Analog a dying breed

Vinyl releases, in addition to outselling these formats in volume, outnumber SACD and DVD-A.

While dealers sometimes are right, I feel that this one is not. The growth in vinyl is largest in those under 21, especially in Europe and Japan.

This "new" vinyl fad will fade as quickly with the "young" folks as quickly as the other fads.

Some people will argue that the buggy whips still outsell Ferrari's.

I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know. But....

1. Redbook CD's will likely be reduced to a niche market prior to vinyls demise or, not be produced at all because of copyright protection. Still, Redbook will be a huge niche market and catered to, thank you.

2. Digital is in its infancy. Most likely every device and format currently in production will disappear to be replaced by machines and software with no moving parts. Again, all this current technology will be catered to in a niche market.

3. Money rules. Wherever there is a market there will be suppliers.

Your dealers comments may reflect the direction he hopes the market will go. Digital? Plug and play. Great analog? Now, this takes some work. I think he might just be lazy.

I'm certain he also realizes that digital playback will continue to evolve which will offer him opportunities to replace previous devices repeatedly throughout a customers life. IMHO, he's forcasting a major f*#@^$g of the high end consumer.

In the end I don't know and I'm beginning to not care. Just being an analog guy brings insults from certain members for no intellectual reason. I'm happy that as long as software is produced from carbon based material and rotates at either 33 1/3 or 45 rpm I will continue to be forward compatible. I'm already backwards compatable for over 1/2 a century.

Thanks for the crystal ball, Lugnut. :-)

Is anybody bothered by the fact that as far as new music is concerned the percentage of pure analog recordings is getting smaller and smaller. Even if the basic tracks are recorded on analog tape, the subsequent editing and some mixing is nearly always done digitally. The last Steely Dan recording, "Everything Must Go" is a good example. The basic tracks were recorded an 2" analog tape, but there was extensive editing with ProTools. The recent Ron Isley/Burt Bacharach "Here I Am" says it was recorded live at Capitol studios (on tape), but the production credits list a ProTools operator. I love vinyl, but the writing is on the wall.