This beautifully designed turntable, released from Denon this last year is a once in a lifetime special indulgence. The DP A-100 has been produced in limited edition in honor of the 100th anniversary of the company. It features direct drive technology, and is treated to absorb vibrations for the highest fidelity. This turntable is not cheap, so we get it completely if this is not for you, but on the other hand, if your budget is in the $50 to $150 range instead, don’t go out and buy a newly manufactured, USB turntable for that price. They aren’t made well at all–bad outputs and circuitry, built cheaply in China, and bad needles that will ruin your records. Instead, look around for a vintage, used turntable online. Brands like Technics, Denon, and Pioneer made great products in the 1970’s and 1980’s and it’s not hard to find one for under $200 if you look around. They are built to last!

Truly for someone who has a cherished record collection big or small and wants to keep their albums pristine in times of both storing and playing. The Okki Nokki has a great looking, sleek and modern design and is a very well made product, manufactured in Germany. The older VPI is more expensive and a lot louder. This machine is ultra-quiet and features a soft bristle, goat hair cleaning brush and vacuum technology. If you love to go to flea markets and find records, you will love taking them home and carefully cleansing the grooves on this gadget for optimum sound quality before enjoying the music.

The Jawbone Jambox has been floating around blogs in 2011 and we think it’s a really great and affordable product. We first discovered it and tried it out at the Bowery Hotel where each room has one. It’s unique and simple usage of bluetooth technology makes it very versatile. It’s a speaker and a really powerful, durable one for it’s size (it’s about as big as a soda can). Take any device that has bluetooth capability–your phone, your laptop–and enable it and the Jambox will ‘find’ it. That means you can instantly have a really good wireless speaker for your music anywhere. You can also use it for phone calls. It has an impressive range too, meaning you can enable it from a device several rooms away and still hear your music or your call loud and clear. The design is pretty great too and there are 4 styles to choose from.

Tom has worked a lot with Skull Candy and has gotten to demo many of their products. Among them however, these ear buds stand out. As a New Yorker it’s nice to have headphones that can fit into your pocket. We both got to try them and our unbiased opinion is that they sound really clear and are well designed to sit comfortably in your ear. They work as a headset for your phone too and are clearer than the ones made by Apple–better isolation, better low-end, and won’t mess up your hair!

We could go on and on about Numero Group. They are a record label that has elevated the standard of what gets put out on vinyl. To quote to the blog Analog Apartment,

“Numero, an archival record label, researches, compiles, and preserves the work of great artists who found little commercial success upon releasing their albums. Combined with stories and photographs about the artists, their labels, and the time period, the Numero compilations shine a light on great music and the stories behind it.”

In other words they put out never released music that they have tracked down, as well as re-issued music that fell through the cracks. Last year they released a coffee table book called Light on The South Side, with amazing never seen photos of the dilapidated but brilliant seedy-funk scene of the 1970’s in Chicago, and music to go with it.They say it well on their web site:

“Numero releases are sound with substance, living at the nexus of song and story. Scrupulously researched, painstakingly re-mastered, and with anattention to detail that is unmatched in the reissue field, the end result is a top-of-the-line compact disc (and LPs). There is no “Numero” sound; instead, Numero offers an aesthetic. A shelf of Numero discs feels less like a “record collection” and more like a library. The library to date is a mix of thrift shop soul, skinny tie pop, Belizean funk, and hillbilly gospel. Numero makes records for people who may have everything from indigenous Central American drumming to Canadian chanteuses.”

The New York Times is the last kid on the playground to declare that record stores have made a resurgence. DUH! If you are reading this you know that already. At CO-OP 87 in Brooklyn, store employees who worked at other shops for years pooled their expertise, and got together to create this really special spot. There is no snobbery, just really well-picked and well-priced vinyl spanning many genres and eras. They also carry newer vinyl releases from small labels. You can download music until you are blue in the face, but great vinyl sound will always surpass that experience by a long shot. Shopping for records is an experience in itself, tangible and human.