Who remembers the days when record players were our main form of entertainment at parties, or the excitement of buying that new LP and pulling the vinyl out of the sleeve to put the needle on the record for the first time?
I guess if you’re forty or older, or if you’ve got into the recent resurgence of vinyl or all things retro and mid-century you’ll already know about the fun of spinning tunes on a turntable. The vinyl comeback has been happening for a while with lots of independent record shops doing well with the upsurge of old and new customers wanting to get their hands on the vinyl music experience.
We’ve seen some great mid-century and vintage events cropping up around the country which are celebrating all things retro and some fabulous examples of old technology and entertainment. We especially like the Mid Century Market which is held regularly in London and Bristol and also our local fair The Grand Vintage Fair in St Albans. We’ve seen some really cool vintage interiors ideas, fashions and some great examples of record players, cassette players and albums from the 80’s back to the 50’s. We remember some of the tracks from our own youth, but also from family parties and our mum and dads’ musical tastes that we might not have been that impressed with at the time!
We also visited the Autumn Fair recently at the NEC Birmingham, which is a global event where home and gift suppliers come together to showcase and look at trends and products for the coming seasons. WGSN the foremost trend forecaster, presented their forecasts for Spring & Summer 2017 and their ‘Digital Wave’ trend predicts that 1980’s new wave styles, old school design, ‘analogue versus digital’ clash of styles, products, colours and designs will be a major influence on what we’ll be bringing into our homes. Record players featured in the trend with vibrant pop colours such as red really coming to the fore, against black and white analogue-type designs and with chrome also featuring.
We’re really happy that we’ve already been stocking some really cool vintage-style record players for a while now, in a number of colours which really go with the interiors we’re already seeing coming out in the lead up to Christmas. Oops we’ve mentioned Christmas a bit early there, but it is nearly time to start thinking about those gift ideas – and a vintage-style record player may suit that hard-to-impress person on the list.
The Denver VPL-120 turntables that we stock come in a vintage-style suitcase and with built-in twin speakers which make it really easy to carry around, so you can play your vinyl collection wherever you are. The triple speed option allows you to play those favourite 33.3 rpm albums, the classic 45rpm singles and the really vintage 78rpm records that you might pick up on your vintage shopping trips.
Unlike the ‘old days’, the record will stop playing once it’s finished, there’s a line-out socket for external hi-fi or amplifier connection and a headphone jack. You can even record and share your vinyl finds through a USB connection, which records the music onto your PC and converts it to MP3 or WAV files.The Denver VPL-120 comes in black, red, light blue and brown so will go with any individual styles, will be bang on trend and set to impress in to next year and beyond.
Do get in touch and let the 3wisemonkeys know what you think of our ideas, or if you need any more information.
The 3wisemonkeys team