Why do hipsters prefer analog?

@chris_g 

Hipsters started with vinyl records, then cassettes, then 8-tracks, then R2R.  Where will they stop?

so you are saying that everybody that listened to  vinyl, cassettes and 8 tracks, R2R, were all hipsters ?          

what were they suppose to listen to ?  

how does one even come up with something like this ?

You are not talking of hipster jeans.

so you are saying that everybody that listened to  vinyl, cassettes and 8 tracks, R2R, were all hipsters ?          

what were they suppose to listen to ?  

I assume by hipsters he is referring to current younger generation, not real "hippies" from the 60s.

They will stop when they're too old to feel like getting up, to turn the record over.

@ozzy62 

I assume by hipsters he is referring to current younger generation, not real "hippies" from the 60s.

and even if he was, what else are they supposed to listen to ?   something different?

Who cares?

Retro.  Everything old is new again.  

I agree with @cleeds , who cares. 
 

@koestner when is that? You that lazy?

Hey, don't knock the hipsters. They are listening to good formats and it's good for our hobby. Most people that age aren't into high end audio, and stream everything.

"I assume by hipsters he is referring to current younger generation, not real "hippies" from the 60s."

- Actually "hipsters" where coined in the early 1940's by exploring different music styles, mainly in jazz.

Next - why did the hipster cross the road?

Be happy they figured out there is something other than MP3 files on phones.  

and even if he was, what else are they supposed to listen to ?   something different?

@riley804 

Yes. Most people, hipsters aside, listen to some digital form of music. Mainly MP3s streamed from the internet or stored on a phone. The "hipsters" he is referring to, at least my interpretation, are the ones who think everything retro is cool.

Um, most listening to those formats, myself included, are old...so called hipsters just jumped on board cause its something new to them....I actively hunt down and buy vinyl, pre-recorded cassettes, 8 tracks, and even mini discs to this day. I find it wonderful and fun to play such things. I feel like I’m interacting with the media and the associated equipment. Yes, I do stream, but not all that often. However, what I do like about streaming is discovering or hearing some obscure music I’ve not heard. I then actively seek out a hard copy of it, in the above aforementioned media formats.

@ozzy62 

not directing this to you……and if this is the case , what difference does it make what format they listen to ?    

not everyone is into putting together a mid fi to high end system.mp3 works just fine for them.             how does one know they don’t have a system?    did one follow them home?           

it’s no different than seeing a person out riding a bike for exercise.   does the person need a bike that costs $1k, 5k, $10k when the bike he has works just fine?

i could use other examples but i think members will get the point

I think my boss is a young hipster, He wears tight pants and the bottoms are about equal to his lower calf. He has colorful socks and sometimes he wears galoshes when it rains and leaves them on all day. I am not kidding.

🤣

Because part of being a hipster is feigning deep appreciation for some things from a romanticized past. It's part of the uniform, like wearing a heavy knit cap in the summer heat.

I don't care why hipsters are listening to vinyl.  I am just glad they are since it helps keep a very good format alive.

That's true.

I was initially concerned about local Hipsters (mainly from the Los Feliz area) gobbling up all the good vinyl, but it turns out that they only listen to The Dave Mathews Band.

However, I just tried to purchase an ugly/plaid light weight cotton short sleeved button front/pocket shirt on Amazon and they were all sold out .

HIPSTERS!!!

Hipsters started with vinyl records, then cassettes, then 8-tracks, then R2R.  Where will they stop?

well - you'd have to be hip to know...

However, I just tried to purchase an ugly/plaid light weight cotton short sleeved button front/pocket shirt on Amazon and they were all sold out .

HIPSTERS!!!

Just put your hair up in a man bun, buy some skinny jeans, and carry on...

Beyond audio format, I feel like vintage Marantz receivers have been on the hipsters radar for a while as well - maybe 2-3 years?

What happened to the  OP?

Here ya go!

@rdk777 To get a PBR of course. 🤣

I'm told many hipsters own many LP's but don't actually own a turntable...

I used to live in the “hipster central” Santa Cruz, CA.

And sold cartridges and such in a record store.

The main behavior of our hipster customers was to listen to their phones all day as the bop along. And to slap on the vinyl as soon as they got home.

It was a pretty good business. 
I will never understand the wool knit hats in the Summer heat!

What is hip today may become passe...

Probably because retro is cool. I got back into audio about 15 years ago and started buying records because they were super cheap at the time. Then it became hip and the prices shot up like crazy. Glad I got a collection going before the madness. I prefer CDs though. 8 track and cassettes are crap for fidelity in my opinion and the only folks I know that have any R2R gear are over 60.

One thing that does drive me nuts is when they refer to records as vinyls. They are vinyl records for Pete’s sake not vinyls; at least get the terminology right. I am technically a millennial by the way but do not want to be associated with hipsters in any way.

