EXCLUSIVE: Specialist dealers in Australia are reporting record sales of turntables with one Sydney store recently selling a record player for $86,000.
At the same time global demand for vinyl records has soared over the past few years claims Amazon.
According to Josef Riediger, the CEO of Audio Connections, the demand for vinyl players has never waned “There is a lot of demand for record players. We recently sold one $86,000 player. What is now happening is that vinyl music is being remastered onto better quality vinyl and the enthusiasts like the sound that vinyl music delivers.”
The amplifier used to power the sound system attached to speakers and the vinyl player was an additional $56,000 and that was “second hand” said Riediger.
According to Len Wallis from Len Wallis Audio his sales of turntables are up over 40% “We are now selling more vinyl players than we are CD players” said Wallis.
Asked why turntable sales were booming Wallis said “Vinyl delivers superior sound and consumers are recognising this. We are also witnessing increased downloads of 24 bit music which leads me to believe that consumers who have been listening to music on iPods and portable music players now want better quality music”.
In Europe, manufacturers of turntables such as Rega are running 24 hour shifts just to keep up with demand for turntables according to company executives.
Recently, online web site Amazon said that vinyl sales are up 745 percent from five years ago “Vinyl is the fastest growing music medium on Amazon,” the company stated.
Amazon also said that vinyl is the most popular medium within AutoRip, the feature that provides customers with free MP3 copies of select vinyl albums or CDs they purchase from the online store.
Amazon’s reported growth in vinyl sales is consistent with an industry-wide trend. Nielsen SoundScan estimates that vinyl unit sales will grow to 5.5 million in 2013.
The Recording Industry Association says that it too saw a sales spike in 2012 of 29 percent, but that the figure still only represented 2 percent of the overall market.
