| Re: .0
> Is the European market for turntables so much more healthy than
> ours? What TT's are you buying? Are LPs still readily available?
> I'd appreciate some insight into this area. Thanks.
To start with the second question, it depends very much on the music
category (and hence the shop) if vinyl is abundant or not. Classical
vinyl is dead. Jazz is getting scarce, except for a couple of the more
easy-style labels: almost no new avant-garde and minimal jazz on vinyl,
or at least the stores don't stock them where they have the same title
on CD in the racks. Blues OKish, but trend is noticeably down, and no
re-releases anymore generally. Stores here seem to specialise in one of
these categories, or else sell anything but blues, jazz and classical.
In the 'popular' category, vinyl seems to consist mostly of hardcore,
heavy metal and experimental. Also quite a number of smaller independent
labels still account for a substantial portion of vinyl. But maybe I'm
slightly biased here as my primary supplier has a largish heavy metal
crowd in his customer base.
Other stores don't offer half of what he has available, so they get
only a cursory glance when I come past one. That glance shows 10-15% of
floorspace dedicated to vinyl, mainly top-100 junk. The store I buy
most of my records still has 30% vinyl, spacewise, and offers a decent
cross-section of global music output.
As for record players, those are getting scarce as well. Japanese and
Korean rack jobs are seldom offered with record players (which may be
just as well). But long-time TT makers like Linn, Thorens and Dual are
still building them and even releasing new models. And HiFi dealers
have them ready for demo, they don't go digging for a dictionary when
you mention the magic word Vinyl. The three brands mentioned are the
ones most frequently seen new in HiFi stores, and a good start when
you're looking for something decent.
- Rik -
|
| re last....
You surprise me, Rik. I was in Boudisque in Amsterdam last week and
they had 1000s of LPs, mostly rock though and no Jazz. Lots of Blues,
mostly imports from the UK.
re .0....
I read in HFN/RR a while ago that it's primarily the UK that's
sustaining the LP market. How long that'll last I don't know. I don't
understand why the TTs between "garbage" and "celestial" are so
expensive in the US. Maybe someone is laughing all the way to the bank.
I visited Linn a while back. They say business has never been better,
even for the Sondek. They send about 75% of their product abroad,
mostly to Japan. They can't make their top arm (the Ekos, around $2200
in the US) fast enough to meet demand.
I firmly believe that the concept of the dead LP and dead TT is a myth
perpetuated by the music and hifi industries. As far as the LP is
concerned, it is the marketing policies of the big labels and greedy
retailers that keeps them out of the shops, not buyers' preferences.
Dave
|
| Dave, Amsterdam is a different matter with regard to music than the
rest of Holland. Lot of specialised stores, one entirely dedicated to
cassettes (Staalplaat). Rotterdam has its share too, but further east
(where I live; near the German border) good record stores get scarce.
Two in a town of 100.000 inhabitants is the average. With good I mean
stores that offer more than the top-100 and the big names. And very few
of them have a decent blues/jazz collection on vinyl.
I know Boudisque, we (= record library in Enschede) order most of our
exotic stuff there. And I've been to Virgin and HMV in London two years
ago, they then had still more than 50% floorspace dedicated to vinyl
(rough estimate). But two years ago 'my' record shop also had about
half its space lined with vinyl. It just steadily declined since then,
and things are getting harder (though not impossible) to get on vinyl.
Longer backorder times, quality fluctuates.
- Rik -
Aside: the record library has as of now 18.000 vinyls and 6.500 CD's.
And about 2.000 members. CD accounts for 85% of our income (5% each
jazz and classical, 2% blues)... And when people ask 'Do you have
<mumble> by <foo>' and I answer 'Yes, that's record number VP 13587
(Vinyl Popular)' they invariably reply 'No, I mean on CD'. AARGH.
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