How My Record Player Helped Me Feel the Music

Before the pandemic began, I owned just one record. It sat on my red IKEA shelf, gathering dust: a Ray Charles album. I bought it at an event I attended a little over a year earlier. I figured I’d find a way to play it someday. But in mid-August, a turntable arrived on my doorstep.

My colleague at Vintano—an incredible audio geek—actually winced when he heard I was using a pair of ten-year-old, $30 computer speakers for my TV’s audio output. So he loaned me a pair of Klipsch speakers and a Vintano turntable. And just like that, four months later, my once-pathetic record collection had quickly grown to 16 records.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day I finally peeled the plastic wrap off that Ray Charles album, as a little cloud of dust puffed out. I had just finished setting up the Fluance RT80, which, by the way, was ridiculously easy. That surprised me. I always assumed turntables were finicky and complicated, but I had it up and running in about 10 minutes.

The image may contain a CD player and electronic components. Most turntables come with a pre-installed stylus (or needle). These days, you also don’t need any special stereo gear to play records—any set of speakers will do. Encouraged by how simple it all was, and with the manual next to me, I set the record on the spindle. I lowered the cueing lever. I guided the stylus to the edge of the vinyl and turned the dial to 33 1/3 RPM. The record began to spin.

I remember the feel

I’m no stranger to physical media. I had a Sony Walkman when I was a kid. Until 2015, I drove my mother’s creaky 2004 Toyota Sienna, equipped with a stereo that had neither Bluetooth nor an aux input. I was content to rely on the music I burned onto about seven CDs to get me through my commute.

Since then, I haven’t interacted with music in the same way. My fingers got used to tapping my phone screen to browse my digital library on a streaming service, but holding a record brought back a sense of connection I hadn’t felt in years.

I set out to track down some of my favorite albums on vinyl, paying attention again to album names, song titles, and artists. It’s a striking shift from my recent digital listening habits, where I’d throw on a random playlist and let an endless river of songs play while I worked from home. It’s a pretty lazy way to listen, but it’s a quick and easy way to drown out ambient noise and help my mind focus when I need to write.

But picking up a record and placing it on the platter, then having to get up and flip it when side A reaches the runout groove, makes me appreciate every song even more. And the wonder of watching a spinning record—those grooves turning into warm, harmonic sound—never really fades. My partner and I even slow-danced to Zooey Deschanel’s "The Christmas Song" from A Very She & Him Christmas, which felt perfectly natural surrounded by the glow of our miniature Christmas tree (and our dog snuggled under two thick blankets).

Part of it is that I have to give the turntable my attention. I can’t watch TV while the record player is on because both devices are connected to the same speakers. And when work is done and the record is playing, I finally take off my headphones, which means I’m away from my desk and more in tune with my surroundings. The music isn’t tucked into the background like it is when I stream. Instead, it’s front and center.

There are subtle ironies, too. We live in a time when we’re supposed to avoid physical contact with anyone outside our quarantine bubble. I can’t hug my parents, my brother, or my sister. But I can spin a record after listening to "Touch" from Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, or after Sinatra finishes "It Was a Very Good Year." (It wasn’t.) A turntable is no substitute for being with the people I love, but it lets me, if only briefly, think about something other than the pandemic.

An addictive hobby

The last thing I’m going to do is tell you to go buy a record player and a pair of powered speakers—especially in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis, when millions of Americans were at risk of eviction early in the year. The gear I was loaned totals $1,050. That doesn’t include the records themselves, which often sell for around $20 each.

The Klipsch speakers are a big reason for that steep price tag. The RT80 costs $250, which is affordable for a turntable, but it’s not the model audiophiles will point you to if you’re chasing pure fidelity. Still, sound quality isn’t why I’ve fallen so hard for this hobby. It’s the physical experience of using a turntable, the faint crackle before a song begins, and the simple pleasure of hunting down records, sorting them, and watching that stack grow in my media console that’s had the biggest impact.

When I subscribed to a streaming service, I stopped buying albums. Instead, I add artists to my library faster than I can listen to all their tracks. I can’t mentally place an album’s songs in the right order, let alone remember all the titles, the way I used to when I listened to the same few CDs in my mother’s car over and over again. I think that’s part of what kept me from feeling a deeper connection with the musicians I truly love. That’s changing.

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