ample for his music system.

[BebopWeBop]

I'll stick

with my vinyl - although I have to confess to having digitised it (for away comfort). It's a physical thing - getting up and turning over the album. I'm not going to claim any mystical audio excellence- I'm 53 and I suspect my hearing is not quite that of a younger human being, but the turntable is very comfortable.

Yours in history (and maybe senility - although my clients have not cottoned on to that yet)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'll stick

>with my vinyl

Vinyl is a terrible medium for audio playback but the album covers are great.

[Grumpyrocker]

Re: I'll stick

True in theory. But vinyl does protect us to some extent from the terrible mastering jobs often put on CD. There are plenty of albums that sound better on vinyl than CD, not because vinyl is superior, just because it's harder to crush and brickwall a vinyl master and have a record that plays/.

CD is technically much better than vinyl. But vinyl is fun, and I do buy some records in that format knowing it's more about the experience than the sound quality.

I still buy plenty of music. Some CD. Some vinyl. Some downloads. Where possible I buy from the most direct route from the artist - such as Bandcamp or their own site. I still believe in paying artists for the work in the hope they can keep at it as a job.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'll stick

>But vinyl does protect us to some extent from the terrible mastering jobs often put on CD.

That's because in the early days of CD, the idiots were still mastering thinking vinyl. By the way virtually all recording studios are now digital. Mastering for vinyl requires so much screwing around to account for the deficiencies of vinyl, e.g. RIAA equalisation.

>But vinyl is fun

No it isn't, it's big, very environmentally unfriendly, scratches, crackles, terrible SNR, wears out........I could go on for hours why I'm glad to see the back of it. I look forward to the return of vinyl as much as I do to the return of TB.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'll stick

">But vinyl does protect us to some extent from the terrible mastering jobs often put on CD.

"That's because in the early days of CD, the idiots were still mastering thinking vinyl. By the way virtually all recording studios are now digital. Mastering for vinyl requires so much screwing around to account for the deficiencies of vinyl, e.g. RIAA equalisation."

And the commentard missed whole point, nice. Anything mastered thinking vinyl is _better_ than anything which uses CD to the fullest, i.e. maximum volume and dynamic compressed to 2 dB, with all the peaks clipped. Just because it's louder. To sell it better. Next step is all ones: Maximum volume to sell it more.

At that point CC (compact cassette) wouldn't be any worse.

"much screwing around to account for the deficiencies"

This is BS: Vinyl has limitations but those are not hard to compensate with RIAA correction. Those same limitations prevent loudness war and ridiculous compression we have in CD, basically rendering it much worse than any vinyl ever was. The amount of raping of music in modern CD:s is ridiculous and you can't have that in vinyl as the media doesn't allow it: Therefore it's better, no matter what you say.

At that point the media itself is totally irrelevant: Garbage in, garbage out.

As that has been continuing at least 20 years there's no change visible in the future either, so if you want quality music you either buy vinyl or don't buy: Some classical pieces exist which are not compressed to the maximum in CD. But not many.

" could go on for hours why I'm glad to see the back of it"

No you couldn't. I see you used up all of your arguments and most of them are already ridiculous: "environmentally unfriendly"? How low you can go?

You realize that CD is also plastic? With plastic covers unlike vinyl which uses cardboard?

"I look forward to the return of vinyl as much as I do to the return of TB."

I see you don't care about quality of the music at all, but are a media fanatic, who fails to see that media is totally irrelevant when it's used to spread garbage. Being good on paper doesn't mean anything at that point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'll stick

>I see you don't care about quality of the music at all

All waffle and twaddle, I note you completely disregard the fact that virtually all music is recorded in the studio digitally and processed digitally and has been for some time. Some rather famous musician friends of mine demoed their latest works to me on DAT in 1990 straight from the studio master, I was impressed.

Do you flog tatty old vinyl on Discogs for outrageous prices by any chance ?

Modern Wank, I saw you coming.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

Let's not forget...

The concept of an album. A set of tracks that were meant to be played in sequence.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: The other concept of an album

A few tracks you wanted and some others you had to pay for as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The other concept of an album

"A few tracks you wanted and some others you had to pay for as well."

Only for those artists who couldn't make an album full of good tracks. Proper artists could, so not a problem.

