The end of LP collecting????


I don't know about most of you but I am a joe six pack fince kind of guy and it bums me out that I keep seeing prices of equipment becaome more and more rediculous.That's why, say with amplification I ike a companies like Quicksilver,Rogue,VTL etc where just getting a set up that sound sbetter than mid-fi (and of course there budget companies for source compenet and spoeakers) where buying their products does not insult your inteliigence,But being a guy whao over tha past 6 years ghhas amazzes a pretty decent collection of LP's off EBAY the party seesms to be over.Yes we all wish we bought items before we di (Micorsoft in '83) or a split window Corvette jst to store away the wholeLP thing at least one ebay (which dtermines prices at shows and shops) the prices over the past 12 or pwerhaps 18 months has just gotten totally out of hand.Lp's that could get over the couple of years say $60 in mint conditon (like a Prestige Miles) not regularly go for $100..Bassically prices have doubled or trippled in one year.I know supply /demand but the supply has been static but I find it weird that everyone and his cousin finally disocvered Ebay even though it's been a forum for years.Blue Notesin particular have eneded up primarily Japan for quite some time but now the prices have just gobne nuts.Yes a goofd copy of a lowproduction item like Tina Brooks (made propular by the Mosaic set wheu\ic revived (or in fact started his fame-read his bio it was sad a talented guy who recorded as a dideman for a few Blue Note guys like McLean,Hubbard, or Burrell) but he himself recoded 4 LP's for Lyon and Wollf.But sales were so poor with the first titled "True Blue" that the other 3 staid in the can until Cuscuna brought them out on Mosaic.all of a suden copies would reguarlly go for $1500 when 10 yeas before they were bought for $5 in some cut out bin.But now a regular Mobley 1500 series LP will go for $2K.Barney Wilen excellent (Buy it for $8 on CD on Vogue) goes for $2500.And jusyt last week I sawa Sihab Shihab "With The Dabish Radio Orchestra ": go for $1800 pounds.You do the conversion.Iam satisfied with my $25 CD re-issue.But it's all taken the fun out of it for me siunce the priceing ( three or four players WILL get an LP they want no matter what.I guess if I was woth a few million I woulkd be that guy.I am only glad that since 1995 or so with 2 bit K2 [processing CD's are finally soundiong acceptable not terribel like they did for the fisrt fifteen years of "the ultimate media".And some red book CD's sound as good as SACD's.Still there is nothing more depressing than wanmting a say Prestige LP and only having the CD otion (foget the OJC LP's.Re-melt wax combine with re-melt something that has made LP's in general suck sinc the late 60's).Thank goodness for comapines like Clasic Records which have made soemre-0issue using original tapes,stampers etc and in some cases sound as f\good as the oru\iginal LP>And then there are comanies like Mapple shade which use no board for EQ,compression, etc-no board at all just mike to tape.Then there is the Japanese comany Venus whose "24 Bit Hyper Magnum Sound" is incredible either on CD or LP.Take the terrrfic Archie Shepp Ballad LP's like "True Blue","Tru Romance' etc (four in all I think)The Lp's have a great tactile sound and warmth that only Lp's cab provide but of course you lose some of the fdynamic range you get with CD's.And all of this from digital tape so nobody can tell me that LP'scan only sound good with analogue tape-these LP's are great.I stopped running the jazz section of CD stereo equipment store 4 years ago and just before i left did CVD's start to sound "right".SACD's,DVD Audio,BlueLight or other digital formats maybe the salvation for a guy like me.But there some of my jazz Lp's that maybe got pressed in a few hundred companies and I am doubtfull all of them will make it to market.So maybe I should just borrow my freinds trumpet and play taps for my beloved hobby.The groove factor of the cover srt and it's size,finding a clean flat edge preesing with adep grove with "Rudy Van Gelder" and the little "ear mark(swirl) that indicated a fuisrt press well it's a pleasure that isn't going to vcome down the pipe that ofetn and while I like the fact that mire and mre folks seem to be digging the "New Thing" that is now 40 or 50 years old great the recent spike of LP's is just plain depressing.
Chazzbo
chazzbo

