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Low-tech turntable still a player in the MP3 era |
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Saturday, 04 June 2005 |
Low-tech
turntable still a player in the MP3 era
Chicago Tribune - Chicago,IL,USA
Fueled by consumers searching for better sound, sales of vinyl records
now average 500,000 to 700,000 units annually.
One of Thomas Edison's key innovations is finding new life.
In an era defined by portable digital music players, the turntable, a descendant
of the phonograph Edison invented in 1877, continues to be popular with buyers
who want to spin old-fashioned vinyl records.
And while sales of turntables accounted for about 105,000 units last year--a
pittance compared to the millions of MP3 players sold--there is a subset of
music fans keeping the market alive.
"Renewed interest in turntables is attributable to a number of factors," said
Jeffrey Joseph, vice president of communications and strategic relationships for
the Consumer Electronics Association. The trend includes "consumers who say they
prefer a richer sound from analog recording, the continued impact of hip-hop and
remixes, and consumers using turntables to record their vinyl LPs onto their
computers."
Ironically, it may be the "low-tech" nature of the record player that
contributes to its allure in today's technologically advanced world.
"Basically, the turntable hasn't changed much over the past 30 years. You can
take a record made back in the late 1950s and still play it on pretty much any
player," said music journalist Steve Guttenberg, who writes for Home Theater and
Home Entertainment magazines and worked for Chesky Records, a jazz label.
"I write about a number of the latest digital formats, and there are always
incompatibility problems. Analog hasn't changed."
But the trend that has amazed many in the music industry is that teenagers--who
have grown up with CDs and now MP3 players as the dominant music medium--are
discovering that those gatefold album jackets their parents have put in storage
are pretty cool.
Ian Doll, 15, of Chicago, said he caught the vinyl bug 18 months ago when his
father wanted to finish the basement.
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