There is movement in the niche: The LP is overtaking the CD. According to trade associations who should know. The High End 2024 – it cements the analog revival in writing its next chapter. With innovations in software and hardware, i.e. turntables as well as those records that no longer need to be black to sound amazingly good. And all this while satisfying the ever-increasing demand for sustainability and environmentally friendly production.
Let’s call a spade a spade: The production of records has never really been environmentally friendly. Not with shellac records, even less so with vinyl and its derivatives and certainly not with carbon, also known as CD or SACD or BluRay. A paradigm shift has now taken place here, which was underlined and highlighted with facts and figures at the opening conference of the 2024 High End in Munich’s MOC.
Take Sonopress GmbH, for example: a dedicated media service provider that is not only one of the global market leaders in CD production but also has several record pressing plants, the firm is now promoting “Green Vinyl”. Less pollutants both in the material mix of the analog sound carrier and in its production process is the only superficially simple recipe. In addition, the “green” production of the (typically still black) LP or single should not come at the expense of sound quality, but in fact produce records with less noise, fewer pops and less crackling as a welcome side effect.
The test samples that were distributed to representatives of the international trade press at High End 2024 are indeed almost free of surface noise and apparently also free of pressing errors, which are particularly common with colored vinyl. The fact that this technology has long since been secretly accepted by customers is demonstrated by high-end analog editions such as Deutsche Grammophon’s “The Original Source”, which were launched on the market as early as 2023 and exhibit a virtual, if not complete, absence of noise similar to the master (audio) tape.
This makes them the ideal “software” for exploring the acoustic potential of record players, which in 2024 will be more optimized than ever before. Anyone who relegated the sonic advantage of the LP over the CD to the realm of fable, who mathematically weighed up the limitations of digital and analog media against one another, would be quite surprised by the first listening experiences with the “new” LP, because positive irritations dominate.
New material processing methods and the resulting optimized tolerances as well as an expanded knowledge of the nature of interference frequencies and resonances have once again brought about a leap forward in playback devices, which had long been thought to be at the limits of what was possible. And we have come to realize that we have by no means teased out everything that is hidden in the grooves of really good analog recordings.
Nevertheless, the innovations on the equipment side were comparatively limited this year, even though a turntable-tonearm combination was presented at High End 2024 that, with a great deal of technical effort and developer brainpower, finally managed to banish analog weaknesses to the history books of high-quality music reproduction that were hitherto thought ineradicable. This magic machine declares war on pole jerking as well as tracking errors, which should no longer be an issue thanks to the electromagnetic tonearm bearing and guide. More on this as soon as a test unit is available.
The industry’s continuing desire to acquire younger listeners in larger numbers is reflected in various entry-level offerings designed to take the high end out of its niche. Vinyl is cool, vinyl is hip, vinyl is sexy, and so the required playback devices should be affordable yet visually and acoustically appealing in order to please the “Generation Z”. At Pro-Ject, for example, wine red is the new black, and the plinths of the new entry-level turntable “Evo 2”, which is available ready to play, complete with tonearm and cartridge for well under 1000 euros, are delivered in this living room-friendly color, among others. It matches the Scandinavian mail-order furniture on which the inexpensive players will routinely be placed at home. Significantly more elaborate and expensive sound furniture, such as that built by Quadraspire, is reserved for the phase after the entry-level years.
The statistics also clearly speak in favor of vinyl. According to Thomas Neuroth from the non-profit organization “Vinyl Alliance” (founded in 2020 shortly before COVID), which quickly grew from eight to 45 members and which brings together record producers, pressing plants and the online marketplace Discogs, among others, the record, once declared dead, has been “growing continuously for 17 years”. This means that the niche is getting bigger again and that the LP has long since overtaken the CD in terms of sales. Of course, 68-year-old industry veteran Neuroth does not hide the fact that non-physical media have long been at the forefront when it comes to daily music consumption. People like to stream via mobile devices such as cell phones with additional functions. The classic stereo tower is as good as dead, at least among young music lovers, although a considerable number of conventional component systems were on display at the High End, especially in the atrium listening rooms. In student flats, however, such juggernauts are likely to be rather rare, not least due to space constraints.
Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, record players are booming among the younger generation. Consequently, many manufacturers have identified those customers who are between 20 and 40 and have developed a soft spot for music combined with high-quality playback. Now that “themed devices” have been in vogue for a while, such as the “Metallica” and “Pink Floyd” editions of inexpensive record players, Clearaudio from Erlangen has come up with an impressive addition: the innovative medium-sized company from central Franconia presented the “Al di Meola Signature Edition” at the High End: The turntable plinth, available in black or light brown, comes in the shape of a guitar body, the control panel proudly bears the signature of 2023 high-end ambassador and (jazz) guitar god Al di Meola. At Clearaudio, they have managed to ensure that this strictly limited “Tribute” edition neither looks nor sounds cheap; it is clearly based on the “Innovation” top-class models: an elaborate sandwich construction made from laminated wood, set in polished metal strips and with an extremely high-quality appearance. We are already looking forward to this record player review.
