It’s no secret: Vinyl has made a comeback.
But the trend hasn’t just sparked more album sales—it has also created such a high demand that there’s now a market for companies that specialize in refurbishing old vinyl presses. About 19,000 units of the first-week sales of the latest Daft Punk album were vinyl LPs. With artists such as The National and Vampire Weekend also selling tens of thousands of copies on the medium, vinyl makers are having trouble keeping up with the orders.
According to The New York Times, there are only about a dozen vinyl plants in the U.S., and because the last vinyl press was made in 1982, parts and quality machines are increasingly hard to come by. As music purists and artists looking to capture the classic analog sound have continued to fuel a vinyl comeback, small startups such as Brooklyn Phono and Quality Record Pressings have found a niche tracking down and refurbishing old presses.