Nothing has officially launched the Ear (3a), and while the name sounds like someone at the company lost a fight with their accountant, the product itself is a lot more interesting than another pair of inexpensive wireless earbuds with ANC and a transparent case.

At $99, the new Nothing Ear (3a) sits directly in the crowded budget ANC category, but the hook is not just price. Nothing has added built-in audio capture, call recording, and something it calls Audio Snapshot, which lets users capture short clips of what they are hearing and sync them to the Nothing X app for playback, editing, sharing, and transcription. The NSA would like a word.

That matters because most $99 wireless earbuds are fighting the same battle: stronger ANC, longer battery life, better bass, more colors, and an app that claims to understand your soul but mostly just lets you move sliders. The Ear (3a) still checks many of those boxes, but the recording feature gives Nothing a real point of difference.

For a company called Nothing, that is not nothing.

Related Reviews:

Audio Snapshot Is the Feature to Watch

The headline feature is Audio Snapshot. Instead of reaching for your phone when you want to save a clip from a podcast, video, audiobook, meeting, lecture, or other media, the Ear (3a) can capture audio directly from the earbuds and move it into the Nothing X app.

The earbuds include 32MB of total internal storage, split across the two earbuds, which allows the Ear (3a) to store short Audio Snapshot clips as well as call recordings before syncing them back to the phone. That is megabytes, not gigabytes, which is either delightfully old school or a reminder that nobody under 30 remembers how much work we used to squeeze out of 32MB.

Nothing’s implementation is split into two parts. Audio Snapshot is designed for capturing short media clips, while call recording is designed for phone calls and meetings. The recordings can then be accessed through the Nothing X app, where Nothing supports playback, editing, sharing, and transcription.

That does not turn the Ear (3a) into a field recorder, and Nobody should be pretending this replaces a dedicated interview mic or proper recording rig. But for students, commuters, journalists, creators, and anyone trapped in meetings that should have been three emails and a strongly worded glance, the idea is useful.

The important detail is that Nothing is moving the recording function into the earbuds themselves rather than relying only on the phone. That makes the Ear (3a) feel less like a cheaper version of the flagship Ear (3) and more like a product with its own identity.

Call Recording Is Useful But Complicated

The Ear (3a) can also record calls and meetings, with around two hours of recording capacity before files need to be synced. Nothing has also added a privacy alert that lets participants know when recording starts.

That is not just a nice touch. It is necessary.

Call recording laws vary by country and, in the United States, by state. Some states require only one party to consent, while others require all parties to be notified or give consent. In other words, the feature is convenient, but it is not a legal invisibility cloak. Users should know the rules where they live before they start archiving every awkward call with their contractor, boss, ex, or cable company.

Still, as a practical feature, this could be very useful. Apple, Google, Samsung, and others already live in the world of AI summaries, transcripts, and voice capture. Nothing is bringing part of that behavior to a $99 pair of earbuds, and that is more interesting than pretending another half millimeter of case curvature changes civilization.

Bigger Drivers and Hi-Res Audio

The Ear (3a) uses a 12mm dynamic driver, which is larger than the 11mm driver used in the older Nothing Ear (a). Nothing claims stronger bass and greater detail, along with Hi-Res Audio Wireless support and LDAC for higher bitrate Bluetooth playback on compatible Android devices.

That sounds good on paper, but the usual warning applies: LDAC is not fairy dust. A good codec can help, but it cannot rescue poor tuning, bad driver behavior, or a lousy seal. The ear tip fit will matter, and Nothing has added an extra small tip size, which is a smart move. A better seal improves bass, ANC, and perceived clarity. A bad seal makes even good earbuds sound like they were tuned inside a recycling bin.

Nothing is also including an advanced 8-band EQ through the Nothing X app, which gives users more control than the usual bass, mids, treble adjustments that are often quite coarse. For listeners who want to tune around brighter recordings, bass heavy pop, podcasts, or gym use, that could be more valuable than another vague “immersive mode” buried in an app menu.

ANC and Everyday Use

Nothing rates the Ear (3a) for up to 45 dB of active noise cancellation, with improvements across a broader frequency range. The earbuds also include transparency mode and multiple microphones for voice calls.

At $99, expectations need to remain sane. The Ear (3a) is not likely to embarrass the best ANC models from Bose, Sony, Apple, or Samsung. Those brands charge more for a reason.

But the more relevant question is whether the Ear (3a) can provide effective commuter and office noise reduction. If the ANC can take the edge off train rumble, HVAC noise, street chatter, and the guy two tables over explaining crypto to someone who clearly wants to leave, it has done its job.

The call recording feature may ultimately be more important than the ANC spec. A lot of companies can deliver acceptable ANC for under $100 now. Far fewer are offering native recording and audio capture in this price class.

Battery Life Looks Competitive

Battery life is another strong point. Nothing rates the Ear (3a) at up to 10 hours from the earbuds with ANC off and up to 42 hours total with the charging case. With ANC on, playback drops to up to 6 hours from the earbuds and up to 25 hours total with the case.

