Would vinyl even be invented today?

"12-25-14: Schubert
One has merely to have an elementary understanding of American society to know his comment is spot on and anything but silly."

Schubert,

I assume you were commenting on this:

""The resurgence of vinyl is not about sound quality it is about hipsters being ironically cool."

Sorry, but that is a silly comment. How do you know what motivates an individual to buy a TT? Can you even come up with 1 piece of evidence to show that's a true statement?"

I'll be happy to consider your point of view, but you have to tell us what it is. If something is spot on, there's no need to be general, or cryptic. What exactly are we talking about here?

Scvan, as a record store owner I have to totally disagree.
I sold lots of great TT that can easily outperform even expensive CD-player. There are plentyplentier in $200 range 70's and 80's vintage that can sound very good paired with same priced vintage receiver. Among thousands of customers visiting store maybe 1 or 2 using Crosley or Numark, the rest Thorens, Linn, Technics 1200, 1300, 1600, Sony PS3300, Pioneer PL40, PL50, PL560... I can continue this list for few or several more pages. It's only I guess audiophile dogma...

Zd542, I respect your posts in general but I can think of nothing to say but just look around you in a consumer mad society .
Perhaps why someone will spend 10K more for a Passat if you puy 4 ten buck rings on the front? Or 30 bucks more for a shirt with an alligator on it than same from the same Asian factory.
X 10,000 .

That said, from the numbers that were supplied, we can say in excess of 300,000 turntables sold last year and that means if you add the Numarks, Ions, Audio-Technica sales, it is safe to say approximately 1,000,000 turntables sold last year. Add Crosley and the number would probably double. We claim it is "safe" to say 1,000,000 because a few years ago Ion did reveal that it sold that many turntables.

That is taken from an article on analog planet. The 300,000 number is of "high-grade" manufacturers, basically anybody whose name is not mentioned.

So assuming that at most 30% of sales are decent TT's and the rest are junk is the resurgence of vinyl a sound thing. Then if we add in Crosley it could be as little as 15% of TTs are decent stuff. Is that a vinyl sound loving resurgence or something else?

The highest selling LP of the year was Jack White's Lazaretto. These are the TTs Jack White sells on his website. http://thirdmanstore.com/merchandise/turntables Except for the pro-ject that is really really terrible stuff.

Then there is this from Urban Outfitters. http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/category.jsp?id=A_MUSIC_TURNTABLES#/ A store that is clearly targeted to younger people, but has a wider variety of TTs than any audio store I've been in recently.

Finally, how many people on the board have been to RSD which is easily the biggest day for record sales in the country (USA). People are lining up for hours outside before the stores open. I've done this and can easily say I was possibly the only person over 30 there.

Yes there are young people who have good systems and good turntables, but the majority of turntables that are being sold now are probably some of the worst ever produced. These people are not buying the TTs or vinyl for sound quality.

I think I have done a decent job of laying out my argument, for those that disagree please show me a similar story why I am wrong.

For that matter, would two-channel even be invented today? Unfortunately two channel is here to stay, for (at least) two reasons:
-The billions of recordings that were made in two-channel
-The immense popularity of headphones