15 Groovy Gift Ideas for the Serious Vinyl Collector

15 Groovy Gift Ideas for the Serious Vinyl Collector

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Monday, 12 December 2016
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When you take a vacation in a foreign city, you like to visit the museums, old historical churches, and possibly pop into a boutique or two. Your loved one, on the other hand, would gladly spend the entirety of the trip digging through dusty crates in some weird little record store. It’s an obsession! But it makes them happy. In fact, the only thing they like more than collecting records is listening to them. Here’s the stuff that will keep them in the groove.

01

Wesley & Kemp A-Frame Record Display Easel

Plop this beautiful display easel ($45) next to the turntable to show off the sleeve of whatever platter’s currently playing. It holds up to four records, so it’ll fit the afternoon’s playlist as well.

Credit: Turntable Lab

Plop this beautiful display easel ($45) next to the turntable to show off the sleeve of whatever platter’s currently playing. It holds up to four records, so it’ll fit the afternoon’s playlist as well.

02

Turntable Kitchen’s “Sounds Delicious” Subscription Service

Turntable Kitchen has been pairing carefully curated vinyl selections with coffees, premium food ingredients, and meal recipes for a few years now. The outfit’s latest project is the Sounds Delicious subscription service. Each month brings an exclusive, limited-edition record featuring a contemporary artist doing a song-for-song cover of a famous album. Among this year’s picks are Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard covering Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado covering Springsteen’s Born To Run. The original artwork is gorgeous, the vinyl pressings are primo, and the music is out of this world. $25 per month, $300 for a year.

Credit: Turntable Kitchen

Turntable Kitchen has been pairing carefully curated vinyl selections with coffees, premium food ingredients, and meal recipes for a few years now. The outfit’s latest project is the Sounds Delicious subscription service. Each month brings an exclusive, limited-edition record featuring a contemporary artist doing a song-for-song cover of a famous album. Among this year’s picks are Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard covering Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado covering Springsteen’s Born To Run. The original artwork is gorgeous, the vinyl pressings are primo, and the music is out of this world. $25 per month, $300 for a year.

03

Fluance RT81 Turntable

This is the best mid-priced turntable we saw this year: the Fluance RT81. Premium components—an accurate belt-drive system, a walnut cabinet, a nice preamp, and an S-shaped tone arm loaded with an AT95E cartridge—make it a steal at $250.

Credit: Fluance

This is the best mid-priced turntable we saw this year: the Fluance RT81. Premium components—an accurate belt-drive system, a walnut cabinet, a nice preamp, and an S-shaped tone arm loaded with an AT95E cartridge—make it a steal at $250.

04

Pro-Ject Audio Phono Box

Modern turntables can plug right into a home stereo system, but vintage models need their signals boosted by a preamp. The Phono Box from Pro-ject Audio ($100) is a clean and sweet-sounding pre-amp that will make their ’70s era record player sound noticeably better. Give them this so they can ditch the cheap “just good enough” preamp they bought on Amazon.

Credit: Pro Ject Audio Systems

Modern turntables can plug right into a home stereo system, but vintage models need their signals boosted by a preamp. The Phono Box from Pro-ject Audio ($100) is a clean and sweet-sounding pre-amp that will make their ’70s era record player sound noticeably better. Give them this so they can ditch the cheap “just good enough” preamp they bought on Amazon.

05

DK Vinyl Displays

It’s time to step up from storing those LPs in milk crates and fruit boxes. Artisan builder Damon Kelley makes every one of his wooden record storage systems by hand, working to the exact specifications of each client. Kelley uses premium woods and laminates (no cheap Home Depot stuff here) and finishes them with gloss or matte stains and paints. You pick whatever configuration works best for your listening room. Really, anything is possible. He’s a one-man operation and he makes everything with love—so order one now, because delivery can take a few weeks. Prices vary, but there are a lot of cool options between $100 and $400.

