Meet the Record-Pressing Robot Fueling Vinyl's Comeback

In the mid-20th century, when the LP was the medium of choice, massive hydraulic-powered vinyl pressing machines--manufactured by long-forgotten companies like SMT, Lened, and Toolex--pumped out the endless stream of grooved discs that became the lifeblood of the booming post-war music industry. When CDs emerged in the mid-1980s, most of those aging LP presses ended up in landfills and warehouses. Fueled by millennials feeling nostalgic for something they never experienced, vinyl enjoyed a stunning revival and, defying all pundit predictions, became more than a passing format fad. Smelling money, the Big Three labels rereleased their legacy acts on hot wax, Technics started making SL-1200 turntables again, and vinyl got it's own global holiday. The first new record-pressing machines built in over 30 years are finally online.