Those are very good numbers for a $99 ANC earbud, although real world use will depend on volume level, codec, ANC, multipoint, and how often users rely on recording and transcription features. LDAC usually consumes more power than SBC or AAC, and ANC always takes its cut. Bluetooth giveth, Bluetooth taketh away.

The case charges over USB-C. Unlike the more expensive Ear (3), the Ear (3a) case is not the star of the show. It is there to charge and store the earbuds, not to act like a tiny broadcast studio in your pocket; which has always felt like a feature that nobody will ever use.

Design and Colors

Nothing has not abandoned its visual identity. The Ear (3a) keeps the transparent design language that helped the brand stand out in a market full of glossy white plastic clones. The case has been rounded off compared to the previous model, and Nothing has added a small LED status matrix for battery and pairing information.

Color options include Black, White, Yellow, and Pink. The Pink finish is new, and whether that is brilliant or dangerous depends entirely on how many people in your house think earbuds are communal property.

The earbuds and case carry an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance, making them suitable for workouts, commuting, and general abuse. That does not mean you should swim with them, shower with them, or test them against the Atlantic Ocean because you once read a spec sheet too quickly.

Where the Ear (3a) Fits

The Ear (3a) lands in a slightly awkward but potentially smart place in Nothing’s lineup.

The older Nothing Ear (a) launched as the affordable option, while the Ear (3) moved into a more premium space with its Super Mic case, stronger design language, and higher price. The Ear (3a) now brings some of the recording concept down to $99, but does it through the earbuds themselves instead of relying on the case.

That makes the Ear (3a) more than just a refreshed Ear (a). It also makes the Ear (3) harder to justify for some buyers unless they specifically want the Super Mic case, more premium materials, or the higher end design treatment.

The real competition, however, is not only from Apple, Sony, Samsung, Soundcore, EarFun, and Nothing’s own CMF line. It is from consumer fatigue. Most people already own wireless earbuds. To make them upgrade, a company needs something more compelling than “now with slightly more bass and a color called Whatever Yellow.”

Audio Snapshot and call recording are at least different. That alone gives the Ear (3a) a stronger story than most budget earbud launches.

Nothing Ear (3a) Specifications:

• Colors: Black, White, Yellow, Pink
• Driver: 12mm dynamic driver
• Hi Res Audio: Yes
• Bluetooth Codec Support: LDAC, AAC, SBC
• Active Noise Cancellation: Up to 45 dB
• Transparency Mode: Yes
• Microphones: Three per earbud
• Internal Storage: 32MB total
• Audio Capture: Audio Snapshot for short media clips
• Call Recording: Supported, with approximately two hours of recording storage
• App: Nothing X
• EQ: Advanced 8 band EQ
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 6.0
• Multipoint: Dual connection support
• Fast Pair: Supported
• Low Latency Mode: Supported
• Battery Life With ANC Off: Up to 10 hours from earbuds, up to 42 hours total with case
• Battery Life With ANC On: Up to 6 hours from earbuds, up to 25 hours total with case
• Charging: USB-C
• Water and Dust Resistance: IP54
• Ear Tip Sizes: Includes XS size

The Bottom Line

The Nothing Ear (3a) looks like one of the more interesting $99 wireless earbud launches of 2026 because it does not rely only on the usual budget ANC checklist.

The 12mm driver, LDAC, 45 dB ANC, long battery life, IP54 rating, and advanced EQ make it competitive. The Audio Snapshot and call recording features make it newsworthy.

That distinction matters.

This is not an audiophile product until someone actually listens to it properly, and nobody should confuse built-in recording with professional capture quality. But as a daily pair of affordable ANC earbuds with a useful trick that competitors will probably start copying, the Ear (3a) deserves attention.

Nothing did not reinvent wireless audio here. But it did make the $99 earbud category less boring, which is more than most of its competitors managed this week.

Where to buy: $99 at Amazon

Related Reading:

from the speech-laws-always-get-weaponized dept

For over a decade, a particular argument keeps resurfacing from well-meaning progressives: the rise of authoritarianism around the globe is a good reason to pass laws suppressing speech. The idea is that somehow, magically, without free speech, authoritarians and fascists would never come to power in the first place. This is historically illiterate. It’s also stupid. As we’ve argued for many, many years, speech suppressing laws are always eventually used by the powerful to suppress the speech of their critics.

The latest example comes from Mexico, where the current leadership has played up “press freedoms,” but at the same time, powerful politicians are using laws ostensibly passed to protect the marginalized… to imprison journalists instead. The New York Times piece makes the pattern concrete in a way that should be eye-opening to many.

Take, for example, the situation with politician Mara Chama Villa. She used a law that was passed to stop “gender-based political violence.” That sounds good, right? Most good folks would agree that “gender-based political violence” is bad. But in this case, Chama Villa claimed that a satirical radio skit mocking her for being a nepobaby candidate violated the law:

It started with a one-minute audio cartoon. Three siblings asked their influential father to buy them candidacies for the upcoming 2024 elections, squabbling over who got to run for which party.

