Hello readers! It’s no secret that I love living in Japan and that I have a lot of hobbies. It’s impossible to keep 
track of all my hobbies. But two activities I am very much motivated by are especially rewarding because I live in Japan. They are restoring vintage direct drive record players, top shelf models only, and adding to my vintage vinyl record collections.
In Japan’s 1980s heyday, audio engineering among other things rose to become the world standard for design, execution and manufacturing. Many of today’s super expensive analog offerings are based on these proven designs. Obviously, there can be no doubt about the value in preserving these vintage devices, and they are in some ways made even more useful today than when they were built. It’s so nice that my regular work allows me the time and freedom to do this.
Vintage Japanese Vinyl Collections
During this period of intense economic growth, progressive rock of the 70s had also undergone massive advances. The coolest music from UK, Europe, North America and other places was manufactured on vinyl everywhere, but the japanese record makers used a better quality oil with better consistency during manufacturing. This resulted in a cleaner, quieter, better-sounding record on average, even when the masterings were identical. In addition, promotion of rock music in Japan included all kinds of extra goodies like posters, stickers, lyric translations, biographies, photos of the band members and sometimes even recordings introducing themselves in simple Japanese. Today, all these extras are highly collectible, especially given the fixed numbers produced.
For the player restorations, nowhere in the world can we see such a concentration of technical and electronic know-how as we have here in Japan. In Osaka alone, there are two hundred specialty companies who happily assist. What fun!!
Martin Werner Zander
Smith’s School of English in Kotoen
スミス英会話 甲東園校
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