Some could even make a double album full of good tracks, imagine that.

[The Nazz]

That pie chart is well wrong

At the risk of giving them ideas, where the hell is the slice, the $673bn* slice, representing the revenue *stolen* from them by illegal download and other means?

* yeah made up and deliberately overstated in accordance with their own methods.

[GrumpyOldBloke]

Re: That pie chart is well wrong

Trump is placing trade sanctions on China in part over IP theft (or recycling), expect about $600B to turn up on the door step any day now.

[SVV]

Hipsters will have to go to iTunes now

No, they're taping the songs onto cassettes from 6/music shows via iPlayer and turning up at their friends' houses with ancient walkmans and mini phono to phono leads, then plugging them into their powered speakers going "check out my new iPod and playlist!".

I wish I was joking but it actually happened whilst at a gathering at a friend's house recently. A few younger bearded types even found it amusing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beats cd, vinyl, reel-to-reel, any format you can name does a musical slave.

Also, you're more likely to eke out a meaningful existence as my musical slave, instead of slavery by proxy getting leeched by zillions of extraneous "services" between you and your audience. Apply by PM and we'll see if the yoke fits, oh, there is no PM on The Reg.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Beats cd, vinyl, reel-to-reel, any format you can name does a musical slave.

oh, there is no PM on The Reg.

Thank <insert belief leader of your choice>. Given what a bunch of rude, cantankerous opinionated gits I and so many other commentards are, can you imagine the consequences of being able to PM each other?

Murder wouldn't be the half of it.

[MachDiamond]

scenario

You sign up with Amazon and put together a music library and build a movie list. You buy things from Amazon that turn out to be made from 100% Chinesium and send them back one too many times and Amazon closes your account. Poof, music and movies all gone too.

It's Christmas time and you figure you can distract the little hellions in the house by putting them in front of the TV with some of those Disney movies you "bought". Whoops. Disney has blacked out viewing them for the holidays so they can run them on their cable channel complete with commercials for all of those tie-in products. Even if you only had VHS copies, you'd figure a way to get that VCR hooked into the new flat screen to get the kiddies out from under foot.

I have all of my music library on CDs, tapes and vinyl. Most of it is ripped onto a hard drive and I can load it on whatever player I want to listen to it on. iPod, Phone, thumbdrive, whatever. No DRM, no hassles. Just don't get any cds by Sony with the root kit autoinstaller.

[Grikath]

Re: scenario

"you'd figure a way to get that VCR hooked into the new flat screen to get the kiddies out from under foot."

SCART to standard AV plug converter.....

Amazing what you can hook up to modern screens with that...

(lot of friends with little kids. And an amazing selection of kiddie films/series that are only available on video tapes. The sheer volume of tapes still around is...impressive... And cheap for the parents. )

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: scenario

"you'd figure a way to get that VCR hooked into the new flat screen to get the kiddies out from under foot."

SCART to standard AV plug converter....."

And that happily converts SCART analog video signal to something HDMI can understand? Nice, I'd like to see that converter too.

[Joerg]

Just a few weeks ago they were telling otherwise...

Just a few weeks ago they were telling otherwise...

.. they released news telling that the CDs were doomed and no one was buying them anymore and manufacturers would have stopped producing ... and other nonsense like that.

Now they claim that there as been a surge in sales ...

[NonSSL-Login]

Re: Just a few weeks ago they were telling otherwise...

Depends on what law change and location the media cartels are lobbying for on that particular day...

[Craig 2]

Yea it's all great! CDs & records are still relevant if you take out the overwhelmingly dominant consumption method...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hours wasted

It recently took my over two hours to copy all my music from one hard drive to another. and almost as much to delete the old stuff afterwards.

If I had to move the same as CD's and LP's (I own them) it would have taken me 10 minutes to move them all to the adjacent book shelf.

I don't stream music much at all, and while I have downloaded a small amount I prefer hard-media as it brings me home, I can handle the case or feel the cardboard, flip a page read it, and inserts. all that extra info.

Note to Self:- burn those Digital downloads to Hard Media.

[Craig 2]

Re: Hours wasted

It took you 2 hours to go right-click copy - right click paste & walk away?

[Anonymous Coward]

MY CDs !!!!

They are MIIIIINE !!!

