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Prices of Records/Vinyl in 2025

Is it me or have prices of vinyl recently surged to an average of $35 or more ? Just a couple of months ago the average seemed to be around $30. I bought around 30 records to play on my exorbitantly expensive turntable and its multi thousand dollar cartridge, its hundred of dollars of cables, the $1000  phono preamp etc and immediately had 7k invested before buying any records. After buying 50 albums or so and finding about half to be shitty recordings I had $1500 invested in realistically 25 playable, great quality recordings. I just went back online to look for a few more and I'm certain prices have jumped from $30 average to close to $40. WTF ??? More gouging I assume. Is this industry truly sustainable when people are expected to have close to 10k invested to play some records? Insane. I protest, with my wallet. Let's see, hmmm....stream a million tracks for $20 a month with perfect sound, no cleaning, snaps, pop or crackle and hiss and- jump tracks and artists the second I don't like what I hear- or- invest $40 in a crappy recording on vinyl, suffer through it or toss it in the trash because the recording or the music suck. I could literally light two $20 bills on fire instead of bothering to gamble on ordering a record online. 

 

speedthrills
sokogear
1,162 posts
 

@whart - I think the engineer for a lot of the jazz album classics in the late 50s and 60s were made by Rudy Van Gelder in North Jersey and from what I understand, he was a genius with the studio layout, microphones, etc.

Also, the pressing quality is underrated. Having quiet records is important to me (although quiet, lousy sounding clean ones make their SQ more annoying). I guess that's why I like the mastered reissues, especially 45s where they take extra care.They do miss the mark sometimes - everybody has the occasional bad day or maybe the tapes they master from have deteriorated or a digital step lost something in the process.

I've been on the Better Records website where their business model is finding great sounding records (many times original pressings) and charging an arm and a leg for them while explaining that some have surface noise. No way Jose. They use  audipjile terms like "magical, tubes, etc". I guess tubes by their typical nature are noisy? I have a Class AB integrated that is super clean.

sokogear
1,162 posts
 

@viridian - I guess the question I would ask you is although you play all your records, how often can you possibly listen to them if you have over a thousand? I listen to about 1000 per year - if I don't listen at least once a year, to me I can't really like it that much.

You may not agree, but I don't own a record cleaning machine. Since my records are in outstanding condition (over 90% bought brand new), I just use a carbon brush before playing them every time to remove dust. Wet cleaning new records to me is crazy, but I know a lot of collectors who buy a lot of used records swear by them. If I had dirty ones I guess I would too. I've tried cleaning my oldest albums and could not notice any SQ difference before and after cleaning.

sokogear
1,162 posts
 

@viridian - forgot to ask...if you listen to all your records and have multiple copies of some of them, why listen to inferior sounding ones?

Post removed 
sokogear
1,162 posts
 

@viridian - gotcha. Very interesting - now I get it.

I can't overlook the surface noise, pops, ticks and clicks - those artifacts kins of ruin the album for me. I only have one turntable, 1 MC cartridge and an old MM backup that hasn't been played in 15+ years, so I guess I keep things very simple. No extra other equipment.

I try to make as few decisions as possible. Even have my records in a pretty tight rotation, except the 10 or so that are one in a blue moon plays. Of course I stray once in a while or if I get a request. But those strays will still move that record to the back of that artist's subrotation. I guess I'm kind of choosy with what I like.

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