| Personally I think that vinyl has a new pressing life of a lot long
than a couple of years (this comes from somebody owning a CD player as
well) even though CD's are increasing their share of the market all
the time there are some fanatics that will stay will vinyl and
push for them to be produced, this market as with the Eastern block
won't be ignored, vinyl may become more expensive and fewer produced
but they'll still exist.
I agree with the opening up of the Eastern block the life of vinyl has
been increased quite considerably.
I'd also say that the sale of CD players will be pushed a lot harder by
producers and with the Eastern block wanting anything they can get to
become as close to western civilisation as quickly as possible, then
CD players will be an obvious market to tap into.
Neil
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| One reason behind vinyl's demise vs tape is that vinyl production is very
labour-intensive - it's difficult to automate in most parts, impossible
to automate quality control-wise. The market'll only stand a certain price,
so with the higher labour costs (oil price notwithstanding) the margin
on a quality LP product is squeezed very tight. The margin on tape is
being sqeezed because output volume is so high that with current
manufacturing technology, costs are rising there as well. Hence we have
CD; any technical/sonic benefits notwithstanding, it's simply more
profitable, so that's what the industry - both manufacturing and retail
- will push us towards. So far the industry has focussed on music
they'll sell zillions of, but now they're broadening out so that even
an irascible old digiphobe like me is considering a player to fill in
the gaps.....
It's worth pointing out that vinyl and tape production was done in-house
by the major labels, but CD pressing is almost always contracted out.
There also a glut of capacity in CD pressing worldwide, which means the
labels can screw a lower price from the pressing plants.
Yes, I can see the market for LPs opening up in the Eastern bloc, since
as was rightly pointed out in .0, they have countless numbers of record
players, also it will be a few years before there is enough affluent
people there for CD to have a real market. Labour costs are low, so
even the major labels may consider building pressing plants for LP
"over there", especially as they are more free to enjoy contemporary
Western music, which the majors make lots of money from.....
The so-called Eastern bloc has some highly regarded labels, too, like
the Russian "Melodya" label. These could find their way into our High
Street stores via the majors' marketing network - or more likely some
sort of licencing deal will allow the performances to come here on the
major labels' CD, tape and vinyl-made-from-cheap-Russian-coal/oil LPs.
By the way; whilst the Classical LP catalogue is certainly shrinking,
its obituary, like Tom Sawyer's, is premature. DG never stopped
releasing vinyl on its budget labels, and its main label started
releasing output on vinyl about 6 months after they stopped. Likewise
EMI/HMV and DECCA; even Philips and CBS still release classical vinyl,
although in all these cases the catalogue is nowhere near as extensive
as it used to be, or as that of CD. Still, if you're just "dipping your
toe in" to the classical world, considering mainstream accessible stuff
and prefer LP, like the song says you can get it if you really want it.
Dave
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