Let's get physical...

[Michael Strorm]

Re: MY CDs !!!!

"They are MIIIIINE !!!"

Am I the only person who read this in the voice of the False Rod Hull?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have to laugh at the hipsters....

buying "new" albums for £30, that you can pick up from a charity shop / car boot for 50p.

[jeffdyer]

Re: I still have to laugh at the hipsters....

Unlikely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I still have to laugh at the hipsters....

"buying "new" albums for £30, that you can pick up from a charity shop / car boot for 50p."

You really believe that? If you do, I see you never have tried to find a spesific record from charity shops.

If you can find something from charity shop at 50p, you probably can find it for sale in £30, that part might even be true. But it definitely doesn't work the other way round.

Unless you have a comprehensive online catalog of all records in all charity shops in country. And I won't believe you have one: The local charity shops have no catalog at all of what they have, even locally.

"Go and look from the shelves" is the catalog. Now tell me how long it would take to find a spesific record until I find it, walking through records in all charity shops, on-site?

I'll say that even £1 per hour means it's cheaper to buy online at £30 if I really want it.

[Just A Quick Comment]

Hypocritical industry whining about stuff despite ripping off punters and artists alike

My main moan is the continual re-release (often with 'extras' that you may listen to once and then never again) of old stuff. I have Rumours by Fleetwood Man on CD, vinyl and SACD. Now why should I have to pay for a high resolution download? I've contributed enough to FM's Peruvian Marching Powder Fund over the years I think!

It's similar with Kraftwerk's 3D Blu-ray box set - no high resolution digital download voucher; I'm expected to pay again to hear the same music on my high res music player (a Fiio X3 2nd Gen which plays just about everything). Well, how many Blu-ray players have either phono outs or headphone sockets? Talk about milking the customer who feeds you and making them/squeezing them pay until there is nothing left. OK, so having Rumours more than once suggests I need therapy, I can't argue too much with that...!

However, I still have physical media because it doesn't need the internet (with its ways, means and general other quirks) to authorise my playing of the music that I paid for.

[jeffdyer]

Re: Hypocritical industry whining about stuff despite ripping off punters and artists alike

You won't be able to hear any difference between SACD and anything higher. 5.1 SACDs are like the holy grail, if you look on eBay they go for £££s. Just paid £35 for Beck's Sea Change in 2 channel and 5.1 mix. Can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Digital downloads"

Is there such a thing as "analogue downloads"?

(To be fair, you did get analogue streaming once upon a time...)

[GruntyMcPugh]

I'd be interested to compare,...

... numbers of physical albums sold vs copies downloaded, rather than a revenue comparison, because I have a feeling using revenue bigs up physical sales a bit. Even my local Sainsbury's sells some music, in the form of Box Set Vinyl, and it's premium price stuff, and has 'Gift' written all over it. Spending £40 on the Foo Fighters Greatest Hits, in a box, for instance, looks more significant than spending less than a quarter of that for a download.

[anonymous boring coward]

Rather than replying to anyone, and starting a flame war, I’m just going to say:

A well mastered, not compressed to death and ruined by shit sample rate conversions and jitter, master cut to LP will sound far superior to a CD with a sh*t loudness war master.

The problem is usually the mastering, but LP or tape will be at least as satisfying as any CD can be if operating at their full potential. Most people have never heard good LP or tape, and never will. Heck, most younger people today have never even heard a decent Hifi (or Stereo, as we used to say).

[GruntyMcPugh]

Oh dear,....

... with vinyl, mono bass, inherent crackle and hiss, and of course, a big dose of diminishing returns and oxygen free cables.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: Oh dear,....

Funny about the bass, because you can’t hear bass direction anyway.

What do cables have to do with LP, CD, mp3, FLACK or the price of tea in India?

[GruntyMcPugh]

Re: Oh dear,....

"Funny about the bass, because you can’t hear bass direction anyway."

Well, now we have to discuss where the frequency cut off for 'bass' is, and compare what comes out of a single sub woofer and the rest of your setup, and what's a mono channel on a vinyl record. With a record, it's mono to prevent the needle skipping, because reproducing sound using a needle has physical limits.

You didn't address the issue of physical contact introducing hiss and crackle. All part of the subjective vinyl experience, is it?