Vinyl Records Are Making a Comeback

After years of steady decline, sales of vinyl are slowly increasing. The slow ascent of the record is matched by national chains increasing their shelf space to sell turntables and local stores such as Mother’s Records, Orange Vinyl, and Vintage Vinyl devoting large amounts of their inventory to records.

“[Vinyl is] not the easiest format to listen to music but it’s probably the best quality. I think a lot of people look at it as work, there’s a lot of walking over and flipping records, changing records all the time, you have to take good care of them, there’s a lot of preventive maintenance besides just pushing a button your cd player or I-POD,” said Mitch Shannon, owner of Vintage Vinyl.

Finding a record player that suits one’s own needs is important. A professional and the average consumer will spend different amounts of money on their systems. Record players that the average consumer would use are priced between seventy and two hundred dollars and are available in a variety of models.

Professional record players that disc jockeys use are heavy and durable. These are meant to be high quality instruments that can sustain many moves and much heavier usage. They begin at two hundred dollars and go into the thousands.

Ion and Gem Sound both make inexpensive players that start off at around one hundred dollars. They each make USB models that can connect to a computer and burn the record to the hard drive.

Crosley, Intellitouch, and Emerson make vintage record players. They are updated retro designs. Many of their products are all encompassing sound systems with a cassette, compact disc, radio, turntable, and speakers in a self-contained unit.

Most record players are stand-alones that need speakers and a receiver. New speakers and receivers quickly run into the hundreds of dollars but used speakers and receivers can be found at pawn shops and garage sales for considerably less.

A recent price check at area pawn shops saw receivers selling for fifty to one hundred fifty dollars and speakers as low as thirty-five dollars. That means a beginning vinyl enthusiast will likely spend near two hundred dollars to initially set up their system.

A record player should have a lever that lowers and raises the needle onto the vinyl. It helps prevent skipping and scratching. Experts doesn’t need this so much because they will be busy adjusting the needle to tracks and parts of a song to get a desired sound, but for the average consumer, this is a helpful device.

Many higher-end players have a pitch control adjust that controls the speed. All players have a 33 and 45 rpm switch but professionals need to more accurately control the speed of the vinyl to help with creating beats and synching different records. The average consumer will likely not need this control.

Another consideration is whether to buy a belt or a direct drive turntable. According to Shannon, it is a personal preference for the average consumer but professionals need a direct drive table. They cannot drag a record backwards on a belt driven table.

Belt driven tables are cheaper to fix since when they break--typically, it is only the belt that has broken. When a direct drive has broken, it’s because the motor is broken and it is almost always necessary to buy a new turntable.

The stylus, the little piece with the needle, is removable and comes in a variety of qualities. New record players come with one, but a professional will often change it for one of higher quality. A beginner doesn’t need to worry about upgrading unless they plan on upgrading their entire sound system. A good stylus will only enhance the sound so much without a receiver and speakers of better quality. Like most things electronic, styluses start off low and quickly climb in price.

Locally, there are few options to buy new record players, and fewer for the professional. A newcomer in Fargo can find a turntable at Best Buy, K-Mart, Target, and Radioshack. All the major chain stores carry a large selection of record players on their websites.

Most of the brands the chain stores sell have their own websites so a consumer can buy directly from the manufacturer. Pawn shops are hit and miss with record players but they always have speakers and receivers. Vintage Vinyl carries a large selection of used speakers, receivers, and turntables.

Pursuing vinyl initially costs some money. To get the good sound that vinyl provides, the tools on which it plays have to be good. For a dedicated fan of music, the cost is incidental to the sound, because it’s the sound that a lover of vinyl buys; the black record just happens to be the medium. through which the sound is delivered.