So, you’ve successfully installed a distributed audio system into your home. Across multiple rooms in your house, you are now able to listen to a diverse range of music, all centrally controlled from the one audio ‘hub’.

No longer do you have messy wires running along your floorboards and skirting, connecting your sound system in the lounge-room to the rumpus room at the back of the house (which, even more inconveniently, could only simultaneously play the same music as the central audio system).

Thanks to the advent of digital technology, not only are these messy wires eliminated, but simultaneously, across a range of rooms, a range of music can be controlled by the flick of a switch. Classical smoothies for the master bedroom, jazz for the lounge, hip-hop for the teen’s bedroom: your distributed audio system allows for your preferred selection of music in each room with the superior sound quality we’ve come to expect from MP3s and digital music. And, all the while eliminating those unsightly red and black cables.

It may seem incongruous that with the technological advancements enabling customised and ubiquitous sound throughout the home, a suggestion to return to our primitive sound reproduction devices be proposed. And yet, the vinyl record is putting a new spin on music and audio equipment consumerism, and the iPod can just shuffle along.

The implementation of a vinyl turntable to an existing distributed audio system is as simple as finding somewhere to put it, in a close vicinity to the system’s input section.

One of the following will be required in order to plug the turntable into any spare line level analogue input:
• A phono pre-amplifier to step up the small signal out of the turntable to line level, or
• A turntable which already has this pre-amplifier inbuilt

Once the turntable is connected to the distributed audio system, the LP can be played in the same fashion as any of the other music, and that input can be accessed from any of the rooms/ zones supported by the hub.

It may not be possible to control the turntable itself remotely, unless it is a highly specialised system allowing such functionality. But the superior sound quality and an impressive talking point of your own vinyl turntable (across a broad range of price categories) will certainly be achieved!

A vinyl turntable need not compete with the existing digital devices, rather enhance the audio hub. Of course, there’s an element of nostalgia inherent in the playing of vinyl records, particularly those collector’s edition presses which may not be available on CD. It’s not only archaic recordings however that are spurring music enthusiasts into purchasing a vinyl turntable however, and the Gen X and Ys are as, if not more, interested in the phenomenon than their Boomer counterparts.

Modern recording practices and the possibility of transferring files via the web have made the recording of this vinyl a global opportunity. And listeners love the superior quality of the sound over some of the modern mono signals of compressed sound.

According to Len Wallis, of Len Wallis Audio, compressed music strips away much of the original product, which may have an impact on the final result, even if you’re not aware of what’s missing.

Without sounding like a broken recod, if you’re a true audiophile then vinyl is certainly worth some consideration in your distributed audio system.