One old technology that should be in its grave with grass growing on top and the headstone all mossy is making a huge comeback.
Vinyl is not only climbing out of that grave, it is dancing on it.
And the reason is because vinyl offers two things the latest technology can't match.
Firstly it's sound is better. Hard to believe, but the noise from that needle bouncing over grooves in a record easily beats the sound from a CD player or something you've downloaded into your phone.
Secondly, it brings a sense of occasion back to listening to music, something that's missing with the instant access digital options.
Listening Post manager Crighton Weir says he sells more turntables than CD players, and it's just growing.
"We have moved to something between a 10-fold and a 100-fold number of turntables sold now in our industry than we did 10 years ago."
"We sought of saw it coming, though. And there were more records being sold than this CDs, we saw this impetus building of people looking for an analogue source."
And that's a key point. Turntables playing vinyl are an analogue device playing analogue sound.
"Turntables offer somebody a vastly superior way of playing music," Weir says. "It is recorded in analogue and played back in analogue rather than being recorded, digitised, compressed, emailed and played back off some pretty terrible devices."
"The sound is massively superior. A clean record will sound infinitely better. It's the difference between a poor quality digital photograph and a 35mm photo. It is analogue versus a digital copy."
Weir says the appeal of digital music is understandable. It's easy to store music digitally, carry it with you and access vast catalogues rapidly.
But that sheer ease has created another loss for music lovers.
What's missing for many is a "connection" in a real sense. "There's no physical connection with the music," Weir says. "There's no cover art, there are no artist's notes. There's no photography, no smell." Playing music becomes one-dimensional.
But the process of looking at a record cover, taking out the record, placing it on a turntable, lowering the stylus, and the stylus creating music in a very physical way by amplifying the sound of vibrations - that all seems so much deeper.
"A record is something they are buying. There is a pride of ownership and a sense of collection, and a sense of nostalgia."
He says good turntables cost from $500 up. Under that and they tend to be a toy.
For $500 you'll get a good basic turntable. From $700 and you get something quite perfect, with carbon fibre arms, bearing kits and platters that are well made.
Like any good sound, they need an amplifier and speakers. And for goodness sake don't ruin the moment or sound by feeding it back into digital land by bluetoothing it.
"There are Bluetooth turntables available and I will never stock them," Weir says. "It's like taking the fine dining restaurant experience, freeze drying it, then almost immediately tipping hot water on it and stirring it around and eating it and saying this is my fine dining restaurant experience. Well, no it's not."
Written by Ewan Sargent. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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