The history of recorded music starts back in 1877, with the invention of the phonograph, which is invented by Thomas Edison. His invention played a back sound from wax cylinders, which were coated in tin foil. Pretty quickly, this evolved into the turntables and vinyl records. In a pretty short time, it became a must-have item in most households in the United States and all over the world. During the middle of the 60s, we have 8-track tapes and cassettes. This provided people with the comfort of playing music they like from their vehicles. At the time, it seemed like the music recording cannot have any further level to go to.
After that, we’ve witnessed the invention of digital recording, which opened the door of the industry to digital streaming, and CDs before them. According to the research conducted by Nielsen Music, people listened to music for more than 32 hours a week. However, this doesn’t mean that the times of vinyl are long gone. More than 14 million records were sold in the US back in 2017. This is the most from the year 1991. There is one more information that supports these claims. Not just DJs are buying new turntable sets. More and more households have at least one turntable and at least a couple of records.
More importantly, there are new kinds of turntables produced each year. The idea is practically the same as it was back then, but the design came a long way from the oldest turntables. Also, now we witnessed the emerging of Bluetooth record turntables. If you are interested in one of these, you can check out ahjoo. Maybe you would think that this kind of resurgence in popularity surely has a direct effect on the market. However, we believe it’s not that simple. With that said, we are going to provide you with five reasons why turntables are making a comeback in 2024.
The Cool Factor
According to the research conducted by MusicWatch, almost 50% of all records buyers are younger than 25. This really tells us something. With every new generation, we have a whole new outlook on the future, present, and the past. Some of the younger generations really made art of using outdated concepts, reintroducing them, and making an art out of them again. There are countless of examples these, like ponytails and fedoras. If you feel unsure about this, you should check out your local record stores. There are chances that you can a crowd seriously interested in this sub-culture. Also, repacking older albums and reintroducing them to newer audiences is something that was always popular. Why shouldn’t this be the case with vinyl records? We feel like they have almost limitless potential in the future.
The Ownership and Tangibles
Naturally, with emerging technologies as streaming services, we have the convenience and unprecedented access. However, we feel that something is lacking from the whole experience. This something is ownership. When you are playing music through an app, streaming service, or even YouTube, you are not owning music you are listening to. When it comes to the vinyl records, they are physical items you can hold in your hands, purchase them, and collect them. Moreover, you can exchange them with fellow music lovers. One more thing that you can have with vinyl us tangibles, like liner notes and album artwork. We truly feel that that this is not provided through streaming services and apps.
The Listening Experience
Over the years, the methods of how people listened to music changed several times. This can be credited to the rising popularity of streaming music. Computer speakers and earbuds are predominated, but it a sure bet to say that vinyl lovers still spend a significant amount of money despite all the high-tech that are available in their homes. However, we truly believe that have a turntable with a set of nice speakers is only a part of the traditional music listening experience. This approach is more attentive and patient that listening to music while you are at work or playing streamed music while you are taking a walk in the park. One of the best things, and it will be confirmed by all of the vinyl lovers, is putting an album on a turntable and listening to it from the first to the last track. This is a listening experience that almost ceased to exist in the last decade.
Sound Quality
There are many musical experts out there who feel that old-school, analog, audio is much superior to modern digital recording. This is especially important for compressed digital formats used by streaming services. Naturally, we are perfectly aware that there are high-quality digital playback formats, like FLAC. However, you will need to search them more specifically than other formats that are more popular like MP3, MP4, or .wav. On the other hand, even if you find them, you will need to pay extra money for them. Differently, vinyl records are available at your local record store and from online sellers.
Vinyl Collectors
We feel that the biggest influence in the rebirth of vinyl records and turntables can be credited to record collectors. Just think about it, how many times did you have an opportunity to talk to a record collector who is excited about that one rare LP that has some value, either as a collector’s item or money. Also, if you find yourself in a foreign country and you see cardboard boxes that are filled with vinyl records from you to choose from. It is important to say that almost every country has a big tradition when it comes to records. One more important thing is, according to one research, roughly 60% of the world’s music cannot be found on the internet. This makes it much more interesting. Discovering something of the highest quality in some foreign country is always a pleasure for vinyl collectors.
