OTHER TECH

THE VINYL RITUAL

TOMMY SHAW: “So there’s this editor at a very well-respected magazine who for the last year or so had been urging me to get a turntable and get back into vinyl. You may have seen or heard of him—handsome fella, with a tall blonde beauty of a wife who shares his love and appreciation for the classic format. Anyway, after not owning a record player since leaving my Michigan farm for a sublet on New York’s Upper West Side in 1985, I have made a screaming vinyl comeback, and now love it myself with a vengeance.

“Said editor helped with the choosing of some of my components. My main home listening system now consists of Thiel SCS4 speakers and a Sumiko Pro-ject Xperience Classic turntable powered by a fire-breathing Harman Kardon HK 990 integrated amplifier.

“This whole process made me realize just how busy I am, because, as you know, LP listening demands that you stop whatever you’re doing to participate in the ritual: Selecting the record, removing it from the sleeve, placing the tonearm just so, adjusting sound levels, flipping the platter over and repeating the process, then resleeving it once you’ve finished enjoying the pure joy coming off of that disc (180-gram if possible, of course).