What just happened? Harman has announced a new wireless player that will be unveiled at CES in Las Vegas this week. Unfortunately, you will have to wait several months for the opportunity to take him home.
JBL Spinner BT plays records at 33 1/3 rpm for records and 45 rpm for EP and singles, and the speed is fixed by a sensor to guarantee the perfect pitch of the aluminum belt-driven disc. As the name suggests, the player will allow listeners to enjoy their vinyl wirelessly via Bluetooth 5.2″ without compromising sound quality.” It can easily connect to headphones, portable speakers or sound panels and supports aptX HD encoding.
Analog output via a wired connection is also possible for those who want to use the player with traditional component or active speaker systems.
Other features include an aluminum tonearm, a black MDF base with JBL orange accents, a hinged dust cover and a modern front panel. The tonearm comes with a preloaded Audio Technica cartridge with a movable magnet on a removable head shell for easy replacement and modernization. In addition, the legs of the player are damped to reduce the penetration of vibration.
According to Luminate Data (formerly Nielsen SoundScan), vinyl sales in the United States reached a record high for the week ending December 22, 2022: sales reached 2.232 million copies, which is 46.7% more than in a week. This is the biggest sales week since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991, and only the second time since then weekly vinyl sales in the US have exceeded two million units.
The last time this happened was the week before Christmas last year, when sales peaked at 2.115 million units.
An increase in vinyl sales during the holidays does not necessarily mean that more people are listening to records. I suspect that a significant part of the purchases were caused by nostalgia, since album covers are a great canvas for displaying covers.
JBL Spinner BT will go on sale in the third quarter of 2023 at the manufacturer’s recommended retail price of $ 399.
