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Why fans of
vintage vinyl love
this brand-new
machine
Is this the new jukebox jive?
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By Norman Miller
11 May 2016
A British company just unveiled the hottest new machine for vinyl
fans: the only new record-playing jukebox available anywhere in the
world.
"
It may be an era of summoning songs with a
Sometimes, in a
market like this
there are people
who don't like
anything new. But
it's been welcomed.
fans are discovering not only the warmth and
digital flick – but vinyl is back. Younger music
fullness of the vinyl sound but the pleasure of
its rituals: browsing a well-designed sleeve;
lowering a stylus onto a spinning disc.
With their bold styling and 1950s aura,
jukeboxes add extra mystique. But while vinyl
records are still being produced, the jukeboxes
that play 7-inch singles are not.
Until now. The hand-built jukebox makers Sound Leisure, based in
Leeds in the UK, have just unveiled their first new vinyl jukebox in
20 years. It’s the only new vinyl jukebox available anywhere in the
world.
"
The Rocket Vinyl, which will be produced this
Lots of young
Rocket 88 by Jacki Brenston & the Delta Cats,
summer, takes its moniker from the song
hailed as the first true rock 'n' roll record when
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people are now
digging into
different genres for
the first time. It can
only be good for
music.”
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160510-why-fans-of-vint...
it was released in 1951.

Inside the prototype of Sound Leisure's Rocket Vinyl jukebox (Credit: Sound
Leisure)
Sound Leisure, one of only two companies left making classic
hand-built jukeboxes in the world (the other is US firm Rockola),
already has a range of CD-playing jukeboxes. Every machine is
hand-built and custom-finished; they’ve been sold to clients from
Coca-Cola to the Elvis Presley estate.
In April, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) announced UK
sales of just over 637,000 LP albums for the first quarter of 2016 - a
62% rise on the same period in 2015, and the eighth quarterly rise
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in a row.
"
But the Rocket Vinyl has generated new levels
Because we
hand-build our
products, it's never
going to be a mass
market.
want to go on the waiting list; dozens of orders,
of interest. There’s a waiting list of people who
along with £1,000 ($1,500) deposits (the
jukebox will retail for around £8,000), have
been placed from both UK and overseas fans.
“Because we hand-build our products, it's
never going to be a mass market,” says Colin
Vernon, Sound Leisure's Classic Jukeboxes
Division Head. “It could be we only manufacture between 20 and 50
jukeboxes a year.”
I examine the Rocket Vinyl prototype at Brighton's annual Jukebox
& Retro Fair. Around me, jive dancers swing to a live rockabilly band
while collectors amass at stalls covered with old vinyl 7-inch singles.
A handful of companies are selling restored classic vintage
jukeboxes – ranging from a 1958 Bal-Ami S100 for £5,995 ($8,700)
to a 1958 AMI I200E for £12,750 ($18,500).
“Sometimes, in a market like this there are people who don't like
anything new,” Vernon says. “But it's been welcomed.”
The Rocket takes its style cues from machines that popped up in
British cafes in the 1950s and 60s, back when bongos were big and
Elvis Presley was jailhouse-rocking. The big glass front makes a
show of the mechanics as vinyl is lifted into place – a contrast to the
closed-up domes of colourful old American jukeboxes, like the
Wurlitzer.
The most expensive jukebox ever sold at auction was a Wurlitzer - a
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1942 Wurlitzer model 1950 designed by Paul Fuller, which was sold
by Christie's in their LA auction room in 2001 for $22,325.

The new vinyl fans are looking for the ultimate machine to play their collection
(Credit: Alamy)
But the Rocket combines modern technology with retro style, giving
it a far better technical sound quality than vintage machines. Vernon
points out that audio quality was never meant to be a feature 50
years ago.
“Jukeboxes were played in a public environment with a lot of
ambient noise, where you couldn't hear the finer points of the
music,” he says.
Engineers at Sound Leisure spent three years working out exactly
how to make a modern vinyl jukebox. It required uniting the old
medium of vinyl with specially-developed modern versions of things
that no longer are being made, such as stylus cartridges.
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If the Rocket is as popular as it sounds, it seems likely Rockola may
follow Sound Leisure's lead, producing their own new vinyl model.
But Vernon seems unworried. Rather than the US, Sound Leisure
focuses their always-small production on the UK as well as Holland,
France, Belgium and Germany – places where a love of jukeboxes
and related cultural crossover were instilled by US troops stationed
there after World War II.
Today's more usual luxury goods consumers, like Russian oligarchs
or Chinese billionaires, however, tend to be missing from Sound
Leisure’s client list. “Because those countries never had a jukebox
culture, they've no relationship with jukeboxes or a nostalgic
viewpoint,” says Vernon. “Any sales would be just on the bling
factor.”

Cult listening for teenagers in the 1960s (Credit: Alamy)
Every Rocket Vinyl will offer clients a choice of 140 tracks (that's 70
singles, kids – they've got two sides...). But it doesn’t seem there will
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be any difficulty sourcing that number of necessary singles: the
company can tap into a booming market in original vinyl, and record
companies such as the BBC-owned Demon Records offer
ready-made collections of re-pressed vinyl from rock 'n' roll to punk.
Vernon says the volume of new pressings of
"
old songs will only increase.
Record companies
have never been
slow to miss a trick
to turn over a buck
“Record companies have never been slow to
miss a trick to turn over a buck,” he says wryly.
“Lots of young people are now digging into
different genres for the first time. It can only be
good for music.”
Sounds like it’s time to get in line for the new jukebox jive.
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