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Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

Fewer and farther between...thank you, eBay...thank you, Google...

Information is the great equalizer, and vinyl records and vintage audio certainly prove the point.

Most "finds" of any kind - like the urban legend of the "Sunday driver, always garaged after owner moved to France and passed away" that turns out to be a Ford Shelby GT500KR Convertible once owned by Jim Morrison - have been based on asymmetry of information between buyer and seller; the knowing buyer usually capitalizing on the unknowing seller's ignorance.

Vinyl (and vinyl finds), like vintage audio (and vintage audio finds), are being (and have been) laid waste by the great equalizer: symmetry (aka equality) of information.

The recent resurgence of interest in vinyl will only exacerbate the situation. This is indeed a bummer since vinyl has long represented a great value - since the emergence of cassettes and especially CDs, vinyl media, especially used, has been a great program-content per unit time value, to say nothing of the perceived advantages in sonic and tactile qualities.

It's a goofy, but ultimately, egalitarian thing. Upon hearing that any old electronic items; particularly with tubes in them, are valuable, all now-knowing sellers increase prices accordingly. While in the short term, this may create unrealistic prices and market failure, it ultimately results in a new setpoint that reflects a market norm for a (now well-known) commodity.

That's why anything electronic that looks old is now premium priced at most Goodwill stores, and why asking prices for used vinyl are climbing.

The good news is that when asymmetry of information is replaced by symmetry, rational market pricing will eventuate. The bad news, is, of course, that "finds" will become, well, much harder to find.

The takeaway for me is, as with vintage audio, the investment in time based on the certainty of "finds" is perhaps no longer (or much less) warranted - since one is so much less likely to "score" than before, perhaps one should adjust one's expectations about their "eye to buy" ratio, or should relegate the activity to something based totally on chance - as one would regard the purchase of lottery tickets.


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Michael Percy Audio  


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  • Fewer and farther between...thank you, eBay...thank you, Google... - caffeinator 17:36:03 09/30/14 (0)

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