Reuters :
It’s been decades since families gathered round record players to listen to the new pile of records stacked among the torn wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
However, LPs will be crackling and popping in living rooms all over the country this year as Britons give new turntables a spin after the gadget became one of the must-have gifts of 2017.
Retailers including HMV and Richer Sounds have reported bumper turntable sales this year, while John Lewis has sold out of eight of the 20 models it stocked, as millennials and fortysomethings catch the vinyl bug.
Phil Jubb, purchasing director at hi-fi and TV specialist Richer Sounds, said turntable sales had increased by 70% in recent years: “This has been across the board at all prices. It goes to show that a great record player is part of any good sound system.”
Last Christmas we lost George Michael. Now he’s an unlikely beacon of hope
The vinyl scene used to be dominated by male baby boomers reliving their youth through record collections skewed towards heritage rock acts such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Oasis and Radiohead. But recent research by the BPI, the UK music industry’s trade body, found a broadening demographic with under 35s making nearly a quarter of all vinyl purchases and one in four records bought by women.
With record players costing anything from £25 to over £20,000, the appetite for vinyl among teenagers and students has encouraged manufacturers to produce cheaper models, including retro suitcase style players and brightly coloured ones costing less than £100.
HMV’s Simon Winter said the retailer would sell close to 60,000 turntables this year, compared with 50,000 in 2016. A turntable will be the top selling product in its technology department this Christmas, ahead of both headphones and speaker docks, he added.
John Lewis said its shoppers were increasingly interested in sound quality with slightly more expensive models, like those made by Japan’s Audio-Technica, in demnd this year.
It’s been decades since families gathered round record players to listen to the new pile of records stacked among the torn wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
However, LPs will be crackling and popping in living rooms all over the country this year as Britons give new turntables a spin after the gadget became one of the must-have gifts of 2017.
Retailers including HMV and Richer Sounds have reported bumper turntable sales this year, while John Lewis has sold out of eight of the 20 models it stocked, as millennials and fortysomethings catch the vinyl bug.
Phil Jubb, purchasing director at hi-fi and TV specialist Richer Sounds, said turntable sales had increased by 70% in recent years: “This has been across the board at all prices. It goes to show that a great record player is part of any good sound system.”
Last Christmas we lost George Michael. Now he’s an unlikely beacon of hope
The vinyl scene used to be dominated by male baby boomers reliving their youth through record collections skewed towards heritage rock acts such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Oasis and Radiohead. But recent research by the BPI, the UK music industry’s trade body, found a broadening demographic with under 35s making nearly a quarter of all vinyl purchases and one in four records bought by women.
With record players costing anything from £25 to over £20,000, the appetite for vinyl among teenagers and students has encouraged manufacturers to produce cheaper models, including retro suitcase style players and brightly coloured ones costing less than £100.
HMV’s Simon Winter said the retailer would sell close to 60,000 turntables this year, compared with 50,000 in 2016. A turntable will be the top selling product in its technology department this Christmas, ahead of both headphones and speaker docks, he added.
John Lewis said its shoppers were increasingly interested in sound quality with slightly more expensive models, like those made by Japan’s Audio-Technica, in demnd this year.
