Opinion of people who purchase vinyl records nowadays

[courts]

The nice thing about records is the large size cover art. I grew up buying CDs in the 1990s and it was so much smaller.

i like both, but i like cassettes most of all. i don't think that's entirely a nostalgia thing either. granted i grew up listening to them the most in the car or stereo into the 2000s but there's something about the look of them. its this weird combo of very modern and yet dated

[Bigby]

Why should I care about the musical preferences of other people? Besides, some classics just can't be beat.

[politicus]

Cool cat connoisseurs.

[Mopsus]

Last night, my parents came home with about 200 records that they had purchased at the auction that they were attending. Most of the collection consisted of the usual used-vinyl fare, but I did manage to find some records that looked interesting - four Bill Cosby albums, some Rodgers & Hammerstein soundtracks, lots of novelty and old country music, and several Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones albums for my sister.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The useful life of a vinyl record is far, far longer than the useful life of a cassette tape (miserably poor) or CD (some of the first CDs are already unlistenable due to age). Digital, meanwhile, is strangely ephemeral -- something you "own" without ever actually owning; something you can easily lose with the rise and fall of online media stores.

Vinyl is not a novelty, it's the archival method of music storage.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

FFs, and I'm one of them. 

I was born in the 90s, so music has been nearly all digital for my entire life.  I like the convenience of CD and MP3 (and the fact that MP3 doesn't degrade like vinyl, cassette, or CD), but vinyl is just plain awesome.  As far as I'm concerned, 8-tracks are junk and not worth my time, and cassettes are a huge pain in the butt because it's so easy to rip the tape out and render them worthless.  Plus, vinyl will sound better than any of them most of the time.  Now before you start chewing me out and pointing to all this science that proves that CD "sounds better," please hear me out: vinyl sounds better because it's usually mastered better, not because of any inherent technical advantage.  The loudness war has pretty much destroyed high fidelity and dynamic range on most CDs and digital files (and even some vinyl), so old vinyl will generally have superior fidelity and dynamics.  I love a lot of old music (especially 50s-80s rock), so vinyl is a natural choice for me because most of that music was originally recorded and mastered for it.  Simply put, it's the way that music was meant to be heard.

On a side note, I noticed that many of my 78RPM records from the late 1950s (around the time that they were finally phased out) sound a whole lot better than their 45RPM counterparts. Several examples of records that I have from the late 1950s that sound better on 78s than on 45s are "Twilight Time" by The Platters, "Little Star" by The Elegants, "Tonight Tonight" by The Mello-Kings, "Walking After Midnight" by Patsy Cline and "Johnny B Goode" by Chuck Berry. By that time those songs were released, the 78RPM format was basically over for the most part, with the exception of jukebox operators and the small number of people who still had older phonograph equipment built prior to the introduction of LP's and 45's in 1948 and 1949.

Those are all awesome songs, IMO.

[checkers]

I have a fairly decent vinyl collection - though I hardly ever listen to it since it's so much less convenient than mp3s these days. I can hardly vote HPs though.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

The nice thing about records is the large size cover art. I grew up buying CDs in the 1990s and it was so much smaller.

This!  My dad has a large vinyl collection he's accumulated over the years and I love opening up the amazing album art that accompanied classic records from bands like Yes, Pink Floyd, and Queen.  It's a whole different experience to throw on a record while you flip through the cover and check out all the little details.  Remember, album art was a big deal back then!  Often times, great cover art was the way people got introduced to their new favorite band. 

[The Simpsons Cinematic Universe]

Vinyl doesn't actually sound better than digital. Those who think it does are science-denying fools.

The real advantage of vinyl, though, is the experience of it. For that reason, it's hard to say. I generally listen to albums in digital form (320kbps mp3 or FLAC) but I find it's often very distracting to listen to music while using the computer.

[MATTROSE94]

FFs, and I'm one of them. 

