Cool stuff for sale mega-thread.

Got the latest Stereophile from my mailbox yesterday - yet another uber-Hi-End Store is going out of business in NY... The reason - no new blood for the Hi-End sound, so they closed the door Before Bad Times would hit them (funny thing, right now they have a heck of an extra business thanks to the old-timers like me but with $$$ who upgrade their 2nd homes out of NY with decent sound!)
This hobby/passion of mine also teaches me the lessons from the Real World, wish I could follow the trend, close my Lab and move onto retirement

 

@Jorge That's why I'm grateful this forum exists, because I am aware that this retro trend will eventually fade. And something tells me it's going to be sooner than most people expect.
I remember a website I discovered last year, which was selling digital music downloads, CDs and casssettes. One or two months after the pandemic started, they stopped shipping cassettes and CDs. Now they don't sell music anymore.
Another interesting thing is regarding blank tapes: last year there were so many available that you would think the old stock is going to last for years to come. Now, I found ebay sellers from which I bought a couple of months ago who sold absolutely everyhing.

We may be moving from products to services and there may come a time when companies will rent audio equipment instead of selling it, for meeting sustainability targets (because let's be honest, more and more junk products are produced only to become e-waste a year later).
For consumers, this may be more attractive if they give you the newest gear every year, including firmware updates and cloud-based services for just a monthly subscription. In fact, phone companies have been doing this for years with smartphones.
It's a trend that may move into other sectors, like furniture:
https://businessofhome.com/articles/can-the-subscription-model-work-for-high-end-furniture

 

I suspect physical media be around for longer than you predict. We were discussing it here
http://www.stereo2go.com/forums/threads/hello-from-walkman-searcher.7109/page-2#post-50970
One of the ironies of the current situation with lockdowns etc was that just as "experts" were saying that the young no longer wanted physical goods but preferred "experiences" e.g. going to a live show things like that got banned due to lockdowns.

What I do do think that physical media has become more of a trophy than an essential.
Are people buying new cassettes to actually play or to collect and cherish while playing the music from the download code they usually come with ?

This week I read about someone spending a huge amount on a basketball card.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/basketball/56901143#:~:text=An "ultra-rare" LeBron,expensive basketball card ever sold.
Very few people could afford anything like that or even be interested in it, but many music fans are happy to spend £20 or £30 on physical media.
Some people have suspected for a long time that a big appeal of the 12" format was the artwork.
That might be why LP Vinyl sales have been rising for the last decade or so.
Last year I bought a laser disc for the artwork despite having nothing to play it on and already owning the DVD. Mu intention is to frame the sleeve.

I am hoping that no music executive reads this, but it it wouldn't surprise me if media like LPs start to be sold as limited editions e.g. S.No 973 of 1000.
Other collectables (like the NBA card I linked to) do that all the time.

p.s The whole collectables thing remined me of a story I read about a Rock Star (it might have been Keith Moon) who actually tried playing a Gold Disc he had been given as a sales award. It turned out it didn't even have The Who on it !

 

@Longman I did read that thread and was surprised by how many new albums were released on physical media. What I think is eventually going to fade is stuff like old walkmans, boomboxes, decks and sealed blank tapes, not physical media itself.
It's more the fact that I am a little disappointed that blank media (except from Recording The Masters Type I) and good quality walkmans are not made anymore.

I think physical media can also create experiences if you listen to it more than once and it's something that you really like. Not to mention it's a chance to support the artist that produced it.
But I do agree it's more like a trophy, because if I have both a digital flac file and a CD/cassette, I find myself listening to the flac most of the time, keeping the physical for collection purposes.

 

There are too many other things for people to spend their money on these days. I thought mainstream interest in HiFi started to fade as home computers became popular. The type of people who used to debate which tonearm and cartridge to get for their record deck started debating what graphics card to buy for their PC.
It didn't take long to find some figures supporting this
https://www.ejinsight.com/eji/artic...ear, the global games,US$19.1 billion in 2018.

I'm happy to say my personal spending on Video Games in the last couple of years has been zero, although even then the Games companies have probably got some cash from all the adverts that come up between levels of Bubble Mania.

 

Browsing emails etc this came up as an advert on the side. Obviously aimed at collectors.
https://www.royalmint.com/our-coins...m-brilliant-uncirculated-definitive-coin-set/
£30 for some coins with a face value of £3.88 plus some extra polishing and some nice packaging. There is must be a market for such sets otherwise they wouldn't make them. If you are more interesting in Taylor Swift than coins you will buy her cassette, which might actually be a better investment.

 

There is a market for coins, I know one or two people who collect them. I'm personally not interested, but will certainly buy more pre-recorded cassettes into the near future.
Before reading the other thread, I had already discovered that a lot of indie artists release their new albums on cassettes on bandcamp, but up until this point I only bought very few.