Credit: DK Vinyl Displays

It’s time to step up from storing those LPs in milk crates and fruit boxes. Artisan builder Damon Kelley makes every one of his wooden record storage systems by hand, working to the exact specifications of each client. Kelley uses premium woods and laminates (no cheap Home Depot stuff here) and finishes them with gloss or matte stains and paints. You pick whatever configuration works best for your listening room. Really, anything is possible. He’s a one-man operation and he makes everything with love—so order one now, because delivery can take a few weeks. Prices vary, but there are a lot of cool options between $100 and $400.

06

Stones Throw x Tanner Goods 45 Bag

Vinyl singles are super-fun to DJ with. Your loved one knows this, because they’ve got a weekly funk/soul/R&B night at the local bar. Get them this record carrying bag sized just for 45s. The travel case is a collaboration between LA-based Stones Throw Records and Portland, Oregon’s Tanner Goods, and it comfortably holds 150 singles. $325

Credit: Stones Throw Records

Vinyl singles are super-fun to DJ with. Your loved one knows this, because they’ve got a weekly funk/soul/R&B night at the local bar. Get them this record carrying bag sized just for 45s. The travel case is a collaboration between LA-based Stones Throw Records and Portland, Oregon’s Tanner Goods, and it comfortably holds 150 singles. $325

07

Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting

Flip through Eilon Paz’s coffee-table book and you’ll find dozens of gorgeous photo spreads documenting the home collections of serious vinyl junkies around the world. And of course, every record collector is full of stories about their most prized finds—those are in here too. Every record collector needs this book. Maybe also get them a bib to protect the pages from their drool. $49 and up.

Credit: Eilon Paz

Flip through Eilon Paz’s coffee-table book and you’ll find dozens of gorgeous photo spreads documenting the home collections of serious vinyl junkies around the world. And of course, every record collector is full of stories about their most prized finds—those are in here too. Every record collector needs this book. Maybe also get them a bib to protect the pages from their drool. $49 and up.

08

Harold Queue

Some cover art is too good to keep sandwiched between other, inferior jackets. Harold’s wooden vinyl rack ($100) lets you display it on the wall. Show off four LPs (or two gatefolds, or some combination thereof) at once. It’s deep enough to hold a couple of records, so you can hide additional titles out of sight.

Credit: Harold

Some cover art is too good to keep sandwiched between other, inferior jackets. Harold’s wooden vinyl rack ($100) lets you display it on the wall. Show off four LPs (or two gatefolds, or some combination thereof) at once. It’s deep enough to hold a couple of records, so you can hide additional titles out of sight.

09

Teac TN-400S Turntable

The brand has been a little quiet for the last decade, but Teac is still putting out some attractive, retro-fashioned pieces. The company’s new turntable ($400) has a walnut-finished MDF plinth, an S-shaped tone arm, a three-speed belt-drive system, and a high-quality phono preamp. There’s even a USB-out for making digital copies of those LPs.

Credit: Rick McClendon/TEAC

The brand has been a little quiet for the last decade, but Teac is still putting out some attractive, retro-fashioned pieces. The company’s new turntable ($400) has a walnut-finished MDF plinth, an S-shaped tone arm, a three-speed belt-drive system, and a high-quality phono preamp. There’s even a USB-out for making digital copies of those LPs.

10

AM Record Cleaner Box Set

Danish company AM made record-cleaning products in the early ’70s that were well-regarded among collectors. Just last month, the brand re-launched with a whole new line of vinyl- and cassette-care systems. This box set ($37) includes an anti-static brush, a bottle of alcohol-free cleaning solution, a stylus cleaner, a pick-up brush, and a lint-free cloth.

Credit: AM

Danish company AM made record-cleaning products in the early ’70s that were well-regarded among collectors. Just last month, the brand re-launched with a whole new line of vinyl- and cassette-care systems. This box set ($37) includes an anti-static brush, a bottle of alcohol-free cleaning solution, a stylus cleaner, a pick-up brush, and a lint-free cloth.

