[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 16:33:01 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:
LP? It's still flourishing

By whatever criteria one might use to come to
that conclusion, one could also say that Latin
is a flourishing language and the Eutruscans
are a flourishing people.

That's not to deny that there are peaople selling
and buying LPs, but it continuously amazes me how
one can take a product whose current sales are but
a small fraction of what they once were and call
that "flourishing."


It's very simple. Ten years ago, there was essentially no 'new' LP
market and turntable and cartridge sales were all but finished, with
essentially no new models from any manufacturers. Now, there are new
LP pressing plants that didn't exist 10 years ago, and they are
backlogged with work and can't keep up with demand. LP mastering
engineers like Stan Ricker, who in the mid 90's packed up their
mastering studios and stored them away, have unpacked them, set them
up again, and have all the business that they can handle - and more.

Companies like Thorens who had essentially stopped making 'tables 10
years ago are back with a dozen new models at all price points. There
are scores of new 'tables from the likes of SME, Linn, Music Hall,
Rega, VPI, Pro-Ject, J.A. Michelle, Well Tempered, Clear Audio, Denon,
Avid, etc. to name but a few. There are hundreds of new cartridges
from the likes of Clearaudio, Grado, Denon, Ortofon, Lyre, Linn,
Sumiko, and dozens more companies. Same with tone-arms and stand alone
phono preamps. Amplifier companies who, ten years ago, were taking
phono stages OUT of their preamps and integrated amplifiers are now
putting them back in. The LP business is doing fine, and while it will
never be the market it was when LP was essentially the only source of
mass listener-owned music there was (and why would it even HAVE to be
to remain successful?), it is a healthy niche that is, according to
statistics, still growing steadily. The vinyl market remains strong
even though I've heard some folks say that it's moribund because
there's really nothing new under the sun. The vinyl playing equipment
sold today is technically little different from that being sold at the
peak of vinyl's heyday in the mid eighties. They are right there,
there is little new technology in the vinyl playback field (except
perhaps the introduction of some new materials such as carbon fiber).
But that's not because the field in moribund, but rather because vinyl
playback is a mature technology - like subsonic aircraft design. The
U.S. Air Force still flies 60-year old B-52 bombers because if they
replaced the B-52 with a new design with similar capabilities, that
new design would be, essentially, another B-52 because subsonic
airframe design is a mature technology. So is vinyl playback.

LP is hardly the moribund market that some=A0seem to want to think it
is.