Why vinyl

@faustuss I wish you all the best in your pursuits to Purchase Vinyl a First Issue. Repress, or so called Master Cut. The items off interest are today only available in what is referred to as being a Niche Market. 

I Vinyl Sales does not change the Marketing Evidence that CD Sales are increased over Vinyl Sales as a Hard Medium and Data Medium is now exponentially advanced in Sales to both Hard Mediums.

Resulting in Data Medium Only Albums being produced as new Artists release their work. 

Data Medium and CD are easily able to be found from New Artists released work. 

The Least Easy to be found is a Data Medium - Vinyl Album as the marketed material from New Artists.

To support New Artists I buy from Bandcamp and Crowd Fund., it is in these portals I witness my realistic option on a purchase of recorded music. 

Artists selling on such portals get very fair remuneration from sales achieved. Why go to the expense of producing Hard Medium, if Data Medium is seen to be a sufficient remuneration from gross sales achieved. Artists are better off investing their time in creating new material to sell. 

Creating Product that is a Hard Medium Commodity, when not selling to the produced capacity might end up in a Landfill.

I encourage the Notion of fair remuneration and Data Files as the Merchandise most commonly made available. .

Leave Vinyl and CD in their rightful place, which is Obsolete and Superseded.

As a Supporter / Advocate of the Circular Economy, I say  "Hats Off", to anybody practising and showing interest, where keeping Olden Produced Hard Medium and the required Olden Produced  Replay Equipment in use, and not encouraging it is sent on to a Landfill. 

@pindac 

This according to the RIAA mid-year 2025. 

"2025 Mid-Year Music Industry Revenue Report | RIAA
Revenue across all formats hit a new high of $5.6 billion with paid subscriptions driving mid-year growth up 5.7% to $3.2 billion and climbing 6.4% to 105 million accounts. Vinyl held steady, making up more than three-quarters of all physical music revenues following a nearly two-decade resurgence."

Funny I see the bins at Barnes & Noble, Newbury Comics and other major retailers full of new music releases on vinyl. Also, you have to consider that most artists have to release their music on some form of physical media even if in low volumes because their side of the revenue picture for their creativity and hard work from streaming is such a tiny fraction of each stream that they have to make up the revenue shortfall. Spotify and Band Camp as an example and the labels their music is released under along with the executives in charge get first dibs on the profits leaving little for the artists. Millions of streams are required to make any money at all.

"Creating Product that is a Hard Medium Commodity, when not selling to the produced capacity might end up in a Landfill."

Interesting there seems to be an endless supply of high-quality physical media available in brick and mortar as well as online which the segment of the population in this niche market can't get enough of. Looks like a totally renewable resource to me and millions of others around the world. You also have to consider the longevity and the durability of the vinyl medium because there are still many examples of readily available vinyl dating back to it's beginning in the late 40's that have pristine surfaces and sound superb. Not bad for an 80 something year old format.

I'll keep my physical media and FM rather than attempt to stream and enjoy music with wireless Bluetooth earbuds on my phone. I also constantly read reports about streaming through higher end equipment that Wi-Fi can be unreliable and an Ethernet connection is a necessity which isn't always doable in some situations. Issues with consistent availability of your selections in your playlists and questions about actual bit rates of the streams.

I genuinely wish I could get the same satisfaction from streaming and/or CDs,  it would mean more time for music. I don't consider owning/maintaining an analog rig to be a "hassle" but it is time consuming. If streaming made me feel the way vinyl does, I'd probably still keep my entire collection, which is not nearly as large as a lot of this site's denizens (a little over 3K) but it still takes up a decent amount of space. Streaming is perfect for podcasts and background music, but doesn't cut the mustard for active listening, at least for me.

@stievus 

"But getting older, I tend to listen primarily to Qobuz, and only occasionally to LPs. For me, convenience has become more important than good, better, best. I assume that will the case for many of us at that age."

Not so.

I continue to enjoy my LPs and will do so until I can no longer rise. I also regularly repair, recondition, test and evaluate each and every component and every combination of components that I have. I go out of the way to make things inconvenient. I find it helps the learning process.

Never give up.

I gave up vinyl for CDs in 1984. in about 2019, I decided to try vinyl. Bought a used rega P3, and I noticed that acoustic instrument recordings (60s, early 70s) sound amazingly realistic. Fast forward, I upgraded to a clear audio performance dc turntable, tracer tonearm, hana ML MC cartridge. 

WOW! I'm all in now. I can also stream (using a benchmark dac 3b). In general I listed to mostly vinyl. I find I pay more attention to the music, than when streaming.
I would think digital at higher sampling rates, increased quantization would eliminate any difference, and it does sound good. However its not the same as vinyl for reasons I real can't explain