11

Audio-Technica AT-HA5050H Hybrid Headphone Amplifier

This is the last headphone amp they’ll ever need for home listening—and for $6,000, it’d better be. The HA5050H is the cream of Audio-Technica’s already impressive crop. The hybrid system (tube pre-amps, solid-state power amps) can drive headphones of four different impedances: 0.1, 33, 82, and 120 ohms. That’s enough variety to run just about any pair of headphones the discerning audiophile is likely to own. A plethora of inputs and the highest quality digital-to-analog conversion chips make this a true font of audio bliss. Buy them a clean pressing of Wish You Were Here to test it out.

Credit: Audio Technica

This is the last headphone amp they’ll ever need for home listening—and for $6,000, it’d better be. The HA5050H is the cream of Audio-Technica’s already impressive crop. The hybrid system (tube pre-amps, solid-state power amps) can drive headphones of four different impedances: 0.1, 33, 82, and 120 ohms. That’s enough variety to run just about any pair of headphones the discerning audiophile is likely to own. A plethora of inputs and the highest quality digital-to-analog conversion chips make this a true font of audio bliss. Buy them a clean pressing of Wish You Were Here to test it out.

12

Koeppel Design Engraved Horizontal A-Z Record Dividers

San Francisco designer Kate Koeppel makes gorgeous wooden record dividers for organizing vinyl collections. You can get sets to suit horizontal or vertical storage, and sets that divide up LPs by genre, or by good old A through Z. This set features the letters of the alphabet engraved into the wood. $410

Credit: Cera Hensley/Koeppel Design

San Francisco designer Kate Koeppel makes gorgeous wooden record dividers for organizing vinyl collections. You can get sets to suit horizontal or vertical storage, and sets that divide up LPs by genre, or by good old A through Z. This set features the letters of the alphabet engraved into the wood. $410

13

Spindle Lapel Pin

The jacket or sport coat you’re making them wear covers up their favorite Zapp T-shirt, but at least they can still broadcast their passion with this cute lapel pin. The design (and don’t tell them you had to ask) is modeled after the little plastic disc you snap into the center hold of a 45 single so it fits onto the record player’s spindle. $10

Credit: Amazon

The jacket or sport coat you’re making them wear covers up their favorite Zapp T-shirt, but at least they can still broadcast their passion with this cute lapel pin. The design (and don’t tell them you had to ask) is modeled after the little plastic disc you snap into the center hold of a 45 single so it fits onto the record player’s spindle. $10

14

Yellow Submarine Lego Set

They like The Beatles, right? C’mon, of course they do. This is a no-brainer. $60

Credit: Lego

They like The Beatles, right? C’mon, of course they do. This is a no-brainer. $60

15

Jim Marshall, Jazz Festival

Jim Marshall was a giant of rock photography. The list of artists whose likenesses he captured with his Leica is a roll-call of modern music’s giants. Jimi, Janis, Bob, Jerry, Carlos, Neil, Joni. But everybody has the books with those photos. This tome highlighting Marshall’s work shot at the Newport and Monterey jazz festivals in the mid 1960s is something that will surprise and delight any lover of jazz, photography, or American history. Marshall’s vision is just as acute, and the names in this book—Duke, Monk, Miles, Mingus—are just as heavy. $75 for the hardcover.

Credit: Reel Art Press

Jim Marshall was a giant of rock photography. The list of artists whose likenesses he captured with his Leica is a roll-call of modern music’s giants. Jimi, Janis, Bob, Jerry, Carlos, Neil, Joni. But everybody has the books with those photos. This tome highlighting Marshall’s work shot at the Newport and Monterey jazz festivals in the mid 1960s is something that will surprise and delight any lover of jazz, photography, or American history. Marshall’s vision is just as acute, and the names in this book—Duke, Monk, Miles, Mingus—are just as heavy. $75 for the hardcover.

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