"Acoustic Sounds New Arrivals
April 18, 2006

Because Sound Matters!
This Time, The Majors GOT IT RIGHT
Warner Bros. isn't cutting corners with their latest batch of LPs.
EVERYTHING - the titles, the mastering, the pressing, the artwork - IS
AUDIOPHILE GRADE.
It's been a long time coming, but you know that when even the majors jump
aboard, THE VINYL REVIVAL is on the rise."


I am sure many of you received the Acoustic Sounds eNewsletter that arrived
this evening, but for those of you who didn't, you might find the above lead
interesting. Warner Brothers has just introduced "audiophile quality'
issues of Dire Strait's "Brothers in Arms", Mark Knopfer and Emmy Lou
Harris's
"All The Roadrunning", Green Day's "American Idiot", and Flaming Lip's "At
War With The Mystics".

Acoustic Sounds sells a lot of vinyl, but also a lot of SACD and a lot of
DVD-A, so they are basically agnostic when it comes to hi-rez. They sound
excited!

BTW...all the above are mastered by Stan Ricker.




--

Harry Lavo wrote:
"Acoustic Sounds New Arrivals
April 18, 2006

Because Sound Matters!
This Time, The Majors GOT IT RIGHT
Warner Bros. isn't cutting corners with their latest batch of LPs.
EVERYTHING - the titles, the mastering, the pressing, the artwork - IS
AUDIOPHILE GRADE.
It's been a long time coming, but you know that when even the majors jump
aboard, THE VINYL REVIVAL is on the rise."


I am sure many of you received the Acoustic Sounds eNewsletter that arrived
this evening, but for those of you who didn't, you might find the above lead
interesting. Warner Brothers has just introduced "audiophile quality'
issues of Dire Strait's "Brothers in Arms", Mark Knopfer and Emmy Lou
Harris's
"All The Roadrunning", Green Day's "American Idiot", and Flaming Lip's "At
War With The Mystics".

Acoustic Sounds sells a lot of vinyl, but also a lot of SACD and a lot of
DVD-A, so they are basically agnostic when it comes to hi-rez. They sound
excited!

BTW...all the above are mastered by Stan Ricker.

Just in time to save the day! 2005 was a really bleak year for vinyl.
LP/EP shipments were down 25% from the year before. Consumer purchases
were down 22% (proving that the 2004 bump was a fluke). You could look
it up: www.riaa.org.

Some revival.

bob
--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

bob wrote:
Harry Lavo wrote:
"Acoustic Sounds New Arrivals
April 18, 2006

Because Sound Matters!
This Time, The Majors GOT IT RIGHT
Warner Bros. isn't cutting corners with their latest batch of LPs.
EVERYTHING - the titles, the mastering, the pressing, the artwork - IS
AUDIOPHILE GRADE.
It's been a long time coming, but you know that when even the majors jump
aboard, THE VINYL REVIVAL is on the rise."


I am sure many of you received the Acoustic Sounds eNewsletter that arrived
this evening, but for those of you who didn't, you might find the above lead
interesting. Warner Brothers has just introduced "audiophile quality'
issues of Dire Strait's "Brothers in Arms", Mark Knopfer and Emmy Lou
Harris's
"All The Roadrunning", Green Day's "American Idiot", and Flaming Lip's "At
War With The Mystics".

Acoustic Sounds sells a lot of vinyl, but also a lot of SACD and a lot of
DVD-A, so they are basically agnostic when it comes to hi-rez. They sound
excited!

BTW...all the above are mastered by Stan Ricker.

Just in time to save the day! 2005 was a really bleak year for vinyl.
LP/EP shipments were down 25% from the year before. Consumer purchases
were down 22% (proving that the 2004 bump was a fluke). You could look
it up: www.riaa.org.

Some revival.

Hey, if there is a fetish market out there, why not exploit it?

(Not sure how *artwork* can be 'audiophile grade', but I'm not
one of the people being marketed to)

___
-S
"Excuse me? What solid proof do you have that I'm insane?" - soundhaspriority


--

bob wrote:
Harry Lavo wrote:
"Acoustic Sounds New Arrivals
April 18, 2006

Because Sound Matters!
This Time, The Majors GOT IT RIGHT
Warner Bros. isn't cutting corners with their latest batch of LPs.
EVERYTHING - the titles, the mastering, the pressing, the artwork - IS
AUDIOPHILE GRADE.
It's been a long time coming, but you know that when even the majors jump
aboard, THE VINYL REVIVAL is on the rise."


I am sure many of you received the Acoustic Sounds eNewsletter that arrived
this evening, but for those of you who didn't, you might find the above lead
interesting. Warner Brothers has just introduced "audiophile quality'
issues of Dire Strait's "Brothers in Arms", Mark Knopfer and Emmy Lou
Harris's
"All The Roadrunning", Green Day's "American Idiot", and Flaming Lip's "At
War With The Mystics".

