It's that time of year again when stress levels start to rise and we have to juggle our already busy lives with even more shopping. We are of course talking about the dreaded Christmas shopping and all that it entails. Who gets this, who gets that etc and did we remember Auntie Mildred?

But fear not as we at Audio T Preston have a few stocking filler suggestions for those of you who have loved ones who love vinyl.

A jealously guarded sanctuary to some and a mystery to others, the humble turntable or “record player” or 'record deck' as it is often called, has risen in prominence again and is once more a core feature in any respectable Hi-Fi system. No matter whether you are the proud owner of one of these disc spinning lovelies or know someone who is, we have got a whole load of great gift ideas to make the whole experience even more enjoyable.

The tonar Dustaway brush is a great little accessory for cleaning the the surface of your records and removing unwanted dust before playback. With soft carbon fibre brushes and a velvet pad it's a steal at only £17.

Another great vinyl cleaner is the new Project Vinyl Clean putty. A green gelatinous substance (think 80's slime) that you roll around the surface of the record as it picks up all the nasties and removes static. It can also be used to clean the stylus and for only £10.95 it would be rude not to.

For a deeper clean give your older records a good bath with the Knosti disco-antistat cleaner. £50

For the ultimate clean you could use the very effective Pro-ject VCS Vinyl Cleaning System. which will bring your old records back to life! Don't take our word for it. Why not bring a few of your older records and test its effectiveness for yourself.

Weight for it!
One of the most important factors in any turntable is getting the correct balance in the tonearm so as to provide the right amount of downforce for the cartridge. Most decent turntables give you the ability to do this in their setup but if you want to be super accurate you'll need one of these.

The mighty Rega Atlas, a digital weighing scale, which will tell you exactly how much downforce is being applied to your stylus.

Also for you consideration is the Pro-Ject Measure It Digital Stylus Force Gauge.

Can you hear me Mother?
If you are buying a turntable to give to someone this Christmas then make sure that they will be able to use it on the big day. You need to know if they have an input labelled “Phono” on the hi-fi / amplifier / sound system. If not then you will probably benefit from one of these:

The Project Phono Box MM is a phono pre-amplifier that boosts the signal from a turntable and makes it suitable to play on any other analogue line input.

The Rega Fono A2D does the same job and also features a USB output so you can record any of your records onto your PC or Laptop.

These are just the entry level phono stages, we do carry a much wider range is store for newcomers or veterans who have more advanced record player based Hi-Fi systems.

We hope to see you in store before the big day, but if we if we don't we hope you have a great Christmas

Ian, Gavin & Andy

Pro-ject Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston Reading, Swansea, Swindon