Cassette Culture Continues
The LA Times recently featured a local cassette recorder repair business.
Category: news
Acoustic Sounds is Cranking Out LPs in Salinas
“Chad Kassem, founder of Kansas vinyl record giant Acoustic Sounds, turned his hobby into a career–but his journey to success was anything but straightforward.” CBS Saturday Morning co-hosts Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson interviewed Kassem at his warehouse/manufacturing plant in October, 2025. Watch it on youtube by clicking here.
The sound recorder database is back.
When I first built this site, it was all hand coded. At some point I decided, foolishly, to try to create a database of every magnetic recorder ever made. It included a back end that I could use to upload and edit new records, and a front end for the public to use for searching. Read More …
Malcolm Riviera’s Final Track
I just discovered that Malcolm Riviera (pseud. of Gary C. Broyhill, b. Sept. 17, 1956) died in late July or early August, 2023. No formal obituary has been published online, but he was memorialized in the September 2, 2023 edition of the Trash Flow Radio show on WAIF FM, Cincinnati. The link takes you to Read More …
For all the Vinyl Hype, This is Still the Era of Streaming
A great tool for visualizing the current state of the recorded music market is the RIAA’s U.S. Sales Database, which allows you to to filter and sort record sales data in numerous ways. Here’s a screen shot of overall sales since 1973. Although this only represents sales in the US, it still provides some perspective Read More …
LP Sales are Still Going Up
According to Statistica, US sales of LP record albums increased about 14% in 2023 to about 49 million. The same site claims that 82,000 turntables were sold in the US in 2021. 2023 was the second year in a row during which LP records outsold CDs. But people still do not seem to be listening Read More …
Wired Attempts to Explain Cassettes
Wired magazine jumped on the cassette culture bandwagon with a “how to” article on getting started with cassettes. I predict that this marks the beginning of the end for the cassette. Again.
The Last Ipod
This just in: Apple has discontinued the iPod. This is the worst news since Microsoft discontinued the Zune in 2012. Apple still makes iPods? Who knew. They will be selling the remaining ones until supplies run out. 2024 Update: If you wanted to try to be the last person to buy a new iPod, you Read More …
Another Take on the Recording Industry
This one from reddit. A few thoughts: LP records (“vinyl” in the parlance of the young) look to be about as commercially significant as they were in the early 1990s, which is to say not all that important. LPs aren’t so much the comeback kid as a significant niche product with stead sales that hasn’t Read More …