Showing 3 responses by chazzbo

GEEZ LOUISE YOU GUY"S!Listen I know typos are annoying and distracting but anybody reading my post must have known it was not only an issue of passion but my lack of brevity/editing was due to some manic state.I didn't mind some suggesting decaff but some of you seem so PO'd I guess I have to clue you it was written in a slightly manic stae (do to insomnia and nothing chemical in this case).But cripes I feel some of you will be critical of prose style at some pint.But thanks to all the folks who pointed out that while Mosaic may have nixed wax there has been a renaissance in re-issues and as I said in my post CD's now sound better.Lastly as one member pointed out I should show a little less consumptive eny and maybe a little more humility in that in some cultures a family of four will pay for food what a Bartney Wilen mint "Tilt" is worth ($2500-I bought the re-issue two years agho for $60 now it almost always goes for $100.But truth be known the $8 CD is put out by Vogue/Gintanes and availible on Ebay for $8 is just fine.My hope is the folks at Classic will keep the Blue Notes coming and Schema/rearward will keep pumping out $25 copies of double Lp's like Sihab Shihabs or Johnny Grriffin's LP's.And I guess it is just envey when I wonder are Calrke/Boland's "Music For The Small Hours" or "Jazz Un Bahnhnhoff" REALLY worth $500 to $800????.Lastly sorry for the folks who had to endure the scattered content delivered with admittedly little editing (not to mention brevity).But man some of the compaints it was like I kicked your puppy or took your last meal money.While I know typo's are annoying-SO Sorry!Tnaks to those who looked at the contetnt and made me appreciate what I had and what is availible.P.P.S.for those of you who got so touchy about "right to buy LP's as speculative commodity" I agree with you Lp's are just a commodity.So take what ever profits you have made from these sales and while writting a check to Jeb Bush 2008 and and another to the R.N.C. hoping WIC and Commuinty Colleges can get cut further (along with the current round of taz cuts with our defecit)so you can buy $2K per meter cables for your $300K system chuckle at my envy that I am such a loser as to have written this whiney missive in the first place.
Chazz
Qdrone thanks for the tip.R F Sayeles also added the most relaxed and cogent reason for all of this.I just wonder if like stocks, real estate and fine art there at some point might be a correction to all of this.But then again they aren't making any more vintage LP's.And Judy lighten up.Even if your small mided little swipe was brief it's full of hypocrisy.
Politics,the economy,and attitudes about consumption are all related and related to ou "non-essential hobby".That remark about the ACLU was the way right wingers want to Willy Horton andbody or issue they don't like.You sounded like that woman Jean Simmons who recently questioned Sen.Murtha's partiotism and he's a guy who earned two purple hearts and actually spends many weekends at Bethesda Hospital and attends funerals in his district.
But I forgive you.But really only because it's all caving in. W. was able to throw a poplular Texas govenor by having an "unlinked group" put pictures of gay men kissing(in full leather regalia) under the winshield wipers of folks at Sunday church and make the whole campaign about a non-issue (gay's in Richards cabinet) it just keeps happening again and again.The Republican machine will smear like Max Cleland who lost three limbs in service to his country when his opponent said he wasn't a partiot.They even eat there own as John McCain can tell you.But from poll numbers it's obvious from his pole numbers that fewer and fewer are buying this New McCarthyism.What if my stereo had been in the 9th ward of New Orleans?Here we had Fema run by a guy who agrred with it's emasculationacting under Tom Ridge (an admittedly decent fellow personally) but this was the biggest restructuring of goverment since Roosovelt and giving this awesom agency over to a person whose only qulification was that he had held a congressionl seat and ran a governorship well this is how we get Katrina and New Orleans.No expensive voltage filter would have daved andbody's rig there.And issues of taxation which beyond paying for what we need is a form, of wealth reidstibution l;ike it or not.But maybe your just the type to agree with little Forbes Jr. who doesen't think the hallmark of a just society is graduated taxation and we should all pay the same rate.More tax cuts durring a war that nobody except the soldiers and families over in combat are asked to make scarifice?I say (as one who is registered as an independent and voted for Republicans in my own state) that this is just selfish B.S.But sorry I can't help gloating because the gig seems to up with right leaning Republicans thinking they got Ronald Reagan and are dealing with some one who has created the biggest defecit in history and is seen by this wing as a "big goverment" .Meanwhile the rest of the country has seen how dificult the new drug plan is for seniors and see it as being a give away to drug companies as muich as it is a help to them.W. can't even win on that score.No maybe he can get two more strict constructionists to further errode our rights allow "Red" states to remove a womans right to choose etc and that's about it.The rest of it from a boodogle of an fpreign occupation ( my cousin has three children serving there in the Marine Corp.who are there or going to be sent and while they serve they know they were sold out when they couldn't get better leadership after the figting).This plus huge defecits,a weakening of the dollar which hasn't helped our largest trade defecit in history etc well it may be three years to it's over but this seesm to be the legacy W will have.It used to sell but now 60% of the people no longer believe BS about Sadam Hussein having run the Al-Quieda.Nope that and baiting like yours about the ACLU (which many CONSERVATIVES agree with and work for) no longer is being bought without some scrutiny.People are looking and the Emperor has no clothes.I need to work to by my gear and LP's and that's fine even though I may have whinned about it a bit.I'd rather that then cutting every social program that helps people insight and ignoring our infrastructure from schools to roads that our competiveness depends on.Maybe we Audiophiles shoould pay through the nose for our nopn-essential hobby because it's only the consumer spending that has kept the economy running at 4% positive growth certainly not policiews like cutting the currency value which in theory should allow US to sell amps and cables to the rest of the world but history hs shown us that every time this has been tried it's failed and it only means our foreign bought Hifi costs more.But this piece I write I suppose you rae right isn't about what Tesla or Mullard tubes from England might costThe issue which is germain is we have a war run by chickehwaks who never served,and economy where pharmicutical companies and oil companies are given cart blanche to take whatever they can while they can get it.Everything from veterans benefits to school lunches are being cut back while we talk about the tax cuts in ac tion being made permananent while Orwellian changes as simple as changing the term Estate Tax to Death tax allows for a gross burden on the poor while the top 1 to 5% get all the goodies.Maybe poor people shhould be restricted to hand held radios and the middle class to boom boxes.
Well I think in two years folks of your ilk will have new reality since as I said what was "selling" people just aren't buying.Complian to Audiogon but I think that realizing as I do they catering to a luxury market including products that are not neccesisites that politics,economics and "luxury consuption" are linked.Fortunately not everything including this forum has been bought by Rupert Murdoch.Last time I checked this wasn't "Audiogon brought to you by Fox".I guess the forumn letters are like abortions if your aghainst it don't have one or against my premise that the to some extent all of our purhcases even over priced LP's and gear is related.Put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.
Chazzbo
Onhwy61
Good point and I have done that with some Mosaic boxes that are so so (I still kjept over 30 of them).But since comercial CD's have the pits physically pressed into/through them and recording on CD whether it be your computer or CD Recorder are essentially melted into place the question is will they last?I have heard differing predictions.The CD-R once is essetially same as the rerecordable where you are taking a chrystaline metal (very soft) and burning it with a laser to flatten it out essentially and start with new surface.Since the pits aren't put in pohysically I don';t know how long they will last.But I guess in 1985 I heard that regular CD's would oxidize ion 15-20 years and mine still work.
Chazzbo