Jukebox Buying Guide

The future lives in the past Those gorgeous, gleaming, bubbling, blinking jukeboxes couldn't last forever. Vinyl records wear out, tube amps dim, speakers crack. (Apparently, neon lasts forever.) But those jukeboxes represent more than music: they symbolize pure joy, unmitigated fun, and the democracy of choosing the music you want to hear. Today's jukeboxes cover all your bases. They preserve the fun of yesterday, and help protect yesterday's music with modern technology unheard of just a decade ago. This buying guide will help you find the jukebox that makes you happy and answers your needs, all wrapped up in gleaming chrome. Reliving the past For all our technological advances, nobody has made a party starter like a jukebox. It brings people together. If you're looking to enjoy the jukebox atmosphere, you'll find amazing reproductions from original makers like Wurlitzer, Rock-Ola, AMI, and Seeburg, along with masterful reproductions by the technical geniuses at Crosley. You can still buy The Bubbler and bask in the glow of colored neon, and some of those machines still play three songs for a quarter.

The original jukeboxes were technological marvels, but they were a little finicky and fragile, and replacement parts are now very hard to find. Today's remakes have the same great look, but use modern amplification to get far better sound for far less money. Your old records never sounded so good.

But why limit yourself to records? A lot of the music you enjoy doesn't even exist on vinyl. Today's reproduction jukeboxes can include CD players with the same disk-swapping elegance you saw with the old 45s. They connect to the Internet to pull MP3s out of thin air. And now, instead of plugging in a quarter, you can plug in your iPod.

For the record

You don't need a jukebox to play your vinyl records. But if you want that nostalgic feel without used-gear headaches, you'll find at Jukeboxes.com an impressive selection of vintage-looking turntables that use today's gadgetry to sound better and help your records last far longer. You can even get the old suitcase-style players and album carrying cases. Imagine whipping that out at the next party you attend.

Even the great reproduction turntables wear down vinyl eventually. Protect your collection with CD recorder turntables that preserve your songs to disk. You'll still get the warm sound of vinyl, but your records will be forever safe. We also offer turntables that are USB-enabled: you can plug them directly into your computer and record your songs there. With the included editing software, you can even make your own mixes, something you could never do with records. Best of all, your beloved music is safe, so you can play your original vinyl with abandon.

For the legendary music fan

The true music fan faces this: Glenn Miller on 78s, The Beatles on 45s, The Guess Who on LP, James Taylor on cassette, Sting on CD, and Plain White T's on the iPod. Crosley and others make vintage jukeboxes and turntables that can play all these formats from one unit. Some are even portable. It's history in a box.

Kicking it old school

Maybe you don't need all that. You just love old vintage radios, with gleaming wood frames, fabric speaker covers, analog knobs, and those cool airplane-style dials. We can't make radio stations play Jack Benny, but we know where the vintage radios are: Jukeboxes.com. Beautiful reproductions by Crosley look authentically old, but work and sound like new.

Jukeboxes.com has great search tools to help you find the vintage jukebox, turntable, or radio you're dreaming of. When you see what's available, you'll be as excited as you were when you saw your first jukebox.