As long-time readers may already realize from my repeat case study coverage of the topic, one aspect of the tech industry that I find particularly interesting is how suppliers react to the inevitable maturation of a given technology. Seeing all the cool new stuff get launched each year—and forecasting whether any of it will get to the “peak of inflated expectations” region of Gartner’s hype cycle, far from the “trough of disillusionment” beyond—is all well and good:
But what happens when a technology (and products based on it) makes it through the “slope of enlightenment” and ends up at the “plateau of productivity”? A sizeable mature market inevitably attracts additional market participants: often great news for consumers, not so much for suppliers. How do the new entrants differentiate themselves from existing “players” with already established brand names, and without just dropping prices, resulting in a “race to the bottom” that fiscally benefits no one? And how do those existing “players” combat these new entrants, leveraging (hopeful positive) existing consumer awareness and prolonging innovation to ensure that ongoing profits counterbalance upfront R&D and market-cultivation expenses?
The vinyl example
I’ve discussed such situations in the past, for example, with Bluetooth audio adapters and LED-based illumination sources. The situation I’m covering today, however, is if anything even more complicated. It involves a technology—the phonograph record—that in the not-too-distant past was well past the “plateau of productivity” and in a “death spiral”, the victim of more modern music-delivery alternatives such as optical discs and, later, online downloads and streams. But today? Just last night I was reading the latest issue of Stereophile Magazine (in print, by the way, speaking of “left for dead” technologies with recent resurgences), which included analysis of both Goldman Sachs’ most recent 2025 “Music In the Air” market report (as noted elsewhere, the most recent report available online as I write this is from 2024) and others’ reaction to it:
Analyses of the latest Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” report show how the same news can be interpreted in different ways. Billboard sees it in a negative light: “Goldman Sachs Lowers Global Music Industry Growth Forecast, Wiping Out $2.5 Billion.” Music Business Worldwide is more measured, writing, “Despite revising some forecasts downward following a slower-than-expected 2024, Goldman Sachs maintains a positive long-term outlook for the music industry.”
The Billboard article is good, but the headline is clickbait. The Goldman Sachs report didn’t wipe out $2.5 billion. Rather, it reported a less optimistic forecast, projecting lower future revenues than last year’s report projected: The value wiped out was never real.
Stereophile editor Jim Austin continues:
Most of this [2024] growth was from streaming. Worldwide streaming revenue exceeded $20 billion for the first time, reaching $20.4 billion. Music Business Worldwide points out that that’s a bigger number than total worldwide music revenue, from all sources, for all years 2003–2020. Streaming subscription revenue was the main source of growth, rising by 9.5% year over year. That reflects a 10.6% increase in worldwide subscribers, to 752 million.
But here’s the key takeaway (bolded emphasis mine):
Meanwhile, following an excellent 2023 for physical media—it was up that year by 14.5%—trade revenue from physical media fell by 3.1% last year. Physical media represented just 16% of trade revenues in 2024, down 2% from the previous year. Physical-media revenue in Asia—a last stronghold of music you can touch—also fell. What about vinyl records? Trade revenue from vinyl records rose by 4.4% year over year.
Now combine this factoid with another one I recently came across, from a presentation made by market research firm Luminate Data at the 2023 SXSW conference:
The resurgence of vinyl sales among music fans has been going on for some time now, but the trend marked a major milestone in 2022. According to data recently released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), annual vinyl sales exceeded CD sales in the US last year for the first time since 1987.
Consumers bought 41.3 million vinyl records in the States in 2022, compared to 33.4 million compact discs…Revenues from vinyl jumped 17.2% YoY, to USD $1.2 billion in 2022, while revenues from CDs fell 17.6%, to $483 million.
Now, again, the “money quote” (bolded emphasis again mine):
In the company’s [Luminate Data’s] recent “Top Entertainment Trends for 2023” report, Luminate found that “50% of consumers who have bought vinyl in the past 12 months own a record player, compared to 15% among music listeners overall.” Naturally, this also means that 50% of vinyl buyers don’t own a record player.
Note that this isn’t saying that half of the records sold went to non-turntable-owners. I suspect (and admittedly exemplify) that turntable owners represent a significant percentage of total record unit sales (and profits, for that matter). But it’s mind-boggling to me that half the people who bought at least one record don’t even own a turntable to play it on. What’s going on?
