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Amid record gloom, LP sales are up 34%

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norman lebrecht

July 08, 2014

Nielsen Soundscan reports that foru million LPs have sold in the US since January. They’re predicting 8.3 million for the year.

The bad news? Vinyl is the only format that’s up.

Comments

Michael Endres says:

July 8, 2014 at 4:25 pm

I am not surprised. I started buying LPs again too of my favorite recordings ,eg those of Wilhelm Kempff. The reason are the more or less unsatisfactory CD transfers ,many vastly inferior to their LP counterparts IMHO.
The whole process started for me years ago when I bought a set with Ashkenazy’s wonderful set of the Rachmaninov Preludes on CDs . I was convinced it was a different recording in the beginning: harsh brittle sound, terrible acoustics.
When comparing the 2 sets ( LP versus CD ) it was a real eye opener.
I wonder how many of the LPs mentioned above are classical ?

Delbert Grady says:

July 8, 2014 at 6:25 pm

“unsatisfactory CD transfers ,many vastly inferior to their LP counterparts” – I agree, but it’s really a case-by-case thing. I’ve compared LP originals to their CD remasterings. Sometimes the LP is better; sometimes the CD is better; sometimes they sound identical, with only a bit of surface noise to tell me it’s an LP. Generally speaking, the later a CD was issued, the better it sounds.

Reply
- Michael Endres says:
  
  July 8, 2014 at 8:26 pm
  
  Then you have been more lucky than me.
  I found particulary DG and Decca often very disappointing transfers . They seemed to have fiddled around a lot with the original tapes , and maybe its just me but often I don’t like the result very much.
  There is a fabulous source on you tube. David Hertzberg has put a phenomenal amount of LPs there ,and that is an endless joy to listen to these unmanipulated recordings.
  Here is an example of the sound I am lusting after:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9DSjoHm56Y
  
  Reply

Michael says:

July 8, 2014 at 7:35 pm

Isn’t this more about changing technology than about the state of the classical music economy? I buy all my music (~95% classical) in the form of MP3’s, which I gather are being ignored in such data.