Thursday, October 20, 2022

Review: 'Revolution: The History of Turntable Design'

The record revolution that now sees vinyl outselling CDs for the first time since the eighties is probably mostly due to two kinds of collectors: audiophiles who genuinely prefer the sound of vinyl to its little digital counterpart and take their equipment purchases very seriously and those who just dig the aesthetic of tactile vinyl LPs, with their groovy grooves, artful full-sized sleeves, and mechanically complex playing devises that will always be more interesting to look at than a sleek, slim, featureless CD player. 

Filled with full-color photos of phonographs throughout the ages, a book such as Revolution: The History of Turntable Design might seem to mostly pitch toward the latter variety of vinyl enthusiast. However it would be short-sighted to dismiss Gideon Schwartz's new book as mere audiophile porno. While the photos that seem to be the main feature of this book will certainly scratch all the itches of anyone looking to drool over big-horned gramophones, luxury consoles, art-deco jukeboxes, peachy portables, Rube-Goldberg-esque modern players, and the sci-fi awesomeness of the Electrohome Apollo, the photos really support Schwartz's text rather than the other way around. Revolution is a borderline academic history of the turntable with writing closer to what you'd expect from a monograph than a coffee table book. 

Schwartz tracks the record player from its earliest days as a blueprint on the desk of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857 through its current high-end/high-tech iterations. He explains how the stereo cartridge came to be, how the microgroove disc revitalized the industry and helped the LP to usurp the 78, and how the tonearm evolved in the seventies, with no shortage of technical detail. For those looking for fun, you'll mostly get it from the photos, which are appealingly presented, well-sized, and as varied as the subtopics Schwartz addresses, but his main motivation is to educate, and he does a very effective job of that.

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