With the “Unity”, the Erlangen-based manufacturer also has a new tonearm in its trade fair luggage that adds an exciting alternative to the already extensive tonearm portfolio. Carbon fiber lightweight construction and clever suspension solutions bear the signature of chief developer Stefan Kmuch. The increasingly important issue of earthing is addressed with a metal cylinder called “Terra”, which is designed to quickly banish the annoying potential hum even from “problematic” setups. This accessory doesn’t come cheap, but is undoubtedly useful. A particularly exciting innovation from Erlangen is the latest version of the “Double Matrix” record washing machines, which, thanks to the absence of automatic functions, have a significantly smaller footprint and are also much quieter than the previous models. “The large Double Matrix needs its own installation location while the little one can be stowed away in the corner of the room and only brought out for washing,” says Stefan Kmuch.
Hailing from the Black Forest, turntable guru Christian Feickert is celebrating a small anniversary. The analogue pacesetter with a PhD proudly presented the “Volare 25” at his small trade fair stand. Sadly, the FIDELITY editorial team is unlikely to get hold of a review sample – it was already as good as sold out at the trade fair, as “the Doc” only put a very limited production run of these on their resonance-optimized feet.
No new phono amplifier at Norbert Lehmann’s stand next door, but instead clever accessories to specifically lower the inhibition threshold. With a subtle smile, Lehmann hands me small rings made of heavy plastic foil with a cork backing. An extreme “light version”, so to speak, of the well-known 3S device feet without the “string suspension system” and without a screw mechanism, but at a competitive price of 30 euros for a set of four. “You can hear an immediate improvement,” promises Norbert Lehmann, who deliberately wants to inspire hi-fi newcomers and high-end beginners with the idea of teasing better sound out of existing devices with the rings, which can simply be placed under the existing device feet.
Producer legend Leslie Mandoki, who has come a long way since he was the lively frontman of the German pop band Dschingis Khan, is certainly no newcomer. The line-up of his “Soulmates” project, which has been successful for years, reads like a “Who’s Who” of the international classic rock scene, changing from album to album. At the High End, he was joined by former Supertramp saxophonist John Helliwell and singing Hammond organist Tony Carey.
The Soulmates record A Memory Of Our Future, which Mandoki presented as this year’s “face” of High End at several press conferences and special events, was released just in time for the start of the High End and features an unmistakable “AAA” logo on the back.
This stands for the fact that this double LP on 180-gram vinyl (that’s right: the environmentally friendly and low-noise kind) was produced in a purely analog way from recording to mixing to pressing. By his own admission, Mandoki did not even make use of the blessings of the pre-digital era to fine-tune the frequency response. “Analog tape is the best compressor,” says Mandoki with a wink. However, he has since been persuaded by “Immersive Audio” protagonist Steven Wilson to mix a multi-channel version of A Memory Of Our Future, which is “not easy to do” with basic analog tapes. Nevertheless, he remains a staunch advocate of analog in principle, “because analog is simply superior in terms of sound”, as he tersely remarks.
The “Soulmates” album is also guaranteed to end up on the platter of a “Bellini” from traditional manufacturer Transrotor. According to Transrotor senior Jochen Räke, this model already existed in this version, but it disappeared again due to delivery problems for the monolithic slate plinths. Now you can buy the “Bellini” again in two very different versions in terms of color and surface finish. “No two of those are the same,” comments Räke on the use of this natural material, which is as visually appealing as it is acoustically beneficial.
That there’s plenty of life left in the old dog becomes clear when you take a look at the handmade pickup gems from Nagaoka. The Japanese manufacturer has been around for what feels like an eternity and still produces systems that are certainly not cheap, but are definitely worth their price in view of the sound quality.
The fact that many demonstration systems rely on the record player as their primary source is by no means a new phenomenon. In the meantime, however, the scene has also rediscovered the analog tape machine, whose majestically spinning reels in 2024 often come in matt contrasting paints such as bright orange. They can be admired in the “Newcomer” area of the trade fair, among other places. The inner workings of such machines are also new in places and no longer a direct derivative of the top dogs from Nagra or Revox. Exciting things are on the horizon.
Where pure analog theory hardly plays a role is in the wide field of amplifier electronics. It has long been common practice to implant a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) into an analog tube or transistor device in order to make digital machines sound good; there are now even streamers with tube output stages, the sense or nonsense of which is, of course, up for debate.
In the end – I can’t lie – it was a digital device whose qualities are not only pleasing to the ears but also to the heart. Because here a seemingly never-ending story leads to a happy ending: 20 years ago, the audiophiles at Audia Flight presented an SACD player for the first time. The first trade fair sample was an empty metal box; over the years, the project was never finished, but it did cost more and more. In 2024, it was finally ready to play on the Audia stand, rumored to cost around 20,000 euros RRP. What business does this super-solid machine with its grinning face facia have in an analog overview? The answer is simple: the Audia Flight SACD is closer to the LP, much closer than any other digital player I’ve ever heard. Due to hi-fi-necessities of the year 2024, it also conceals a complete streaming branch under its solid aluminum cover. It brings both physical and non-physical sources across the ramp with so much effortless naturalness that the question of the playback principle no longer arises. Only the music counts. And that’s how it should be.