A bass player from Weston-super-Mare has come up with what is being hailed as a ‘game-changing device’ which means people can listen to original vinyl records on old-fashioned record players, through the modern wifi speakers around their homes.
Pete Fealey has called his device the A2D2 Stream, which also works with CD and tape players, and while there are wifi dongle devices that can connect to specific smart speakers, the musician said his will work with any smart speaker network.
The music-lover hailed the device, which has gone on sale at Richer Sounds, as a ‘streaming breakthrough’, and said he came up with the idea after struggling to find a way to play his big record collection through his smart speakers.
“I listen to music all day, every day. I live and breathe it,” he said. “As a result, I’ve got quite a nice record player in my house and speakers in almost every room. My record player lives in my office, but I quickly found that I wasn’t using it as much as I wanted.
“I wanted to find a way to listen to my records without spending loads of time in my office. So, I started looking for products which would allow me to integrate my record player into my speaker ecosystem, but they were all pretty pricey. So, I cobbled something together – it was all a bit DIY – but it worked!
“It was a bit clunky, but the idea was there and it worked. At the time, I was working in Justgood, a product development agency, and then that grew into helping people make cool, new products. After a quick chat with one of the board of directors, I showed the rest of the team the prototype and they loved it. After three years of development and testing, A2D2 Stream was born,” he added.
Pete said growing up in Weston fostered his love of music. “The music scene was rich for such a small town,” he said. “Growing up, there was a core group of musicians who ran a jam night on Sundays at The Imperial, one of the pubs in town. You’d turn up, get up and play along with the house band, performing one or two songs, and that’s how people from the local music scene got to know each other.
“This jam night was a hub of musicians, so you were able to meet like-minded people and make friendships that way. I played guitar as a 15-year-old and then went off to uni and came back to Weston when one of my friends, who was in a band with his brother, asked if I could play bass for them. I said yes. Only, I had never played bass before and I only had two weeks to learn. That was my first official gig. After that, we started doing a few gigs around town and everything else went from there,” he added.
There has been a surge in people buying and listening to vinyl records in recent years. The latest figures show that last year alone saw sales of vinyl records reach a 20-year high, with a 10.5 per cent year-on-year rise in vinyl sales in the UK. A whopping 6.7 million discs sold, generating £196 million, according to The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA).
“It’s all about the theatre of it. It’s the whole experience of taking the vinyl out of its sleeve, putting it on the turntable, putting the needle on it,” said Pete. “It’s the experience of listening to the entirety of the album, rather than simply going on your phone, where you’ve unlimited access to every song that’s ever existed, and just skipping, skipping, skipping. Vinyl forces you to listen to it as the artist recorded it, as the artist intended.”
With people buying records now who might already have the very 2020s set up of wifi speakers in every room, linking the two can be an issue. The answer is a device that uses a smartphone app to do the work.
“A2D2 is a game-changing company for music enthusiasts who want to merge the warm, rich sound of analogue audio devices with the convenience of modern smart speaker systems,” a spokesperson said. “By connecting the A2D2 Stream to any device with an analogue output, such as a record player, CD player, or tape deck, users can stream their favourite music throughout their home, regardless of the brand of smart speaker.
“The device seamlessly integrates with AirPlay, Chromecast, and Sonos for multiroom listening, all controllable via a user-friendly smartphone app. The device’s design is unobtrusive, at the footprint of a credit card and blends seamlessly with other Hi-Fi equipment, ensuring that the focus remains on the music.
“With the A2D2 Stream, users have the freedom to enjoy their cherished analogue audio collections anywhere in their home, with a simple, plug-and-play setup that bridges the gap between old and new, ensuring that no beat is missed, and every lyric is heard as the artist intended.
“It’s designed to work with any turntable, tape deck, CD player or device with an audio output. Plug in and stream records through any smart speaker or headphones on a network for more convenient listening, anywhere in the home. Customers can control where their music plays within their chosen network via the A2D2 smartphone app,” she added.