I was born in the 90s, so music has been nearly all digital for my entire life.  I like the convenience of CD and MP3 (and the fact that MP3 doesn't degrade like vinyl, cassette, or CD), but vinyl is just plain awesome.  As far as I'm concerned, 8-tracks are junk and not worth my time, and cassettes are a huge pain in the butt because it's so easy to rip the tape out and render them worthless.  Plus, vinyl will sound better than any of them most of the time.  Now before you start chewing me out and pointing to all this science that proves that CD "sounds better," please hear me out: vinyl sounds better because it's usually mastered better, not because of any inherent technical advantage.  The loudness war has pretty much destroyed high fidelity and dynamic range on most CDs and digital files (and even some vinyl), so old vinyl will generally have superior fidelity and dynamics.  I love a lot of old music (especially 50s-80s rock), so vinyl is a natural choice for me because most of that music was originally recorded and mastered for it.  Simply put, it's the way that music was meant to be heard.

On a side note, I noticed that many of my 78RPM records from the late 1950s (around the time that they were finally phased out) sound a whole lot better than their 45RPM counterparts. Several examples of records that I have from the late 1950s that sound better on 78s than on 45s are "Twilight Time" by The Platters, "Little Star" by The Elegants, "Tonight Tonight" by The Mello-Kings, "Walking After Midnight" by Patsy Cline and "Johnny B Goode" by Chuck Berry. By that time those songs were released, the 78RPM format was basically over for the most part, with the exception of jukebox operators and the small number of people who still had older phonograph equipment built prior to the introduction of LP's and 45's in 1948 and 1949.

Those are all awesome songs, IMO.

The 1950s era of music is pretty much my favorite. There was a lot of great music released back then and I am lucky to have many of the songs of the era on the original 78rpm records (which are getting rarer and rarer as time passes). I also agree with you that 8-tracks were a mediocre format for the most part, as the fidelity is extremely poor on most of them and their design had some serious flaws. I really don't know why the 8-track format was able to last from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s.

[angus]

the experience of it...
 it's often very distracting to listen to music while using the computer.

agreed.  When I want to become one with the music I use my 25 year old Kenwood modular upright stereo, big wood and glass case, with 4 huge tower speakers.  Partly because I somehow regard that as the appropriate experience (you can take the boy out of the 80s but you can't take the 80s out of the boy?) and partly because the computer is distracting.  I'm the only one I know that still has a big old stereo as a prominent piece of furniture in my living room.

Still, even when I do sit back and listen to music on my stereo I prefer digital.  If I have a choice--and I have many albums on CD, record, and cassette tape, so often I have a choice--I go for the CD over any other form.  The digital invariably sounds better than the record or the tape.  Even different CD versions have different quality.  There is analogue recording with digital mastering, digital mixing with digital mastering, etc.  I guess the AAD, ADD, and DDD labels only applies to about 1990 and before, because the source material was often out there before digital recording was possible, but digital recording, when available, is my preference when I have a choice in formats, and I'd always look for those CDs back in the day when I was purchasing them. 

Obviously records look cool, and the cover art is larger than on any other format, and there were many times that I'd pull out the record album to study and read while actually listening to the album on CD. 

Folks a little older than I may even own a fourth format, eight-track tapes.  I remember them well, but by the time I was old enough to buy music, they were no longer sold in stores.  My guess is that they're the worst of the lot.  Like cassettes, they warp and stretch and come out of the case, and unlike cassettes, they do not even offer the advantage of being compact. 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Vinyl doesn't actually sound better than digital. Those who think it does are science-denying fools.

Wrong again.  While it's true that CD has higher fidelity and dynamics in theory, vinyl will sound better most of the time because most CDs are compressed to sound as loud as possible, which causes a loss of data and destroys the dynamics. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TlQo9k827c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUcgg2vMX_s

About 3 minutes into the second video, Alan Parsons explains this well.

Simply put, vinyl sounds better because it's mastered better.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

One time I bought a vinyl record on how to set up a dinner party and music from the Smurfs, so I guess FFs.