It may have once seemed all but dead, but vinyl is making quite a comeback.
Even as more and more pieces of entertainment shift to digital and streaming platforms, vinyl sales are growing. And a lot of people keep asking all of us at Global Custom Integrations a pretty simple question: Why are vinyl records coming back?
There are a lot of reasons why vinyl is rising in the charts, so we thought it would be a good idea to dedicate this week's blog to vinyl. We’ll cover why the format is coming back, what people like about it, and how you can take advantage of the format. Dust off those records sitting in your garage, because it's time to get listening again.
Sound Quality
For audiophiles, this is probably the biggest reason to flock back to vinyl records. With the increasing adaptation of downloaded, digital, and streamed music, there's been one thing that has decreased in parallel: sound quality. In order to fit all those Beyoncé tracks into your iPhone or stream them to your laptop, these songs must be compressed, compressed, shrunk, and brought down to manageable file sizes. Even songs you import to your computer are lowered in quality before they are transferred over to your devices.
So, where does vinyl fit into this whole discussion? Well, instead of losing audio data, vinyl keeps all of the high-quality musical information intact, delivering a much larger range of frequencies and musical detail that you just don't get from compressed MP3 and most streaming services. People often say that they think that vinyl sounds "warmer" -- this increase in detail is what they are talking about.
Of course, to get the most out of your vinyl, you need a set up and speakers that can take advantage of all the depth and detail. Give us a call at 888-593-8990 and we can help you get set up with everything from a hi-fi receiver, to a great 2 channel system that will truly change how you experience music at home.
Ownership
The concept of ownership of media is a big topic, and one that is only going to continue to get more important -- and more heated -- as more and more consumers shift to digital movies, music, and video games. With streaming, of course, you never really "own" a song -- you are just listening to it and have access to it while you have an internet connection.
Problems arise, however, if an artist doesn't want their music on a service anymore, if contracts change, if the service goes out of business, or at times when you don't have an internet connection. This is where owning media is important. In the same way that some people refused to give up their Blu-Ray discs, there are people who like owning music physically, and vinyl continues to be the best way to do that right now. No matter what happens behind the scenes in the music industry, nobody is ever going to come and take away your vinyl record collection -- you always own that and will always be able to listen to it whenever and wherever you want. It's a future-proof system of media ownership, which is increasingly rare in this digital age.
Now, if only there was an easy way to move giant and bulky vinyl collections, then we'd really have everything figured out.
The Experience
If you've ever stopped to talk to a record collector or vinyl enthusiast, you've probably heard them go on ad infinitum about opening their favorite record, or displaying their favorite record, or the smell of unwrapping a new record for the first time.
It may sound a bit silly, but there's an experience with vinyl that you don’t get with digital formats, and that you also don’t really get with CDs. Between the artwork of the sleeve, the actual physical presence of the record itself, the process of taking a record out and putting it down on the platter before the needle slides over, there’s almost a whole ritualistic approach to listening to vinyl that fans enjoy.
Music is an important part of every home and being able to listen to and enjoy music goes a long way toward keeping everybody in the house happy and entertained -- no matter their musical tastes or choice of format.
However, when you listen to music, we want to help make sure you are experiencing it in the best way possible. Whether this is a wireless whole-home audio system, or a top-of-the-line, audiophile quality two channel system, we are here to help your music sound great. Get in touch with us over at our contact page or give us a call today at 888-593-8990 -- we'll help make sure that the day the music dies doesn't happen anytime soon in your home.