A home for music diehards has been fractured by increased fees that are pushing sellers and shoppers to other platforms.
Discogs needs a massive overhaul. I bought a rare record there recently, but it was such an annoying experience.
I didn’t realize my address hadn’t been updated. I attempted to update it right after purchase, but it was too late. I sent 5 messages to the seller, but he didn’t pay attention and sent it to my old address.
Thankfully, I thought to put mail forwarding from the old address to my current one. I was able get my vinyl. Seller never responded.
As a frequent Discogs user, this new fee change is so infuriating. I’m sure these changes aren’t as big for US or EU-based buyers, but the shipping fees I get in Singapore were very large even before this change, usually 2 or 3 times the cost of the item itself. Nowadays, there are some sellers who flat out refuse to sell items to me, specifically because of the fees. And this is just with CDs and cassettes, which have smaller shipping costs than a 12" record…
The problem is, I don’t really have any choice for getting used music. eBay has limited stock and even crazier shipping rates, especially if you want a specific edition of an album. I’ve heard talk of some sellers moving to Etsy, but if they have, they’re not showing up. And the few physical stores left here mostly carry stock in mainstream albums. So I mostly have to suck it up if I want a rare album, and pay the exorbitant costs :/
My wife and I have just recently started to use Discogs, so we were unaware of the new fees and some of the problems associated with ordering. My wife has bought several LPs from the site, and hasn’t had an issue, while I’ve only ordered one LP (also with no issue).
We have the luxury of having a few record stores in town with fairly large vinyl selections. The electronic record store I frequent also uses Discogs, however I haven’t talked to the owner to see how these fees have impacted his experience as a seller. I’ll have to remember to talk to him about it next time I’m visiting his store.
My problem with Discogs was trying to pay. “Pay by card” kept rejecting my debit card. “Pay with Paypal” didn’t have a guest option initially. I asked what to do on their forum. Someone told me to contact Paypal. So I contacted them via X. They just told me there’s nothing they can do.
2 days later, the option to pay as guest under “Pay with Paypal” silently appeared. But I probably wouldn’t notice unless I tried to do the payment over and over like 30 times.
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CDs are be becoming the new vinyls 💿✨
And then minidiscs, briefly, and then mp3s again, and then vinyl and then tapes, and then CDs and then minidiscs and then mp3s again, and then right track and then wax cylinder and then tape and the vinyl…
It’s just a consumerist carousel. But what you like. Listen to it. Enjoy it. Fuck the format.
I mean at least CDs do make more sense as they are physical copies of digital sound (where as the others are analog, which, regardless of quality, it’s hard to make copies of.) 📼
But that’s sorta why collecting vinyls instead of CDs makes more sense. With CD can have the exact same thing as a file, but not so much with vinyl.
I like buying CDs so I have a backup in case things go very wrong. The fact that a CD is the same as a digital file but physical plays to that advantage.
That being said I think I’m thinking on starting my own vinyl collection now - got the bug thanks to buying a 7-inch from Grouper. CD and vinyl have completely different but still valid use cases.
It is not difficult to make copies of vinyl records. All you need is an audio output from a receiver, a computer, and recording software (such as GarageBand or Logic Pro).
You’d be surprised how easy and relatively cheap it is to rip vinyl to MP3.
But MP3 is a lossy format 🤨
That’s why I usually record to AIFF or WAV since it’s lossless
Why not FLAC though?
I haven’t worked with FLAC since the hardware I own utilizes AIFF & WAV raw recording file formats. Exporting I typically use MP3 with a sample rate of 128Kbps/44.1KHz. I haven’t tried FLAC yet. I might try to do that next opportunity to see if the file sizes are comparable (there’s a size limit when I upload DJ mixes to Mixcloud).
Technology is cyclical.
God I hope not - the prices for used records are insane. I can usually buy 2 or 3 mint CDs for the price of 1 “Very Good” (i.e full of pops and scratches) vinyl
I haven’t experienced this. Typically, a new LP pressing costs about twice as much as a CD. There are some that are more expensive (I currently have an LP worth about $160 in my collection to my surprise), yet they are rarer pressings. I’ve bought most of my vinyl new (mint condition), and by and large those records usually cost $20-$30.
