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It's kind of amazing when you think about it that vinyl experienced a huge comeback but every post-CD physical digital format (SACDs, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray Audio) failed to make it beyond niche product.
Does anyone remember DVD-Audio? There was supposed to be a huge format war between it and the Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) at the turn of the century, but the SACD folks started making discs that played in regular CD players also and DVD-A went pretty much bust after that.
I have a few SACDs. Several Rolling Stones albums (they were the first big act to release their music that way) and some classical CDs. But the SACD part of the CD player in my stereo broke five years ago, so I haven't heard those versions since. https://twitter.com/varadmehta/status/554293114077446144
You could actually get a bookshelf stereo with an SACD player in it in 2007, which is when I bought that one. Good luck doing that now. Heck, good luck finding a decent bookshelf stereo system now. I've been looking (this one's on its last legs), and boy the pickings are slim.
I guess everyone just listens to music on their computers or iPods or whatever. I wonder if sales of stereo components have actually increased because of the vinyl fad. You're not listening to an LP on an iPod, laptop, or Alexa. You need some pretty serious equipment for that.
The vinyl thing has never made much sense to me. I don't think it could've happened except at a time when music was becoming ever easier to consume. There's almost something reactionary about embracing vinyl, like you're actually making things harder for yourself.
Listening to vinyl now is like taking the washing machine out of your house or the microwave out of the kitchen. I suppose you could do that, but why?
I'm Gen X. Give me CDs. Millennials can have their vinyl - along with their beards.
As a postscript to this thread, among those who don't think vinyl is better than CDs are the people who record the music that gets turned into vinyl and CDs. https://www.laweekly.com/why-cds-may-actually-sound-better-than-vinyl/
"There's basically nothing you can do to make an hour-long album on one record sound good." There are more negatives to vinyl than positives in terms of sound quality according to the sound engineer interviewed here. That's not exactly a selling point. https://www.oregonlive.com/music/2014/11/does_vinyl_really_sound_better.html