Not owning a turntable obviates the majority (at least) of the motivation rationale I proffered in one of last month’s posts for the other half of us:
There’s something fundamentally tactile-titillating and otherwise sensory-pleasing (at least to a memory-filled “old timer” like me) to carefully pulling an LP out of its sleeve, running a fluid-augmented antistatic velvet brush over it, lowering the stylus onto the disc and then sitting back to audition the results while perusing the album cover’s contents.
And of course, some of the acquisition activity for non-turntable-owners ends up turning into gifts for the other half of us. But there’s still that “perusing the album cover’s content” angle, more generally representative of “collector” activity. It’s one of the factors that I’ve lumped into the following broad characteristic categories, curated after my reconnection with vinyl and my ensuing observations of how musicians and the record labels that represent (most of) them differentiate an otherwise-generic product to maximize buyer acquisition, variant selection and (for multi-variant collection purposes) repeat-purchase iteration motivations.
Media deviations
Standard LPs (long-play records) weigh between 100 and 140 grams. Pricier “audiophile grade” pressings are thicker, therefore heavier, ranging between 180 and 220 grams. Does the added heft make any difference, aside from the subtractive impact on your bank account balance? The answer’s at-best debatable; that said, I admittedly “go thick” whenever I have a choice. Then again, I also use a stabilizer even with new LPs, so any skepticism on your part is understandable:
Thicker vinyl, one could reasonably (IMHO, at least) argue, is more immune to warping effects. Also, as with a beefier plinth (turntable base), there’s decreased likelihood of vibration originating elsewhere (the turntable’s own motor, for example, or your feet striking the floor as you walk by) transferring to and being picked up by the stylus (aka “needle”), although the turntable’s platter mat material and thickness are probably more of a factor in this regard.
That all said, “audiophile grade” discs generally are not only thicker and heavier but also more likely to be made from “virgin” versus “noisier” recycled vinyl, a grade-of-materials differential which presumably has an even greater effect on sonic quality-of-results. Don’t underestimate the perceived quality differential between two products with different hefts, either.
And speaking of perceptions versus reality, when I recently started shopping for records again, I kept coming across mentions of “Pitman”, “Terre Haute” and various locales in Germany, for example. It turns out that these refer to record pressing plant locations (New Jersey and Indiana, in the first two cases), which some folks claim deliver(ed) differing quality of results, whether in general or specifically in certain timeframes. True or false? I’m not touching this one with a ten-foot pole, aside from reiterating a repeated past observation that one’s ears and brain are prone to rationalizing decisions and transactions that one’s wallet has already made.
Content optimization
One of the first LPs I (re-)bought when I reconnected with the vinyl infatuation of my youth was a popular classic choice, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. As I shopped online, I came across both traditional one- and more expensive two-disc variants, the latter which I initially assumed was a “deluxe edition” also including studio outtakes, alternate versions, live concert recordings, and the like. But, as it turned out, both options list the same 11 tracks. So, what was the difference?
Playback speed, it turned out. Supposedly, since a 45 rpm disc devotes more groove-length “real estate” to a given playback duration than its conventional 33 1/3 rpm counterpart, it’s able to encode a “richer” presentation of the music. The tradeoff, of course, is that the 45 RPM version more quickly uses up the available space on each side of an LP. Ergo, two discs instead of one.
More generally, a conventional 33 1/3 rpm pressing generally contains between 18 and 22 minutes of music per side. It’s possible to fit up to ~30 minutes of audio, both by leveraging “dead wax” space usually devoted solely to the lead-in and lead-out groove regions and by compressing the per-revolution groove spacing. That said, audio quality can suffer as a result, particularly with wide dynamic range and bass-rich source material.
The chronological contrast between a ~40-minute max LP and a 74-80-minute max Red Book Audio CD is obvious, particularly when you also factor in the added complications of keeping the original track order intact and preventing a given track from straddling both sides (i.e., not requiring that the listener flip the record over mid-song). The original pressing of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, for example, shortened two songs in comparison to their audio CD forms to enable the album to fit on one LP. Subsequent remastered and reissued versions switched to a two-LP arrangement, enabling the representation of all songs in full. Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, another example, was single-CD but dual-LP from the start, so as to not shorten and/or drop any tracks (the band’s existing success presumably gave it added leverage in this regard).