Acoustic Sounds sells a lot of vinyl, but also a lot of SACD and a lot of
DVD-A, so they are basically agnostic when it comes to hi-rez. They sound
excited!

BTW...all the above are mastered by Stan Ricker.

Just in time to save the day!

Save the day? More like jumping on the band wagon. Better late than
never and at least they seem to be doing things the right way for a
change.

2005 was a really bleak year for vinyl.

Not for audiophile vinyl.

LP/EP shipments were down 25% from the year before. Consumer purchases
were down 22% (proving that the 2004 bump was a fluke). You could look
it up: www.riaa.org.

Not really a reflection of audiophile vinyl which is thriving. It was a
banner year for vinyl enthusiasts. The new releases were more and
better than any year i can think of. Just take a look at what APO,
Classics, Cisco, Speakers Corner, 4 men with Beards, Audio Fidelity etc
released in the last 1 months. The real challenge for vinyl enthusiasts
these days is to keep up with all the releases.


Some revival.

Better than I could have ever imagined 15 years ago.

Scott


--

Steven Sullivan wrote:

(Not sure how *artwork* can be 'audiophile grade', but I'm not
one of the people being marketed to)

They are marketing to people who are passionate about sound quality.
Better graphics is just a nice added touch.

Scott


--

wrote:

Not really a reflection of audiophile vinyl which is thriving. It was a
banner year for vinyl enthusiasts. The new releases were more and
better than any year i can think of. Just take a look at what APO,
Classics, Cisco, Speakers Corner, 4 men with Beards, Audio Fidelity etc
released in the last 1 months. The real challenge for vinyl enthusiasts
these days is to keep up with all the releases.


I meant 12 months



Scott


--

On 21 Apr 2006 15:19:56 GMT, "bob" wrote:

Just in time to save the day! 2005 was a really bleak year for vinyl.
LP/EP shipments were down 25% from the year before. Consumer purchases
were down 22% (proving that the 2004 bump was a fluke). You could look
it up: www.riaa.org.

Looking at riaa.org, I couldn't find any bump in lp sales for 2004.
The 2005yrEndStats.pdf that has it all gives the following numbers:

ep/lp:
1995: 2.2
2000: 2.2
2001: 2.3
2002: 1.7
2003: 1.5
2004: 1.36
2005: 1.02

That is a marked decline over the last 5 years.

Now the numbers for cd:
1995: 722.9
2000: 942.5
2001: 881.9
2002: 803.3
2003: 746.0
2004: 767.0
2005: 705.4

There is a slight bump in 2004, but generally a steady decline from
2000 onwards.

Now sacd:
2003: 1.3
2004: 0.8
2005: 0.5

So sacd is dead.

Now dvda:
2001: 0.3
2002: 0.4
2003: 0.4
2004: 0.3
2005: 0.5

"Alive and kicking" so to speak.

Unbelievably or not, sales for lp are even at this moment in history
STILL higher than the combined sales for sacd and dvda. However, all
three are marginal.

Numbers for Europe will be a bit higher, I expect, especially for
Germany where there is a somewhat bigger lp market.

Ernesto
"You don't have to learn science if you don't feel
like it. So you can forget the whole business if
it is too much mental strain, which it usually is."

Richard Feynman


--

Ernst Raedecker wrote:
On 21 Apr 2006 15:19:56 GMT, "bob" wrote:

Just in time to save the day! 2005 was a really bleak year for vinyl.
LP/EP shipments were down 25% from the year before. Consumer purchases
were down 22% (proving that the 2004 bump was a fluke). You could look
it up: www.riaa.org.

Looking at riaa.org, I couldn't find any bump in lp sales for 2004.
The 2005yrEndStats.pdf that has it all gives the following numbers:

ep/lp:
1995: 2.2
2000: 2.2
2001: 2.3
2002: 1.7
2003: 1.5
2004: 1.36
2005: 1.02

That is a marked decline over the last 5 years.

Now the numbers for cd:
1995: 722.9
2000: 942.5
2001: 881.9
2002: 803.3
2003: 746.0
2004: 767.0
2005: 705.4

There is a slight bump in 2004, but generally a steady decline from
2000 onwards.

Now sacd:
2003: 1.3
2004: 0.8
2005: 0.5

So sacd is dead.

Now dvda:
2001: 0.3
2002: 0.4
2003: 0.4
2004: 0.3
2005: 0.5

"Alive and kicking" so to speak.

Unbelievably or not, sales for lp are even at this moment in history
STILL higher than the combined sales for sacd and dvda. However, all
three are marginal.

The LP market includes the DJ/hip-hop/scratching segment, which I
believe is the larger segment. The home listening segment is small, and
probably not as big as either DVD-A or SACD, IMO. My opinion is based on
how many of my friends buy LP's vs SACD/DVD-A's, and how much shelf
space is taken by SACD/DVD-A's (quite noticeable) vs LP's (none) in the
larger music stores like Tower Records.

