Would vinyl even be invented today?

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

Distilling the vinyl renaissance down to one minor cultural phenomenon is simplistic and ignores gobs of evidence that moves in several different directions.

At this point, the vinyl resurgence is too big and too long-lasting to be a fad. The vinyl resurgence started getting noticed about nine years ago. Evidence of the resurgence suggests several different markets. Current pop artists are issuing vinyl versions of their albums, mostly from digital sources. One could say that market serves the hipsters.

But what about Acoustic Sounds? It's the biggest single vendor of new vinyl. Or others in the same market--MusicDirect, ElusiveDisc, SoundStageDirect, etc.? $35 reissues of 1958-1964 RCA, Everest, and Mercury classical recordings (and Verve, Prestige, Columbia, and Concord Group jazz albums) are hardly aimed at hipsters. Nor are the new Beatles mono vinyl releases.

Also, since the vinyl resurgence, we have seen McIntosh come out with a turntable for the first time, Marantz came out with its first turntable in a looong time, and the few turntable manufacturers who continued through the dark days have exponentially expanded their lines: Rega, Pro-Ject, Music Hall have all gone from 2-3 item product lines to many times that.

Do you think for a moment that hipsters are fueling the expansion of audiophile turntables, cartridge offerings, phono preamps and step-up devices?

In fact, even vinyl-spinning hipsters couldn't prevent Technics from discontinuing the SL12x0 series of direct drive turntables. It's caused the boutique belt-drive companies to expand their product lines and thrive.

To say it's all hipsters or a consumer-mad society is narrow-focus and dismissive. Most of the turntables come from Europe, even the USA-branded ones. The McIntosh and Marantz models were sourced from Clearaudio. Other makers are Rega, Linn, Naim, Funk Firm, Music Hall, and Pro-Ject. All those makers continued and thrived because European music lovers refused to abandon vinyl. That's not hipsters or consumerism; it's finding the intrinsic musical value amidst decades of digital hype.

The trendy crap is Crosley, Numark, Ion, etc. Those would satisfy the hipster market, but the sonically driven quality stuff is for the rest of us. Let's not forget that the aging baby boom is a lump of 75 million American consumers, and many of us (me included) are having one last analog hurrah of our beloved music while we still can.

Oh? Was the sale of 300 million hula-hoops in 18 months a "minor" phenom ?
If Americans had the SLIGHTEST interest in the intrinsic value of music the jazz and classical market would not be 2-3 %.

IMO you just don't understand the tsunamic effect of the "next thing" in USA.

APPLE sold 10 million of the new iPhone in one day.
Not a hundred people really needed one .

If it is not completely fad why have there been almost no new vinyl releases of classical? Is classical music over or are the current crop of musicians no good?

Sure there are more hi-fi tables but those came about because there is more material, the more material cam about because of the hipsters. If the market suddenly dropped ~80% would the hi-fi vendors continue to make as many turntable options as today? Probably not.

Go to the single largest independent music store in America, Ameoba. Look around and tell me what you see? A huge rock album section and tiny jazz and classical lp section (both new and used). Is vinyl making a comeback because it is the superior rock format?

BTW I've seen hipsters in Asia and Europe. They don't just live in Brooklyn, but the ones in Brooklyn surely have set the tone.

Being a vinyl lover, regret that I have put myself in the camp that the vinyl resurgence is just a fad.

Go to vinyl dominated forums and look at the vast amount of posters who have obtained their first TT yet are completely unaware they need a phono stage. These folks are not interested in quality sound reproduction. Afraid they are just hipsters. Go to used record shows and try to find a vendor who actually has brought a quality player to demo his records with? They are all the equivalent of Fisher Price models. Now look at the people buying these used records and demoing them on this cheap equipment. Again, its been my observation that they are mostly young hipsters. I recently found a 12", 45 rpm, Japanese pressing of a Paul McCartney tune I really like for $30. The vendor offered to demo it on what seriously looked like a Kenner Close 'n Play! I told if he did, I wouldn't buy the record.

Read somewhere that 60% of LP collectors have no intention of even playing the record. From what I see at shows, I tend to believe this.

Sadly its just a fad.