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Comment by dogman144 | Hacker News Reader

What you leave out is vinyls are a way to own music, not rent it.

Then, between CDs, vinyl, and tapes, vinyls win out for the reasons you say and more, which generally summarize to ~better artistry/sound.

You don't "have" the music if you're streaming it. You're renting it for $10.99/mo from Spotify, and routinely certain song access will drop from complete records on a streaming service for unknown reasons.

Vinyl is a small but important way to properly incentive property ownership, and and I think that's why it's so popular at its root. Digital access is not digital ownership.

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This is probably the main reason I tend to purchase my favorite music as vinyl. It is one of the few formats that is unencumbered by major patents, hardware requirements for the most basic listening, and roadblocks on the decryption/decoding side. If I want to hear a record in the most dire of circumstances, I can manually spin it with my hands and use a needle and paper sheet shaped into a cone. The record is, itself, a visual waveform representation of the music in one of its most straightforward forms.

The power can be out, no batteries around, no computer in sight, and I can still handcrank my music on a portable set. And I own it, DRM-free.

And, as mentioned above, most records now come with a code for a digital copy of the album. Best of both worlds.

"I could listen to it with a needle and paper sheet taped into a cone while spinning the record with my hands" has to be about the dumbest justification for buying vinyl I've ever heard.

The chances of society deteriorating to the point where an mp3 player running off a rechargeable AA battery isn't achievable are slim to none, and even if they do get to that point, I think you're going to be far more concerned about the basic business of staying alive.

Well, the main reason, as I stated, is ideological. That it is not encumbered by patents, like mp3 is/was. The "paper cone" example was the most extreme hyperbole that came to mind. I just think it's neat that I would still have tunes, even in that extreme, unlikely situation.

However, in response to that: This past winter my apartment went without power for over 3 days, thanks to frost damage taking out major parts of our grid. UPC ran out of power in a couple hours, phones near the end of the day, any rechargables near mid-second-day. It was really nice to have the hand-crank player with built-in speaker while huddled up under a heavy blanket and reading. The same experience even more recently while staying at a fairly remote cabin, without streaming, signal, or convenient power. Had board games, a handful of records, and a nice lantern. Good times.

Yeah, there’s a great big chasm between “listening to Spotify” and “the world has descended to caveman days” and multiple options are nice. We’ve been without power for a night and the M18 equipment was nice to have. We’ve been without internet for days and local storage was nice to have.

For "ownership" vinyl does not win over CDs - a format doesn't need special storage, doesn't wear each time you play it, doesn't need maintenance...and has far better SNR and can be easily (and perfectly) ripped to portable data formats.

I found my big CD wallet in my attic full of all my old CDs. It was all dusty and a bit moldy. Decided to re-rip a bunch of the CDs to AAC as I'd originally done so to mp3 at 160kbit way back in the 2000's.

No issues reading any of them.

Vinyl only wins if you're filthy rich because you make money just by having money (yay capital gains cuts!) and you need something to pump money into to impress yourself or your friends.

I imagine it is a lot easier to jack off while looking at a $10,000, thirty pound marble platter turntable hooked up to a $5,000 tube amplifier, than it is the high-end twenty year old CD player you bought off craigslist for $40

You can also buy a $20 vinyl album on $80 turntable with $20 speakers but what do I know.

So clever, focusing on the hyperbolic sarcastic joke I made instead of my comments about how difficult vinyl is to store compared to a CD, or the fact that you degrade the record every time you listen to it, or the fact that vinyl has a fucking terrible SNR, or how easy it is to perfectly rip a CD to whatever digital file format is popular for the day.

You really hate vinyl. Power to you. I missed it in the rest of the hyperbole, unfortunately.

I have 500 records. I do well. I'm not rich.

I, also, have no friends.

I just love music, love ritual, love big artwork that takes up a space in my life.

I have a modest turntable hooked to a modest receiver.

You sound overly aggressive

Quite overly aggressive. If you're not buying every record just for the sake of buying every record, and mostly just buying a record because you love it, vinyl is by no means for rich people. I'm in the same boat as you - modest income, collection double your size because I've slowly built it out of love over many, many years.

>> Vinyl only wins if you're filthy rich because you make money just by having money (yay capital gains cuts!) and you need something to pump money into to impress yourself or your friends

You doing OK?

Breathe, you're going to be OK.

I got ratioed on this post, which is kinda fun. Hasn't ever happened to me that I can recall.

On one level, I don't agree with you. The ritual of playing records is a real thing. And folks should enjoy what they like.

On another level: yeah.

A record collection is an art collection.

That's okay, though.

I've had both. I prefer my art collection cause it weighs less. Neither are worth anywhere near what I put into them (my musical instrument collection is nice cause at least it keep in line with inflation).

Where I really agree with you: sterophile audio equipment ain't really much. That's different that a record collection though. Most of my record friends have old deep cuts and are playing on $300 players.

If it helps, there was a time around the first decade of this century when you find really, really cool stuff for, like $2/album. It used to be hella cheap to be a record collector.

Now though, especially if you factor in the audiophillic tendencies you point to, it very much has little to do with the medium and much to do with the milieu.

> If it helps, there was a time around the first decade of this century when you find really, really cool stuff for, like $2/album. It used to be hella cheap to be a record collector.

You still can, especially if you keep an open mind and are cool with spending $2 for a record just because it looks interesting but you have no idea what's on it and/or who the artist is. I've found so many fantastic records in the dollar/discount bins in recent years.

If you really want to own music, learn how to make it :D

Seriously, though, I have rips of stuff.

My second wife had 300 records. I like listening to them. The ritual thing is real.

Moving them sucked, and they wear out.

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