(snip)


--

Chung wrote:
Ernst Raedecker wrote:
On 21 Apr 2006 15:19:56 GMT, "bob" wrote:

Just in time to save the day! 2005 was a really bleak year for vinyl.
LP/EP shipments were down 25% from the year before. Consumer purchases
were down 22% (proving that the 2004 bump was a fluke). You could look
it up: www.riaa.org.

Looking at riaa.org, I couldn't find any bump in lp sales for 2004.
The 2005yrEndStats.pdf that has it all gives the following numbers:

ep/lp:
1995: 2.2
2000: 2.2
2001: 2.3
2002: 1.7
2003: 1.5
2004: 1.36
2005: 1.02

That is a marked decline over the last 5 years.

Now the numbers for cd:
1995: 722.9
2000: 942.5
2001: 881.9
2002: 803.3
2003: 746.0
2004: 767.0
2005: 705.4

There is a slight bump in 2004, but generally a steady decline from
2000 onwards.

Now sacd:
2003: 1.3
2004: 0.8
2005: 0.5

So sacd is dead.

Now dvda:
2001: 0.3
2002: 0.4
2003: 0.4
2004: 0.3
2005: 0.5

"Alive and kicking" so to speak.

Unbelievably or not, sales for lp are even at this moment in history
STILL higher than the combined sales for sacd and dvda. However, all
three are marginal.

The LP market includes the DJ/hip-hop/scratching segment, which I
believe is the larger segment.


I think that is probably true.


The home listening segment is small, and
probably not as big as either DVD-A or SACD, IMO. My opinion is based on
how many of my friends buy LP's vs SACD/DVD-A's, and how much shelf
space is taken by SACD/DVD-A's (quite noticeable) vs LP's (none) in the
larger music stores like Tower Records.


That seems like a rather odd path to forming an opinion for an
engineer. Don't you think you sampling is entirely to small and to
localized to have any broader implications? For some relevant
information here are some better sources.
http://store.acousticsounds.com/topsellers.cfm
Acoustic sounds is a supplier of CDs, LPs, DVD-As, SACDs and audiophile
equipment. They have been catoring to the audiophile market for quite
some time. This is their list of the current 50 best selling items in
their catalog.
Vinyl 20
SACD 20
DVD-A 5
Record supplies 3
CDs 2
Then there is an example of availablity of titles. This is the total
number of titles available at Elusive Disc, another audiophile based
seller of LPs, SACDs and DVD-As
http://www.elusivedisc.com/
Newly released vinyl 305 titles
Newly released SACD 301 titles
Newly released DVD-A 239 titles
total vinyl 3,090
total SACD 2,132
total DVD-A 496
In the audiophile world I would give these numbers more weight in
evaluating the health of each format as it pertains to audiophiles.



Scott


--

On 30 Apr 2006 17:26:26 GMT, wrote:

Then there is an example of availablity of titles. This is the total
number of titles available at Elusive Disc, another audiophile based
seller of LPs, SACDs and DVD-As
http://www.elusivedisc.com/
Newly released vinyl 305 titles
Newly released SACD 301 titles
Newly released DVD-A 239 titles
total vinyl 3,090
total SACD 2,132
total DVD-A 496
In the audiophile world I would give these numbers more weight in
evaluating the health of each format as it pertains to audiophiles.

Now, tell us what proportion of the "newly released" in each category
is a new release as opposed to a reissue, remastered or otherwise.

Kal


--

Kalman Rubinson wrote:
On 30 Apr 2006 17:26:26 GMT, wrote:

Then there is an example of availablity of titles. This is the total
number of titles available at Elusive Disc, another audiophile based
seller of LPs, SACDs and DVD-As
http://www.elusivedisc.com/
Newly released vinyl 305 titles
Newly released SACD 301 titles
Newly released DVD-A 239 titles
total vinyl 3,090
total SACD 2,132
total DVD-A 496
In the audiophile world I would give these numbers more weight in
evaluating the health of each format as it pertains to audiophiles.

Now, tell us what proportion of the "newly released" in each category
is a new release as opposed to a reissue, remastered or otherwise.

That would take a bit of work. If anyone is interested I'll leave that
up to them to report. Frankly I am more enthusiatic about the reissues
then the new releases by and large. Although I did just pick up the new
Donald Fagan LP mastered by Steve Hoffman. But there just aren't that
many new releases that do it for me. OTOH I find I can't keep up with
all the reissues that interest me.



Scott


--

Not only do I see that as well, but the DJ/Hip-hop/scratching segment
will happily abandon vinyl once the price the new digital turntables
comes down in price. Right now a DJ can setup shop with 2 analog
turntables and a mixer for $500. The new digital DJ turntables cost
minimum of $800 each. That more than triples the cost of a basic DJ
setup. These digital turntables can do everything the old analog ones
can do plus so much more. All with no wear and no loss in sound
quality.



CD


--