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Vinyl Nirvana & The Art of Vintage Turntable Restoration
How a tiny turntable restoration company turned a new generation of vinyl listeners into the cult of Thorens.
Have you taken a look at turntable prices lately? Inflation is having a significant impact on the prices of high-end audio components and it is not not unusual to see 20 to 30% increases with some brands. Very few brands can absorb the rising costs due to supply chain issues and not have to charge more. Mass produced tables from brands like Fluance, Pro-Ject, Audio-Technica, and Rega are still not out of reach for audiophiles but does it now make sense to start looking at vintage turntable restorations that offer better long-term value? Vinyl Nirvana needs to be on your radar if that is the case.
Dave Archambault is a busy man. The proprietor of New Hampshire-based Vinyl Nirvana has been restoring and rebuilding vintage Thorens and Acoustic Research turntables full-time for almost a decade and 2020/2021 proved to be very challenging years; a period that he was able to navigate through a lot of hard work, creativity, and a major pivot when events beyond his control both at home here in America and in Asia almost upset the golden applecart.
He has become the source for affordable restorations and reproductions that are second to none, but Vinyl Nirvana is not a large turntable manufacturer like Pro-Ject, Rega, or VPI who have the ability to engineer and manufacture their own tonearms.
2021 was a record year for vinyl sales across the globe with tens of millions of people stuck at home because of pandemic lockdown rules. Americans spent over $1 billion on 40 million new records in the United States alone. That’s the most new albums shipped in the U.S. in 33 years (since 1988).
The RIAA H1 2022 music industry report just released made a lot of people in the vinyl and turntable categories rather happy; vinyl sales rose 22% in the United States during the first 6 months of the year and while that’s a far cry from the 97% increase during the same period in 2021 — there were a number of mitigating factors that created such a dramatic increase.
Pandemic, shuttered record stores, brisk online sales, travel restrictions, and no live music.
Inflation is certainly not helping any industry right now (unless you’re buying a new or used car), and consumers were unlikely to increase spending on non-essential items such as records when the average family is spending $400 to $500 more each month on gasoline, food, and clothing.
A 22% increase still suggests that there is strong interest in new vinyl sales.
That massive surge in demand also put a lot of pressure on turntable and tonearm manufacturers; which was exacerbated by supply chain issues across the globe.
This article originally appeared at ecoustics.com and an intro has been published here with permission.
Read the full article: https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/vinyl-nirvana-turntable-restoration/
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