Vinyl records have survived the trend that miniaturizes the medium (CD then MiniDisc) until it ends up disappearing entirely. And it has certainly remained through time thanks to its imposing format. Indeed, a vinyl sleeve is a square format measuring over 30 cm on each side. Like a painter's chassis, it is large enough to be a medium for artistic expression, adding a complementary artwork to the musical work.
It comes as no surprise that some musicians have surrounded themselves with talented designers, painters and photographers to create their covers. These sleeves are an integral part of the success of the vinyl record, alongside the love that collectors have for it. So, if some vinyls are works of visual art, they deserve to be displayed as such and stored with care.
French furniture brand Lyon Béton recently presented us with a solution that won us over. Here's why.
The Dice modular system is made up of raw concrete cubes and wooden elements that are simply assembled using rubber connectors to create bespoke pieces of furniture. It adapts to your space (in width and height) and to what you want to fit in.
The concrete cubes have the perfect internal height to hold your vinyl, and that's no coincidence. Designer Alexandre Dubreuil was briefed by the Lyon Béton teams to come up with the ideal modular hi-fi cabinet, and the result is more than convincing.
This system of furniture has been specially designed to hold your hi-fi equipment and your record collection, but it can also accommodate all your decorative objects: lamps, ceramics, paintings, art books, sculptures, plants, etc.
The constructive principle of this system has the elegance to be seen without being seen. The hollows in the concrete are not just a tribute to the architect Tadao Andō, they are also used to receive rubber connectors that give stability to the piece of furniture you are going to create, and absorb the audiophile's number one enemy: vibrations.
This ingenious system makes the cabinet very easy to assemble and disassemble. It can be reconfigured over and over again, for it to grow with your vinyl record collection. The small cube can hold up to 100 records and the large cube twice as many.
It seems that plants are sensitive to music. Lyon Béton has added a module for this purpose to its Dice system. The Dice L plus module has a rear panel that opens up a whole new range of uses. When used face up, green plants can be integrated directly into the furniture. Of course, the most enthusiastic will use it as a vinyl crate to rediscover the gesture of the digger in search of the rare nugget in their favourite record store. That works just as well.
The Lyon Béton team is offering a promotional code for the entire Diggers Factory community to use on their eshop.
Use the code LB4DF to get 15% off their entire website, excluding current promotions.