cakes wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 10:40 am With a 1 1/2 year old, my vinyl cabinet is taped shut, along with my record player and the front of the amp has brown paper on it. I caught her one day with one of the cabinets open, the records out all over the place, a broken cabinet door (they are made of plexiglass), and she loves to push buttons on anything.

So, unfortunately, not listening to records for about another 8-12 months.

I HEAR YA.

Also my vinyl buying (and gear buying) has gone way way downhill since we went from Double Income/No Kids to Single Income/One Kid. It's definitely made me reassess how much I need every single record if I only end up streaming it once or twice on Tidal anyway, plus having enough space, etc etc etc.

I recently built one of those little libraries and made sure it could hold vinyl I wanted to pare down. Unfortunately I looked thru my records yesterday and determined that like 95% is pretty good and that I should probably at least check Discogs on the other 5% to make sure I’m not giving away fifty dollar bills to some tween who got a crosley record player for their birthday.

I’d say half of my vinyl came from used bins between the late 90s and late aughts, back when everything was $2 - $8 with occasional $15 splurges. Now when I get vinyl it’s either fancy reissues or shit from my friends that’s $30 a pop every month or so.

tallchris wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 10:57 am

cakes wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 10:40 am With a 1 1/2 year old, my vinyl cabinet is taped shut, along with my record player and the front of the amp has brown paper on it. I caught her one day with one of the cabinets open, the records out all over the place, a broken cabinet door (they are made of plexiglass), and she loves to push buttons on anything.

So, unfortunately, not listening to records for about another 8-12 months.

I HEAR YA.

Also my vinyl buying (and gear buying) has gone way way downhill since we went from Double Income/No Kids to Single Income/One Kid. It's definitely made me reassess how much I need every single record if I only end up streaming it once or twice on Tidal anyway, plus having enough space, etc etc etc.

I basically only buy records if it's something special or it's my wife's birthday or something and I find a record she would like. That means I buy like 3 records a year.

My record buying is WAAAAY down from where it was a few years ago. I sell more than I buy for the last few years. I think I've sold about 100 a year for the past couple/three years.

enframed wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 12:49 pm My record buying is WAAAAY down from where it was a few years ago. I sell more than I buy for the last few years. I think I've sold about 100 a year for the past couple/three years.

I haven't checked your Discogs page in a minute. Will do so now.

I still prefer to buy vinyl. But I like to have MP3s on my phone to block out the annoying people on the El for my commute.

Why is it when I buy from a record store, the record usually does not include a download? It seems like a huge disincentive to buy from record stores. As a result, I tend to buy more from Bandcamp than my local record store.

Also, is there a homemade solution that the PRF uses for cleaning records?
I tend to use either witch hazel or isopropyl alcohol diluted with tap water and spray that on an old Disc Cleaner brush.

twelvepoint wrote: Mon May 26, 2025 5:09 pm Relatively modest collection of 500 LPs.

And comments like this folks, is why this is the greatest interwebs community on earth.

jfv wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 12:50 pm

enframed wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 12:49 pm My record buying is WAAAAY down from where it was a few years ago. I sell more than I buy for the last few years. I think I've sold about 100 a year for the past couple/three years.

I haven't checked your Discogs page in a minute. Will do so now.

Oh… we can all be Discogs friends, and judge each other’s musical choices!

I’m gramsci2000 be my friend. Zuck tells me I have a demand side of about 11 more.

enframed wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 12:49 pm My record buying is WAAAAY down from where it was a few years ago. I sell more than I buy for the last few years. I think I've sold about 100 a year for the past couple/three years.

How can you be selling Ride, Nowhere! Unless you brought the clear blue reissue…

yngwie einstein wrote: Why is it when I buy from a record store, the record usually does not include a download? It seems like a huge disincentive to buy from record stores. As a result, I tend to buy more from Bandcamp than my local record store.

Bandcamp offers downloads that are totally separate from the manufacturing/production of the LP itself.
If the label/artist wants every copy to have a download, they need to order that along with everything else (labels, stickers, packaging, shrink wrap, etc) and the DL is contained inside of the package. Some labels did this routinely, some never did (looking at you, Drag City).

In recent years we can assume that the rise of streaming made MP3 libraries less popular and DL cards less useful, as evidenced by super low redemption rates. At a certain point it becomes a waste of money to stick a $0.30 download inside each copy if (almost) nobody is actually downloading them. At one time a DL card was a good selling point (you can also listen in the car/subway etc!) but now you end up spending way too much just to capture a handful of user emails (or not even).

It's cool that Bandcamp hooks you up either way, I love that. I guess artist/label could probably opt out of that aspect if they wanted to.

Supporting artists via Bandcamp is great, but supporting brick-and-mortar retail is important, too, especially if you (like may) only have a small selection of retail record stores.