Vinyl Edje

It took awhile but I finally added a turntable with speakers to my home office listening experience. The records I own have been calling me to play them again or for the very first time (I’m referring to past Record Store Day purchases that have all remained sealed for years).

We visited New York City on Fathers Day to make a professional turntable purchase at The Turntable Lab (TTL).  They are located in the East Village on 84 East 10th Street. My son and I are solid fans of this unique seller that primarily markets to the DJ crowd. I have purchased Record Store Day hard to find recordings from their online store, which I’ll be spinning. Browse their Web site to get a perspective on the packaged turntable solutions they feature as well as their unique product mix. They also move plenty of turntables through Amazon.Com.

TTL is rated one of the world’s best record shops by The Vinyl Factory where my browser has been happily stuck of late. I intend to share what I have learned from The Vinyl Factory in a future post.

You may have seen the recent Web article that SONY/Japan is adding dedicated record pressing production SONY’s vinyl Japanese products. What took people by surprise is SONY’s return to vinyl pressing after 28 years of shuttered plants. I respect the manufacturing analysis SONY reached that primarily pressing for themselves and next phase subcontracting production for other record companies can be a sustainable business. I’d prefer to see SONY open 1-2 U.S. plants as all the NA facilities can’t meet the manufacturing volume for output. That’s a great problem for the music industry to have. The hundred-year-old vinyl LP record averages $30 at retail for a single 180-200 grade vinyl recording. At that price, I am forced to be selective about the limited amount of vinyl I can purchase per year. Vinyl collecting continues to grow at a steady rate and will reach the $1 billion annual sales target by the end of 2018 (if not before).

It feels great to hold a record jacket in my hands and be in concert with the artwork, design and extensive liner notes you can find included with some recordings.  I purchased Alice Coltrane’s record the day I bought my Audio Technica turntable. I wrote about WORLD SPIRITUALITY CLASSICS 1: THE ECSTATIC MUSIC OF ALICE COLTRANE TURIYASANGITANANDA in March. It’s next on my playlist and certain to add a warm spiritual healing to our home. Another reason I acquired the limited vinyl edition is to read Ashley Kahn’s liner notes. Ashley is a subject matter authority on John and Alice Coltrane. I have several of his books in my music library. He was a consultant to LuakaBop for this historic recording.