I did recently buy a couple remastered CDs, it started from this one: https://www.amazon.com/BBC-Radio-Sounds-80s-Various/dp/B00O4Q8G3E
I found them locally in a bookshop that also sells music in physical formats like CDs and vinyls. Ended up buying others that were printed on the inside sleeve as well.

 

If the number of people with working hi-quality tape decks will continue to decrease (and it will, because not everyone will keep repairing them), why would sales of blank media (high-end) re-emerge?

The 20-somethings buying these new "retro" cassette players will eventually realize that the audio quality is crap, so after they've finished showing their friends how cool they are, they'll throw it away. Those with more patience will decide to look for better decks, only to learn they are: 1) not portable, 2) portable but expensive because of vintage boombox prices, or 3) need repair. Also keep in mind that "vintage" doesn't always mean better. I'd estimate that 70-80% of all vintage boomboxes from the 80s have low-quality decks. The good ones, naturally, will cost more.

 

That is indeed true ! Almost all decks, boomboxes, cassette recorders and walkmans will need some kind of service after 30-40 years from production. In some cases, the ones that have not been used will be especially problematic: for example,
I have recently repaired a TCD-D7 walkman that needed a complete disassembly of the mechanism, cleaning old grease and relubrication. It's a known problem on these models, but most don't bother to repair them, even the ones in mint condition.

Regarding the younger generation, I think it all boils down to cost: good quality boomboxes or walkmans have high prices. Also getting them repaired costs the same or more than a junk walkman like the one in the previous page.

 

Interesting remark about the commercials and interviews that are showing books and stereos, I haven't noticed that, but it has clearly an influence in the rising value and interest in vintage equipment.

The basic transistor radio is somehow natural to be dropping in price, especially because there are very few stations which broadcast on AM nowadays.
Even FM is not as used as it once was, as there are a ton of internet radio stations with specific genres of music, so one can choose.

I didn't knew that furniture rental has been around forever, that's something new to me. All the articles that I read about the topic presents it like it's something new and revolutionary, like an Uber for furniture.

 

With TVs and video recorders a large proportion of people in the U.K. rented them in the last century, either from a national chain or the local TV shop. That was less to do with their finances but to do with the unreliability of Equipment back then, and the fact that every couple of years much better models would become available.


My parents always rented their TV, and while my father was alive, a VCR despite the fact that the rental payments would pay for the set in about 2.5 years. With the digital switchover looming I offered to buy my Mother a decent TV for her 80th birthday. Her reply was that she would prefer to stay renting as she "needed a man to look after it". Instead we got the rental company to switch the TV to a flat screen one with a digital tuner. Ironically, her concerns were proven, when the first TV they supplied, a made in Turkey "Sanyo", developed an annoying intermittent fault. After a couple of phone calls they swapped it for a Samsung which never gave any problems. The biggest problem with that was cancelling the rental agreement a couple of years later when she had to move into a care home. In hindsight I should have paid the £250 they offered to sell it to me for, despite the fact that the same size Samsung sets were only only £300 new in the shops.

 

Are we sure these aren't just Zoom backgrounds? The bookshelf ones are pretty common.

 

More likely something bought from an interior design company "How many yards of books would you like for your new study sir?". At one time there was a fashion for Pubs to be done like that. Remember when furniture showrooms used to have fake, blow moulded CRT TVs in their room settings ?.

 

I am a Zoomer... (shocker)... and I have cassettes...

I mean, I grew up with good audio though. My family started me right with a Sansui SC-3110 and a Pioneer SX-1500TD... and I totally loved it. When my friends were buying the first Beats products, I was buying Walkmans... my first REAL Walkman was a WM-D3 I got as a gift... and it sounded amazing.

I also got a Pioneer H-R100 when I was like 16. for an 8-track system, it was quite good sounding.

...ANYWAYS.... I found this for sale today. I love early CD players and this one is pretty much the first. It's a Kenwood L-03DP from late 82. From what I hear, it predates the CDP-101 by a matter of months. I could be wrong though.

Kenwood L-03Dp Cd Player Unit Junk | eBay

Since the pictures are so bad in this listing, here's a glamour shot from audioScope:



I'm in love already... Someone convince me not to buy this...

 

According to this 29 manufacturers all launched CD players at the same time. See if you can spot the Kenwood here

After all there would be no point in any manufacturer launching before CDs were available, even if the first CDs cost the equivalent of almost £50 each in 2021 money.
Did you spot the CDP-101 in the Comet catalogue I posted yesterday http://www.stereo2go.com/forums/threads/comet-december-1983-hifi-catalogue.7139/#post-51219
Very much a product for Audiophiles back then.

 

Sony trying to modernise the look of the traditional HiFi with their Lissa

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164840025373?hash=item26613b2d1d:g:riYAAOSwP3FgirnD