WIRED

Strange as it may seem, both Panasonic and Sony made vinyl record players the centrepiece of their CES press conferences in Las Vegas this year.

The Technics SL1200-GA from Panasonic delighted fans of the legendary brand, on its 50th anniversary, with luxurious design and materials, and some seriously thoughtful innovation.


Meanwhile the stark-black Sony PS-HX500 took the headlines at their press conference, impressing with its ability to rip albums into Hi-Res Audio files. Technical scepticism about that Neil Young-backed standard aside, the concept will enable audiophiles to back up their collections and listen to them digitally, and bring new life to old classic records.

But those weren't the only record players to hit the CES show floor in 2016. Several new turntables from smaller players were announced at CES too, and arguably the coolest and most significant to the industry -- if not actually the best -- were stacked high, like sweets in a jar, at a quiet booth sat literally in the shadow of Sony in a distant corner of the Tech East hall.

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A decent vintage

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Crosley Radio shares the branding of an archaic American company, known -- according to its own press materials -- for making one of the first truly low cost radios, the $7 'Harko', back in 1920. In the late 1980s, the brand was awaken from dormancy, and reapplied to a range of 'vintage-inspired' products including radios and jukeboxes. But its fortunes exploded only much more recently, after its low-cost, portable suitcase-style colourful record players were picked up for sale in hipster retailer Urban Outfitters.

Why was that so significant? Because that seller of T-shirts and lip balm also happens to be, by at least their own estimation, and if you don't count Amazon, the number one physical retailer of vinyl records in the United States.

In the UK, even as vinyl record sales have increased, by up to 800 percent since 2009, actual record stores, barring a few unique holdouts like Rough Trade, have not returned to the high street en masse. There are more independent stores now than a few years ago -- at least 40 have opened in that same time period, as vinyl sales increased from £3.3m in 2009 to £25.9 million in 2014 -- but the big old chains like HMV have not been able to ride the wave back to prominence.

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Meanwhile, twelve inch records are selling in bulk, at Urban Outfitters, right next to Crosley's players. So while reviewers -- professional and public -- might decry Crosley's cheap, entry-level equipment, their importance to the boom in vinyl sales, and the decision by Sony and Panasonic to capitalise on it, is apparent. "These guys were the giants, back in the seventies," Crosley Brands CEO Bo Lemastus tells WIRED, after the Sony and Panasonic announcements. Crosley has been attending CES for 32 years, but have not seen the sort of excitement about vinyl at the show for decades, he added. "When vinyl died, it died hard. The fact that they're back just shows you how broad this thing is. We started chasing it 20 years ago, and now it's reached a tipping point where vinyl is totally mainstream."


The Urban Outfitters deal was "massive" for the company, Lemastus tells WIRED, claiming that sales of its players -- he would not give exact figures -- have increased by ten times over the last decade. "What they have done for the industry is huge," he said. Crosley's core product is still its cheaper (£70-£80) players, but Lemastus said it is now exploring a 'Tech Series' for those who want to upgrade.

That ambition aside, it is true that Crosley's players sound, to be blunt, poor. In WIRED's experience, the sound quality of a vinyl album on a Crosley player is barely better than playing an MP3 though a decent smartphone's speaker. But that assumption that vinyl sales are about a 'return' to people caring about sound quality might itself be a mistake. Buyers of records, particularly younger fans, seem to care equally about the artwork, and the physical artifact of a record, as how it sounds. "The $99 player is limited in terms of the fidelity you're going to get out of it," Lemastus admits. But people buy them because the physicality of a record, the artwork and the ritual of playing a disc all still matter. "For me it's still about the romance of dropping that needle," Lemastus said. "There is a lot of romance there."

Panasonic

The next step

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For Panasonic, whose new SL-1200 turntables will cost roughly 40 times that of a Crosley player, the technology and intended customer is clearly very different, at every level, to Crosley's.

The new Technics hardware announced at CES is a four-layer, magnesium tone arm, direct drive beast, not a plastic toy. And yet the motivation behind it is the same, UK MD Andrew Denham tells WIRED -- people just love records in general, and the Technics brand in particular. They are riding the same wave of excitement, but doing it in about as different a manner as is possible.

1210 is," Denham said. "The SL1210 was iconic, the most influential turntable in history. It's return is helping to create a buzz around Technics, and rediscovering music in a digital environment. It's creating a love of music."

For Panasonic, the sort of (probably young) person buying a Crosley is -- perhaps -- a potential customer, one day, for a much more expensive, but much better product. "The aim is they aspire to own a Technics 1200," he said. "There are different tiers, it's a market, but it's great that the whole culture has come back around to what vinyl delivers."

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Where does vinyl fit?

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Vinyl as an industry is still small, and growing slowly, compared to the potential of streaming services, and the financial scale of digital music as a whole. As a platform, a record on a turntable barely registers against the domination of the smartphone. But the two worlds aren't necessarily doomed to be separate.


Sony's HX500 player specifically aims at bridging the gap between digital music and vinyl.

With the ability to rip vinyl records to High-Res standards -- even if those standards remain somewhat mythical -- it at least connects the turntable into the digital ecosystem. Cheaper vinyl-to-USB systems are available already, but Sony wants to find a harmony between the concern for quality of a high-end turntable customer, with the convenience of a digital ecosystem. The result, in person, is a player that looks as classic and stark as the best turntables around, but which has a place in a digital world. "Sony is dedicated to providing audiophiles and music enthusiasts alike with a wide range of hi-res audio solutions that can meet virtually every lifestyle need," said Yamato Tanikawa, from Sony Electronics. "[The HX500] is an important bridge that connects the growing number of vinyl record collectors to the convenience and sound quality afforded by hi-res audio."

Which of these answers for the vinyl conundrum -- the high end, the low end, and the digital-analogue bridge -- will win in the end is unclear. And no, CES 2016 did not resolve if vinyl will grow beyond its niche. But there is excitement in the tech world about these ancient, round discs of resin -- and there is money, too.