Sunken Vinyl – will greed kill the vinyl comeback?
A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of Sunken Condo’s for $13.99 at FYI at Washington Union Station. I then realized that I had nothing to play it on – as I had brought my MacBook air on the trip (no optical drive). So, I downloaded it from Deezer – listened, enjoyed, brought the CD home – played it in the car, ripped it to ALAC, stored it on the server and dumped the CD in the attic with the other gazillion CDs that I have nowhere good to store. Browsing Amazon weeks earlier I had had an irresistible urge to buy the vinyl version – I put it in my shopping basket and forgot about it. So I went to buy it: advertised price originally £15 (amazon.co.uk) – now I was told that the record was unavailable. Well, it is available now of £32.16 (UK) or $44.16 (USA) – this is 4 times the price of the CD ($10.99 amazon.com). This is nearly as big a rip off as the Neil Young’s two most recent albums (“Le Noise” $65, “Psychadelic Pill” $70). I know that vinyl is now considered a premium product, but what exactly are you buying?
Aside from the virgin black 180g vinyl (which I presume that you get), and nice LP artwork, how great is the product in question? I subsequently bought “Sunken Condos” for $18 on HD tracks as a 24/96 download. I believe that I have now obtained the best version of the recording. Why? Because I am now listening to it in its native version (Fagen has been digital since “The Nightfly”). I am sure that this album was digitally mastered, and that the vinyl release is a digital to analogue conversion, and hence inferior. Indeed, the best version of any recording is the studio master, and the closer you get to that (presumably 24/384) the better the sound. As a result, in audiophile terms, the best version of “Sunken Condos” is less than half the price of the premium vinyl copy.
Of more interest is the release of “Psychadelic Pill” by Neil Young and Crazy Horse on Blu-Ray audio. There is no question of provenance here – this is 24/192 and we know that Neil is a stickler for audio quality. The price $19.74 on Amazon (lowest $16.74) – less than 1/3rd the price of the vinyl. So, if you can live with the fact that you cannot audio out the blu-ray to a DAC (you need a high end player to get value for BRA) – this is a game changer – nice jewel box and all. If necessary you can rip the audio to 24/192 flac and put it on your server.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept and appearance of vinyl – but at these prices the record companies are guaranteeing that the vinyl revival will stall.
(postscript – See picture of Sunken Condos on clear vinyl – I want I want!)
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