The marks its 10th anniversary on Sunday, celebrating old-school audio, radio and vintage vinyl in a tube-powered vindication of the maxim: Everything old is new again.
Or at least gets rediscovered and appreciated.
More than 50 dealers from several states will be on hand for the show at the Ramada Plaza Convention Center in Northglenn, says Dana Cain, the event’s organizer.
Some are drawn by nostalgia, many more by the pleasure of listening to analog, pre-transistor equipment that they swear has more warmth and depth than the digital sounds of MP3 players and CDs.
Then there is the attraction of sitting down with the album sleeve, many of them bearing wonderful photographs and artwork, and reading the liner notes as you track the music — from the first song on side one to the last song on side two. Or side four, if you’ve lucked into a double album.
Many expo-goers are young people born long after the era when dens and living rooms were anchored by hi-fis — turntable-based stereosystems disguised as furniture. And a growing number of these fans are women.
“When I first started doing this it was nearly all male,” Cain says. “Now at least 20 percent are women, and it’s actually probably far higher than that.”
Cathy Howell of Denver is one of those women, although she is no newcomer. Howell began collecting albums in the 1960s, and her hobby accelerated in the 1970s. She can still recall her core collection from the Summer of Love in 1967: The debut of The Doors and the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Are You Experienced?” Big Brother and the Holding Company, and albums by the Grateful Dead.
This led to more hard-core collecting. She and an equally LP-besotted friend would routinely forage for used vinyl.
“We used to go on hunting-and-gathering trips,” Howell recalls. “I drove, and he knew where the stores were.”
From 1981 to 1994 she ran Offbeat Records in Littleton.
“It was a lot of fun, just a small neighborhood record store,” she says.
Vinyl has a number of virtues that draw her.
“There is the whole expression of the packaging,” Howell says. “The visuals were great. You had gatefolds, interesting sleeves, liner notes, and inserts such as posters.
“And I prefer the sound,” she says. “It’s richer and deeper, just amazing. You can really hear it in the older records, those early pressings. Vinyl is part of the mainstream again, which is amazing.”
Howell, too, has noticed an increasing number of women at vintage audio expos. She attributes the dearth of women a few years ago to the fact that culturally, few were exposed to the sciences, nor did many tinker on home electronic and Heathkit products, which were largely a father-son thing.
“But women are getting a lot more participatory and are seeing they belong anywhere they want to be,” she said.
Dennis Schwartz began dealing in vintage audio about 10 years ago. He deals in items from stereos to vinyl to guitars and amplifiers. (He’s a player.)
“Digital electronics may be easier to use, but it does not have analog warmth,” Schwartz says. “Analog has some sounds that have become effects of their own, tube warmth and tape saturation to name a couple. Like photography, it isn’t always about accuracy and precision, sometimes it is mood and character that makes it more vivid.
“A lot of people hone in on one area, but I’m open to anything,” he says. “I’m not an audiophile, so can’t really explain in technical terms the quality of what makes this sound what it is, or it’s appeal, other than it’s just cool.”
Cindy Leonard of Colorado Springs gets that. Leonard deals in vintage radios and says she is witnessing the slow transformation of the old-school audio scene.
“What we are starting to see is more millennials, and millennials tend to have no particular look, gay, white, black, Hispanic, female, male, transgender,” Leonard says. “They are an interchangeable group, and they are attending the Vintage Voltage now and they are starting to get interested in the club.
“There is a resurgence in the interest and production of records and record players that is driving that, and from there they get interested in old technology and vacuum tubes and typewriters and Atari machines. And hopefully we are creating a new steward of past technology.”
William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@denverpost.com or @williamporterdp
VINTAGE VOLTAGE EXPO. More than 50 vendors sell and display vintage audio, radio and music gear, plus vinyl records. The Colorado Radio Collectors Club will have an antique radio display. March 20, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Ramada Plaza Convention Center, I-25 at 120th Avenue, Northglenn $5 general; $10 for earlybird access at 10 a.m. Children under 12 admitted free. danacain.com or 303-347-8252
