You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

When you put a record on, you have control over the needle and how the recording plays

in a completely different way than with your phone and digital files where you just hit play.

Back then, you had to lovingly place a record on a turntable and carefully set down the needle.

You really had to take your time with vinyl.

If you dropped it, there would be this terrible ripping sound and you potentially ruin permanently

your most sacred songs or somebody else's to that matter.

So you really wanted to take your time and put it down properly.

That's Rick Adams.

I'm a broadcaster, producer, writer, performer.

In the radio DJ, just as radio was going digital, we'll get to that story in a minute.

But first, let's go back a bit.

To the early 1930s, when they began to use vinyl for recorded music,

it was tough, light and sounded great.

Vinyl records were used by soldiers throughout World War II and became widely used after the war.

There's something really beautiful about that as it dropped into a valley of audio

and these grooves so ridiculous on either side, left and right, they recorded this audio

just even though you sort of logically understood what it was about.

It didn't make any sense. It's magical. How does this work?

Vinyl is this sort of, it's made from dinosaurs and pieces of dirt and decomposed plants.

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