kevmurray

I think its the cool factor and a bit of nostalgia. Like tube amps.

Denonite

iTrader: (1)

I disagree...big box stores did not ask for Alpine F#1 status, Pioneer p-01, prs, odr, kenwood excelon, arc se series, zapco, RF power, Audison vr, Focal utopia, , Morel elate, etc...These are all very high end, state of the art equipment that has been or still is available. Yes there is a hugh segment of the population that will look for "normal" equipment, and the sales of those allow companies to provide the audiophiles with options. Let's face it, freaks like us (some more freaky than others) make up less than .001% of the total consumers...the fact that they still make high end equipment still surprises me.

Denonite

iTrader: (1)

nostalgia...cool factor...soon maybe cd's will see the same fate as more and more use storage device and usb/portable player and direct download...lately I've noticed a few more audiophile download services popping up...even a few ultra HD 96khz/24bit services.

JohnVroom

I think there are incredible vinyl and CD recordings that do a phenomenal job of reproducing a live event in the living room, and some that fall short on each format. There were some early digital recordings that sounded awful (on vinyl or CD) and that isnt because digital was inferior to analog but because it was recorded poorly. Personally I like vinyl a lot but I also like CD's and generally prefer them (that may be because after I sold it I discovered I preferred my Rega to my oracle turntable).
The vinyl/CD discussion echos the tube/ transistor argument and there may be some 'romance' involved with the old technology but I think that vinyl and tubes tend to deviate from neutrality in a way that is very pleasing to the ear. My LR stereo is a hybrid tube/transistor amp and it is neutral and cannot be identified as a tube or solid state device by its 'sound' so I believe either format can produce excellent results.
generally tubes and vinyl will come up on the short end of the stick when accuracy and distortion are measured but after listening you discover the inferior measurements dont get in the way of the music. listen to a good vinyl record and there arent any pops, and when there are pops they somehow dont ruin the music (now a skip....)

JohnVroom

Ya know... vinyl is doing a comeback when the only reason it went out of vogue is because record companies simply stopped making the darn things because there was more profit in CDs (records cost ~$2 to make and sold for $6 to $8 while CDs cost 1.5 to make and sold for $16 WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT)

JohnVroom

great point, today's stuff sounds great for less $

1. it cant be cool I use it
2. long lasting trend (over 50 years for the 33.3 record) but it is the audio perfectionist that is pushing the resurgence

Lord Huggington

iTrader: (1)

If you don't like today's music it's because you're listening to the radio.

n0catchyname

Which is where the general population gets their music choices from. The problem is popular radio has so little variety. It always has, it always will. Pop music will always be just that. 60's pop sounded different from 70's pop which sounded different than 80's pop, and it goes on. But 60's pop compared to pop music today wasn't much different in the fact that the majority of the popular music sounded similar. The biggest difference was there was a lot less blatentblending of genres, partly due to the fact there were so few genres, everything was new and no one really realized it. Today, with a widebirth of genres people recognize and everyone doing the same thing by obviously mixing them, it's just painstaking and disgusting. Popular music used to be actually decent and not the same old over-produced bullsh!t, therefore making it seem like there is no 'good' music compared to what there used to be, because 'good' music isn't popular anymore.

I agree that if you don't like today's music, you're listening to too much radio, but at the same time, there is an awful lot of dirt to dig through to get to the diamonds.

Denonite

iTrader: (1)

^^yep..a lot of digging!