Edinburgh, SCT | Turntables, vinyl, cakes and coffee – welcome to Leith’s new record store cafe: Cafe Greenhouse opens this weekend at the Shore. Team EH6 has a new addition in the form of Cafe Greenhouse – a local coffee shop with a difference. Housed in Studio w2 – a concept events venue, pop up space and creative studio located on the Shore – the cafe is a record store meets coffee shop hybrid, packed full of turntables, records, cakes and coffee. Owners Jo and Erica have filled the Leith venue with an impressive selection of vinyl which customers can purchase or simply listen to whilst having a drink. In residency at 7 Tolbooth Wynd for the next eight months, the pop-up are serving up tea from Edinburgh-based Eteaket as well as Glasgow’s Ovenbird Coffee (who they are working with to create a bespoke blend for the caff). Writing on their launch party event page, Cafe Greenhouse said: “For a limited time only we’ll be sharing our love of speciality coffee, underground music, cultural activities and obscure plants to the wonderful people of Leith and beyond.”
Los Angeles, CA | Learning to Listen, in a Los Angeles Cafe Built for Vinyl Japanese-style listening bars, where D.J.’s spin carefully selected records for a hushed audience, are arriving in America. But truly appreciating them can take a little practice. At 9:30 on a recent Monday morning, I parked on East Fourth Place in the downtown arts district, between Skid Row and the Los Angeles River. I walked into a kind of glass vestibule, then opened a door into the half-light of In Sheep’s Clothing, a listening bar. I was returning for a second visit, at an unpopular hour, because I hadn’t grasped its purpose at a popular one. Listening bars — cafes with high-end audio equipment, where patrons listen to vinyl records, carefully selected by a bartender, from a record library behind the bar — have been an institution in Japan since the 1950s. They are a subset of the kissaten, the small and idiosyncratic coffeehouses dotting side-streets in Tokyo. Only recently have several emerged in New York City, Los Angeles and a few other places. Shakily, a culture and a lore are growing, of connoisseurship and grace and obsession.
Best turntables 2019: Budget, mid-range, high-end: Best Turntables Buying Guide: Welcome to What Hi-Fi?’s round-up of the best turntables you can buy in 2019. Vinyl is back and it’s here to stay. So whether you’re buying your first turntable, replacing an old deck or looking to upgrade your existing record player, we can help. We’ve rounded-up the best record players around, whatever your budget. There are a smattering of selections at the budget end of the market, plus a selection of premium record players if you’re looking to spend a little more money. You can even get a wireless Bluetooth turntable should you want to stream your vinyl selections. The boom in interest in vinyl has seen cheap turntables flood the market, with many all-in-one vinyl systems on the market for less than £100. But you can do better. In fact, some of these decks can even damage your vinyl. As tempting as some of the super-cheap systems may be, it’s worth paying a little more for better build quality and superior sound.
The past and the present merge beautifully in Sony’s wireless vinyl record player: CDs have pretty much already gone the way of the dinosaur. In fact, most cards don’t even come with CD players anymore. Not all physical media is dead when it comes to music though, because vinyl is making a huge comeback. People love how retro vinyl records are, and nothing sounds quite like a record. Of course, playing your vinyl collection on a 50-year-old record player sort of ruins the experience. If you want to enjoy the past but also drag your vinyl records into the future, we’ve got just the thing. The Sony PS-LX310BT Fully Automatic Wireless Vinyl Record Player with Bluetooth is our favorite record player by far, featuring both Bluetooth and wired audio outputs so you can connect it to any system you want! Here are the key details from the product page…
Recordings by Elton John, Nirvana and Thousands More Lost in Fire: A New York Times investigation has revealed that decades of Universal Music Group treasures burned in 2008. Eleven years ago this month, a fire ripped through a part of Universal Studios Hollywood. At the time, the company said that the blaze had destroyed the theme park’s “King Kong” attraction and a video vault that contained only copies of old works. But, according to an article published on Tuesday by The New York Times Magazine, the fire also tore through an archive housing treasured audio recordings, amounting to what the piece described as “the biggest disaster in the history of the music business.” What happened? The fire started in the early hours of June 1, 2008…The flames eventually reached Building 6197, known as the video vault, which housed videotapes, film reels and, crucially, a library of master sound recordings owned by Universal Music Group…Almost all of the master recordings stored in the vault were destroyed in the fire, including those produced by some of the most famous musicians since the 1940s.
