Last year saw the return of DJ favourite, the Technics SL-1200, which had been discontinued in 2010. With CD sales now in sharp decline manufacturers are expanding their turntable ranges to cater for the different types of vinyl buyer. Sales at this level would represent a 30% increase on 2016 and a remarkable comeback for a format that looked doomed in 2007 when just 205,000 records were sold. The BPI predicts more than 4m records will be sold in the UK this year, the highest since it began collecting data in the early 1990s. In recent years vinyl sales have rocketed as the shift to consuming music via streaming services hits sales of CDs and downloads. “But we’ve seen a 20% increase in sales of higher end turntables this year.” “Sales of turntables have been steadily rising over the past few years,” said Will Jones, head of communications technology buying at John Lewis. John Lewis said its shoppers were increasingly interested in sound quality with slightly more expensive models, like those made by Japan’s Audio-Technica, in demand this year. A turntable will be the top selling product in its technology department this Christmas, ahead of both headphones and speaker docks, he added. HMV’s Simon Winter said the retailer would sell close to 60,000 turntables this year, compared with 50,000 in 2016. With record players costing anything from £25 to over £20,000, the appetite for vinyl among teenagers and students has encouraged manufacturers to produce cheaper models, including retro suitcase style players and brightly coloured ones costing less than £100. But recent research by the BPI, the UK music industry’s trade body, found a broadening demographic with under 35s making nearly a quarter of all vinyl purchases and one in four records bought by women. The vinyl scene used to be dominated by male baby boomers reliving their youth through record collections skewed towards heritage rock acts such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Oasis and Radiohead.
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