89 MONTAGE | SUMMER 2014

88MONTAGE | SUMMER 2014

U-Turn Audio’s Orbit Basic record player

THE VINYL

REVIVAL

High-end turntables and re-pressings of classic albums are redefining the listening experience. BY RYAN RITCHIE

Vinyl is back. Or, more specifically, vinyl has been back and the mainstream is finally catching up to what record col-lectors have always known: that tra-

ditional record players are the optimal format for listening to music.

The seemingly outdated medium has experi-enced a sales growth during a time when digital downloads are de rigueur. Still, there’s no deny-ing that electronic, automated and touch-screen musical companions might soon be things of the past, as 2013 saw the first recorded decrease in digital music sales since the iTunes store launched in April 2003. Is it any coincidence, then, that vinyl sales increased by more than 1 million units during the same period?

Record RebirthVinyl’s resurgence has led to better-sounding records on the market, which means classic albums such as the Stooges’ “Fun House,” Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and Prince’s “Purple Rain” have been reissued from the original analog master tapes on 180-gram vinyl. This pressing style is thick enough to absorb the vibrations that occur when a stylus courses through a record’s grooves, in turn creating a richer, more complete sound in comparison to those of albums pressed on standard 120-gram vinyl (a lesser quality, to be sure).

Naturally, vinyl’s expansion has also sparked an interest in turntables; records, after all, are no good without something to play them on. Proof of this growing market can be found at retail chains like Target, where record players are sold in stores and online for less than $100. At the opposite end of the spectrum, meanwhile, compa-nies like VPI Industries Inc., based in Cliffwood, N.J., produce high-end turntables complete with prices that range from approximately $1,200 to an astounding $40,000. The brand’s models are made from materials like stainless steel, alumi-num and acrylic, and boast features including multiple arms, controls for speed stability and ring clamps for vacuumlike hold; unsurprisingly, many of them also tip the scale at 70 pounds.

While some manufacturing has evolved with

new materials being introduced to certain parts of the machines, turntable technology for people who simply want to listen to records (versus disc jockeys or those looking to archive records in digi-tal format) hasn’t changed that drastically over the years. Companies like the U.K.-based Linn have been producing turntables for decades; the Sondek LP12 is Linn’s trademark model, developed in 1972 and still lauded for its design and rich sound. In celebration of the product’s 40th anniversary in 2012, Linn released the Limited Edition Sondek LP12, which features a wood plinth made from whiskey casks and arrives paired with a bottle of Highland Park Scotch whisky that’s been aged 40 years. Another company that consistently tops audiophiles’ best-of lists, Music Hall, manufac-tures, imports and distributes high-end audio products and produces its own line of turntables in a factory in the Czech Republic whose history dates back more than 50 years.

Companies like Massachusetts-based U-Turn Audio, meanwhile, have democratized vinyl with moderately priced equipment that doesn’t sacrifice quality for affordability. U-Turn Audio manufactures a popular record player called the Orbit Basic for $179; the model has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from industry professionals including Michael Fremer, a writer who has covered vinyl’s ebbs and flows since the format’s supposed demise in the 1980s. Currently working as editor-in-chief of the website Analog Planet and senior editor of Stereophile magazine, Fremer deems U-Turn Audio’s Orbit Basic the ideal turntable for someone looking for the ultimate lis-tening experience without a substantial investment.

“It tracks well and it’ll take care of your records,” he says. “It has this warmth and this thing that vinyl does that you don’t get with anything else.”

U-Turn Audio’s cross-section of performance and affordability comes as no surprise consider-ing the backgrounds of co-founders Ben Carter, Bob Hertig and Peter Maltzan. The three men—all just 25 years old—describe themselves as high school friends who love listening to vinyl records.

After graduating from college, the friends collabo-rated to create a record player that would meet their needs as listeners while remaining accessible to the

91 MONTAGE | SUMMER 2014

90MONTAGE | SUMMER 2014

“There’s something about records,

and it’s not just the sound. It’s the

whole packaging. ... It brings

back a fl ood of memories.”

—Michael Fremer

discs sound terrible,’ and I wrote letters to editors of magazines. Everybody was getting rid of their records like it was a carcinogen, and I was happy to go to all the used record stores and buy them all for a dollar.”

Talking ShopAll of the turntables and records in the world mean nothing if there aren’t places where vinyl can be pur-chased, which is where stores like Factory Records come into the picture. Owned by Dave James, the 400-square-foot neighborhood shop in Costa Mesa, Calif., primarily sells vinyl records. “CDs just don’t move,” James says of his decision to stock the store’s shelves with vintage vinyl classics.

“I keep a few hundred [CDs] around, but they’re a tough giveaway,” he continues. “I keep a few hundred cassette tapes around too, but I’d starve if I had to rely on them and CDs. Vinyl is the hot ticket right now, and it has been long enough again that it’s just not some dumb hipster fad.”

