Michael Fremer

There have probably been more reissues of this 1961 Riverside recording than any other jazz record in history. There's your standard aluminum CD, the Fantasy OJC budget LP, Analogue Productions' 180g LP, the JVC XRCD, and Analogue Productions' hybrid SACD. Who's buying these? The same fans of the record who must have it in every format? A new generation of fans, simply buying on the latest tech format? I haven't an answer, but Acoustic Sounds' Chad Kassem seems to feel that yet another edition -- 2 LPs at 45rpm -- will sell, and I wouldn't bet against him.

Funk Firm's Flamenca is a $1500 filament-drive, precision machined glass platter turntable/tone arm combo that includes the company's 'co-polymer "string" bearing F6 tone arm.

That new record you just unboxed probably came shrink-wrapped or in a perforated sealed bag. Maybe it has a sticker or two on it or it's a numbered limited edition. Watch how all of this happens in this just produced video shot at Furnace Manufacturing with founder Eric Astor. And then go to Furnace's brand new, soon to be operational vinyl pressing plant that will also incorporate the packaging facility, which has outgrown its current location. Furnace began in the 1990s as a production and packaging agent for indie and major labels—perhaps you’re unsure about what that exactly means. After watching the video you will—and perhaps you'll come to appreciate an LP production cost you've not before considered.

Last year when AnalogPlanet visited Furnace Record Pressing in Alexandria Virginia it was an enormous, mostly empty building. The vinyl pressing plant infrastructure installation had just begun.