Remastering (speaking of which) is a common approach (often in conjunction with digitization of the original studio tape content, ironic given how “analog-preferential” many audiophiles are) used to encourage consumers to both select higher-priced album variants and to upgrade their existing collections. Jimmy Page did this, for example, with the Led Zeppelin songs found on the various “greatest hits” compilations and box sets released after the band’s discontinuation, along with reissues of the original albums. Even more substantial examples of the trend are the various to-stereo remixes of original mono content from bands like the Beach Boys and Beatles.
Half-speed mastering, done for some later versions of the aforementioned Brothers of Arms, for example, as well as several of my Rolling Stones titles, is:
A technique occasionally used when cutting the acetate lacquers from which phonograph records are produced. The cutting machine platter is run at half of the usual speed (16 2⁄3 rpm for 33 1⁄3 rpm records) while the signal to be recorded is fed to the cutting head at half of its regular playback speed. The reasons for using this technique vary, but it is generally used for improving the high-frequency response of the finished record. By halving the speed during cutting, very high frequencies that are difficult to cut become much easier to cut since they are now mid-range frequencies.
And then there’s direct metal mastering, used (for example) with my copy of Rush’s Moving Pictures. Here’s the Google AI Overview summary:
An analog audio disc mastering technique where the audio signal is directly engraved onto a metal disc, typically copper, instead of a lacquer disc used in traditional mastering. This method bypasses the need for a lacquer master and its associated plating process, allowing for the creation of stampers directly from the metal master. This results in a potentially clearer, more detailed, and brighter sound with less surface noise compared to lacquer mastering.
Packaging and other aspects of presentation
Last, but definitely not least, let’s discuss the various means by which the music content encoded on the vinyl media is presented to potential purchasers as irresistibly as possible. I’ve already mentioned the increasingly common deluxe editions and other expanded versions of albums (I’m not speaking here of multi-album box sets). Take, for example, the 25th anniversary edition of R.E.M.’s Monster, which “contains the original Monster album on the first LP, along with a second LP containing Monster, completely remixed by original producer, Scott Litt, both pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Packaging features reimagined artwork by the original cover artist, Chris Bilheimer, and new liner notes, featuring interviews from members of the band.”
The 40th anniversary remaster of Rush’s previously mentioned Moving Pictures is even more elaborate, coming in multiple “bundle” options including a 5-LP version described as follows:
The third Moving Pictures configuration will be offered as a five-LP Deluxe Edition, all of it housed in a slipcase including a single-pocket jacket for the remastered original Moving Pictures on LP 1, and two gatefold jackets for LPs 2-5 that comprise all 19 tracks from the complete, unreleased Live In YYZ 1981 concert. As noted above, all vinyl has been cut for the first time ever via half-speed Direct to Metal Mastering (DMM) on 180-gram black audiophile vinyl. Extras include a 24-page booklet with unreleased photos, [Hugh] Syme’s reimagined artwork and new illustrations, and the complete liner notes.
Both Target and Walmart also sell “exclusive vinyl” versions of albums, bundled with posters and other extras. Walmart’s “exclusive” variant of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, for example, includes a backstage pass replica:
More generally, although records traditionally used black-color vinyl media, alternate-palette and -pattern variants are becoming increasingly popular. Take a look, for example, at Walmart’s appropriately tinted version of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black:
You’ve gotta admit, that looks pretty cool, right?
I’m also quite taken with Target’s take on the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty:
Countless other examples exist, some attractive and others garish (IMHO, although you know the saying: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”), eye-candy tailored for spinning on your turntable or, if you don’t have one (to my earlier factoid), displaying on your wall. That said, why Lorde and her record label extended the concept to cover a completely clear CD of her most recent just-introduced album, seemingly fundamentally incompatible with the need for a reflective media substrate for laser pickup purposes, is beyond me…
Broader relevance
This write-up admittedly ended up being much longer than I’d originally intended! To some degree, it reflects the diversity of record-centric examples that my research uncovered. But as with the Bluetooth audio adapter and LED-based illumination case studies that preceded it, I think it effectively exemplifies one industry’s attempts to remain relevant (twice, in this case!) and maximize its ROI in response to market evolutions. What do you think of the records’ efforts to redefine themselves for the modern consumer era? And what lessons can you derive for your company’s target markets? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.
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