New MTS Hi-Fi Club in ‘Vinyl Revival’ – Guy Denne, Merchant Taylors’ School

Due to the large amount of students becoming more and more interested in analogue music formats, primarily vinyl records (with a lesser amount of cassette tape and CD enthusiasts), a Hi-Fi club was started by student Ben Lakin in late 2022, allowing for a space in which 6th form students to participate in the activities and culture surrounding Hi-Fi audio and vinyl.

Vinyl records are an analogue music format, pressed by a machine from a ‘puck’ of polyvinyl chloride, a form of plastic, into a spirally grooved disc that can play music when played on a vinyl record player. Vinyl record players can often achieve high quality audio, often called High-Fidelity (Hi-Fi), with many fans of the medium claiming there’s a notable improvement in sound quality than alternatives such as digital music streaming.

While vinyl records were the main form of music distribution from the 1940s to the late 1980s, the introduction of cheaper and more compact cassette tapes and CDs in the late 80s and early 90s led to a steep decline in sales for vinyl records; this great loss of market share drove the medium out of the market.

Yet in 2007, the ‘Vinyl Revival’ started, bringing in more sales for the medium, likely due to the unique sound achieved via playing vinyl, the larger packaging allowing for more visible cover artwork, and the ‘retro aesthetic’, becoming increasingly more popular due to social media sites. This revival has only grown stronger, as vinyl sales in the UK increased by 5 times between 2009 and 2014, with this rise in popularity showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.

As a result, a group of MTS boys attend the Hi-Fi club every other Thursday afternoon, with the current project being based around fixing a Hacker Centurion GAR 550 record player (currently not functioning due to what they believe to be a blown fuse), while listening to ABBA and Pink Floyd records. Student Han Se Kendall has taken a lead role in fixing the record player, calling the project “both interesting and confusing”, but ultimately “a rewarding and satisfying challenge”.

The members of the club hope to have the Hacker Centurion fixed before the end of the school term, before moving on to a cassette deck, hopefully providing a new challenge for the group to sink their teeth into (while of course, listening to more vinyl hits).