Hipsters like Jeeps too. My boss has one. He asked me if I liked Jeeps and I told him I drove one in the Army before they switched to Humvees. I really don’t know if he likes audio equipment. I know he likes the peanut shop store in downtown Akron OH and it’s the oldest store in our city. Because it’s old.... I think he thinks it’s cool.

https://www.downtownakron.com/go/the-peanut-shoppe

Yes, I’m referring to all those that started listening to analog format after the year 2000. That was the peak of CDs and the rise of digital downloads and streaming.

I love those photographs of twentysomething hipsters, in full regalia, on the patio of some cafe or whatever, listening to vinyl on a portable turntable.

That’s hilarious.  It conjures David Attenborough: 

“The hipster congregates in cafes, where his public display of extremely inconvenient but socially advantageous music-listening signals his credentials.  Yes, the hipster could experience far superior audio fidelity through technology of vastly cheaper, vastly more convenient means, and could indeed reserve the turntable for more convenient at-home listening, but then there would be no one there to observe him doing so…”

@mrteeves That’s when I started buying records also.  Circa ‘05.  This was the all-time nadir of vinyl sales.  Man alive, if I knew then what I know now. 
I would walk out of record stores in Seattle with 10 LPs in my bag, each one for about $1.  Even with my vast uptick in finicky-ness and extensive purging of sub-par pressings for the past 5-odd years, I still have some of those great-sounding pressings I got for $1.  They would command 20x-30x the price now. 

Jeep

Reminds me of a line from the BBC program Life on Mars -  "So you drive a military vehicle".

 

Oz:

This the only bunboy I've ever cared for (visited a few times while traveling from LA to Las Vegas) but unfortunately it's now history.

It was located next to the world's tallest thermometer (which hopefully survived) in in Baker, CA.

DeKay

rdk777

Next - why did the hipster cross the road?

To get to the other side where the new audio store is.

"these hipsters, with the pants and the hair and their records..." is something people have been saying since 2005. that's almost 20 years ago. grumbling about "hipsters" in 2022 is like somebody in the late 90's still complaining about disco dancers 

If a tree falls in the forest, and someone records it, will the hipster prefer to have it on vinyl or cassette?

Maybe because it sounds..."gasp"... *better*.

so you are saying that everybody that listened to vinyl, cassettes and 8 tracks, R2R, were all hipsters ?

what were they suppose to listen to ?

 

how does one even come up with something like this ?

I’m referring to anyone that started listening to analog after the year 2000. There are true users, and then there are hipsters!!!

The Urban Dictionary describes "hipsters" as people that try too hard to be different (and genuinely do think that they're being different), by rejecting anything they deem to be too popular.
Ironically, so many other people also try too hard to be different that they all wind up being the exact same, so hipsters aren't actually different at all, they are just people that are snobbier and more annoying about their taste in "alternative" things, which are all popular now thanks to the other hipsters.
Hipsters pride themselves on liking things that no one else likes, and normally only really like them because they think no one else likes them and that they are being unique. This is being delusional because all the other hipsters also like the same things.

@tony1954 

The Urban Dictionary describes "hipsters" as people that try too hard to be different (and genuinely do think that they're being different), by rejecting anything they deem to be too popular.
Ironically, so many other people also try too hard to be different that they all wind up being the exact same, so hipsters aren't actually different at all, they are just people that are snobbier and more annoying about their taste in "alternative" things, which are all popular now thanks to the other hipsters.
Hipsters pride themselves on liking things that no one else likes, and normally only really like them because they think no one else likes them and that they are being unique. This is being delusional because all the other hipsters also like the same things.

Very good explanation....explains the joke, "Why the hipster burn his mouth when eating pizza?  Because he ate it before it was cool." 

@rdk777 , well, one of the original responses used to be "Because someone told him not to...."  That got applied to the 'hippies', which I got accused of being periodically...

Never quite fit that 'groove', but it was a fun era to grow through...

...what I remember, anyway. *L*

Analog was all we had, and I went through all the formats like most.

Had a helluva good time making a lot of relentless noise.

My landlady just north of Eureka came over one afternoon and  mildly complained that she couldn't hear her stereo in her house over mine 20 yards away in our rented  house of hers.....  Same noted that she could hear the bass line walking to & from the mailboxes 100 yards away.

Another likely reason I wear aids now...;) 😎

Modern hipsters have been around long enough to no longer be hip.

I dunno - why do old audiophiles like such terrible music?

The point being, the question was doomed from the start. It takes a generalization (hipsters) and leads into a unfalsifiable claim of preference (prefer analog). This is covered in Philosophy 101.

The real answer is that they are hipsters because they prefer analog. Any discussion past this statement is just insulating, quite frankly, to the group of people this community needs to survive. Sure, a lot of young people will treat analog as a fad and move on, but such is life. Some will not, and they are the Audiogoners of the future. Nowadays, they will happily take that old tape deck off your hands.  Also, as others have pointed out, the resulting reissues due to the popularity are a welcome relief to the incredibly high prices of some originals. This is a win win. 

This is all coming from a 50 year old often referred to by my peers as a hipster - so take it for what its worth.

It's sad when they rip the gears and drop bars off a perfecly good bike and singlespeed it