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MPR News Staff

Is vinyl worth it?

Go Deeper.

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Vinyl album sales have been on the rise for a few years now. Is it just a fad or a real trend? What does it say about what true audiophiles want in sound quality?

Bob Fuchs, retail music manager of The Electric Fetus and Billy Fields, VP of vinyl and independent retail at Warner Music Group joined MPR News with Kerri Miller to examine the modern love affair with an old technology.

Conversation highlights

"You tend to go deeper into the process," said Bob Fuchs about listening to vinyl. "For me, it's about the ritual. ... It is an event, it is an item, it is an experience."

"Look at all aspects of American life. Digital is convenient," Billy Fields said about the competitive pressure from digital streaming services. "Vinyl is akin to the slow food movement."

"When I talk to people who run record stores across the country, the average age of their customers has dropped," Fields said. "One of the biggest customers for vinyl in the country is Urban Outfitters.

"Indie rock kids led the vinyl rebirth" that stems back to 2008, Fields added.

Big sellers

A Billboard analysis shows that Amazon is the largest seller of vinyl in the U.S., with about 12.3% market share, followed by Urban Outfitters with 8.1% market share. Rounding out the top five retail accounts selling vinyl, the next-largest is Hastings Entertainment with 2.8% of the market; Hot Topic with 2.4%; and Trans World Entertainment with 2.2%. Accounts like Audiophile, Acoustic Sounds and Newbury Comics each have market shares between 1.5% and 2% ( Billboard).

Digital vs. vinyl

"Comparing vinyl quality to digital streaming quality is apples and oranges," writes MPR technical coordinator Rob Byers.

"Digital streaming is compressed. The quality of the recording is reduced, so the stream is 'small enough' to make it to you over the public internet. High-resolution digital is often too big to do that."

"High-resolution digital — like what we use to record Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra or Minnesota Orchestra — is comparable to vinyl and can be much better."

Simplicity

Perhaps the best part of vinyl is that it can work in a simple system. Fuchs and Fields both said that high-resolution digital audio can sound as good, or better, than vinyl. But that the current systems for high-resolution digital audio are much more complicated and expensive than a comparable sounding vinyl system.