Vinyl and mix-tapes direct to your phone

Analog audio is back, people! Those sterile bland sounds of digital are out and glorious electro-mechanical tones of old-school analog tech are playing to a new generation. New-issue vinyl records are back in music stores and thanks to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchise, even audio cassettes are making a comeback (of-sorts). Still, we’re willing to concede this new-fangled digital audio has some merit, particularly when you’re stuck on public transport. So whether you’re discovering ‘sounds that spin’ for the first time, or you’re long from the old-school, this month, we’re looking at how to copy that analog goodness straight to your Android phone – no PC or laptop required.

PART 1 – VINYL TO ANDROID

Rather than make this some sort of ‘vinyl buyers’ guide’, we’ll assume you’re already kitted out with your vinyl setup and we’ll stick to our knitting: getting that analog signal into your Android phone with the highest possible quality. Given I remember analog the first time around, I’ll use a mix of old-school and new-school tech, so apart from a couple of items, you should be able to substitute and still have success.

The old-school tech is my vinyl collection and a Marantz TT2200 direct-drive turntable. The new-school gear is my 2019 Samsung Galaxy A30 smartphone and a Behringer UFO202 Phono/Line USB