In the wake of vinyl’s swift ascent, local shops like James’ have fl ourished, adding to the sense of community gleaned from a trip to the record store and giving small business owners a welcome boost. Factory Records maintains an inventory of approximately 5,000 vinyl records, and James keeps several thousand more in storage.

The shop’s average customer, he says, is a male between the ages of 20 and 35 who is “looking for rock, indie rock or punk” records. That said, everyone from young teenagers to grandparents also frequents the store, and, perhaps not surpris-ingly, they often reveal similar tastes.

“Classic rock pays the bills and lets me afford to stock the stuff I like, like jazz and [progressive] and reggae,” James adds, echoing a reality that’s well-known by many a shopkeeper. “The bands that keep me alive are Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones—those are bands that have classic releases that sell for $15 to $35 for a used album.” M

1949: RCA Victor releases the 45-rpm 7-inch record, replacing the 78-rpm model as the most popular format for vinyl singles.

AUDIOIN REVIEW

1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph, the fi rst device able to reproduce recorded sounds.

1895: German-born inventor Emile Berliner debuts the gramophone, a commercial turntable that is quickly mass-produced.

1931: RCA Victor introduces an early version of 12-inch

“long-playing” (LP) records that spin at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute (rpm).

1948: Columbia Records unveils 10-inch and 12-inch LPs during a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria New York hotel.

that of a CD or digital download. Then, Carter says, there are those who like vinyl because it brings people together through a shared affi nity for music.

“It’s a very different experience when you have a nice stereo system and you listen to music the way it was meant to be heard,” Carter says. “It’s a very social way to listen with people. You can go through the album art and interact. You’re listen-ing actively—it’s not background music.”

Fremer agrees, adding that vinyl allows listen-ers to feel more connected to artists than CDs, cassette tapes and MP3 fi les. The current stan-dard of downloading creates a disconnect, he says, because there is no physical product to hold. Owning a three-dimensional record allows the listener to refl ect on where the album was pur-chased and who he or she may have been seeing live at the time. Fremer estimates that his collec-tion includes more than 15,000 records, and the memories he attaches to them are byproducts of the vinyl model that he worries might be lost on the download generation.

“There’s something about records, and it’s not just the sound,” he says. “It’s the whole packaging. I pulled out the Beatles’ ‘White Album’ the other night. I put it on the turntable and it sounds better than those new reissues that came out. It brings back a fl ood of memories. I know kids today buy-ing records the way I bought records, if they keep those records in good shape, 40 years from now they’ll have that same experience. If you download a fi le, what’s that going to be? Nothing. I know a generation of young people waking up to the fact that they’ve been cheated out of good sound and a certain emotional experience from music by listen-ing to MP3s, and they want better.”

Fremer describes himself as “not much of a gear-head,” which is somewhat ironic seeing as how his turntable of choice—a Continuum Caliburn—retails for the same amount as a house in certain states. He jokingly explains that listening to music is his job and therefore merits the ownership of such an expensive machine, but he doesn’t necessarily care about brand names or technological bells and whistles. What he cares about is the music, which is why he has no intentions of quitting his day job.

During the early 1980s, Fremer was supervis-ing production of the soundtrack for the 1982 fi lm “Tron” when he was invited to the fi rst CD demonstration in the United States. At the event, Roxy Music’s “Avalon,” also released in 1982, was played on a “giant player” that wasn’t yet commercially available. The sound, he says, was “horrible,” which had nothing to do with the iconic band’s talent. After the demonstration, engineers around him praised the new technology, but Fremer took a different approach.

“Something that sounded bad was being called good, and it really wasn’t good,” he says. “I got a bumper sticker made up that said ‘compact

general public. In December 2012 the trio created a campaign through the fundraising site Kickstarter, asking for $60,000 to fund what they described as “an all-analog turntable for today’s vinyl listener.” In response, the men received $233,940 in less than two months. U-Turn Audio was born.

According to Carter, the company now receives an average of 10 new orders per day, and the current wait time for an Orbit Basic is about two months. The months-long wait partially comes as a result of U-Turn Audio employing only six assemblers (in addition to the company’s three co-founders). The other reason for the wait? “The orders come in faster than we can build them,” Carter says.

Tangible InvestmentsPeople buy vinyl records for a number of reasons. Some enjoy the larger album covers and inserts, while others just prefer the sound of a record to

The Beatles’ “White

Album”

VPI Industries Inc.’s HR-X turntable

Dave James at Factory Records in Costa Mesa, Calif.

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1963: Philips develops a compact stereo cassette tape and player. Two years later, the short-lived eight-track tape would

enter the market.

1982: Billy Joel’s “52nd Street” is the fi rst album to be released on compact disc, marking the beginning of a major decline in turntable and vinyl record sales. 1998: MP3

players become the most convenient, shareable way to listen to music.

2012: Vinyl’s comeback is in full swing, with a sharp increase in record and turntable sales.