The satirical spot broadcast on Radio Teocelo, the local community-run radio station that also produced the ad, did not mention names, actual political parties or locations.

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But Mara Chama Villa, who was running to represent the area in Congress with Mexico’s Ecologist Green Party — and whose father had been the mayor of Teocelo, a coffee-producing town in the state of Veracruz, the deadliest for journalists — felt targeted. She filed a complaint against Radio Teocelo and reporters from other outlets who had previously covered her failed attempt in 2021 to succeed her father as mayor.

Their coverage, she argued in legal filings reviewed by The New York Times, minimized her career and hurt her chances to win the election.

In April 2025, a federal court found five reporters guilty of gender-based political violence because they had “minimized” Ms. Chama Villa “by subordinating her to a male figure with political power,” the court said in its ruling.

The impact of being found guilty — again, for making a satirical radio spot that would be common all over the globe — was pretty massive:

The penalties were sweeping: fines exceeding a month’s salary, mandatory public apologies, the deletion of the radio spot and all denounced articles and placement on a national registry of gender-violence offenders.

Oh, and some more chilling effects, just for fun. If you criticized the ruling? Well, you got added to a follow-on legal process:

When journalists, analysts and organizations across Mexico criticized the outcome, the dispute ballooned into a nationwide case targeting about 70 people.

This is, quite obviously, the opposite of freedom of the press or freedom of speech. And I’d argue it does not do anything positive towards stopping “gender-based political violence.” It’s just become a tool for a powerful political family to punish journalists who produced a bit of satire.

And this isn’t a one-off, as the Times highlights other cases using the same law to target activists as well:

Earlier this year, a court sanctioned Miguel Alfonso Meza, an anti-corruption activist, for gender-based political violence against Silvia Delgado, a lawyer who represented the notorious drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, best known as El Chapo. Mr. Meza had called her a “narco lawyer” when questioning her candidacy for a criminal judgeship in Mexico’s first-ever judicial election.

When the court later partly revoked the penalties on Mr. Meza, Ms. Delgado said that she would appeal that ruling. Her goal, she added in an interview, was “not to silence anyone, but to fight for dignity.”

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“By describing my candidacy as highly dangerous and comparing me to other candidates investigated for drug trafficking,” she said, “he unleashed excessive attacks against me.”

The article also describes a crime reporter who was accused of “terrorism” because his reporting on local drug cartels “caused public panic” leading him to being dragged from his car and arrested (he thought he was being kidnapped). He now admits that he’s stopped chasing stories he used to chase.

The chilling effects in such a system are unavoidable.

Mexican politicians can defend these laws all they like. No one supports gender-based political violence or terrorism — and that’s exactly what makes the laws so useful to the people abusing them. A law nobody can be seen opposing is a law nobody can stop. And so a community radio station gets fined a month’s salary over a one-minute cartoon, an anti-corruption activist gets sanctioned for calling El Chapo’s lawyer a “narco lawyer,” and a crime reporter stops chasing the stories that made him a crime reporter.

This is how it always goes. Every time you hand the state a tool to punish “bad” speech, the people who end up wielding it are whoever holds power — and they get to decide what counts as “bad.”

If that still sounds like a worthwhile trade — speech restrictions now to keep the fascists out later — consider that we ran this exact experiment a century ago. Weimar Germany had hate speech laws. Prosecutors used them against Nazis, including Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer, who was convicted and jailed more than once for incitement against Jews. The laws did not stop the Nazis. Indeed, the Nazis used these prosecutions as yet more “evidence” that they were being prosecuted for their beliefs. Then, the Nazis took power, inherited those very tools, and turned them on everyone else. Streicher walked out of the courtroom a martyr and into the Reichstag. The speech laws meant to stop authoritarians became the authoritarians’ speech laws.

So here’s the only test that matters before you back a law like this: imagine the politician you distrust the most holding the pen. Because eventually, they will. And anyone who answers “with this law on the books, they’ll never get into power” is indulging in childishly naive wishful thinking — the same wish that has been losing to authoritarians for as long as there have been authoritarians.

You don’t keep bad people from power by handing the office a weapon and hoping good people get there first. You keep them out with stronger elections, stronger institutions, and an educated public that can see through them.

Not by deciding which speech to outlaw — and then praying you’re always the one holding the pen.

Filed Under: free press, free speech, gender-based political violence, mara chama villa, mexico

Companies: radio teocelo

Level Infinite has opened pre-registrations for Gangstar Mirage City, the newest game in Gameloft’s long-running Gangstar series. Indian players can now enroll on the official website before the game’s soft launch in August 2026. Players who register for the game will receive rewards upon its release. There will be mission stories and open-world gameplay. According to the developer, player choices will influence certain missions and gameplay events.

Key Features the Game Offers

Gangstar Mirage City brings together open-world exploration, racing, and action in a single experience. In addition to story missions, players can explore different parts of the city, collect vehicles, and compete in street races. The game also includes cooperative heists, allowing friends to complete missions together.

Building a criminal empire is yet another important aspect of the game. Capturing territories can help players enhance their influence and generate revenue. They can also personalize their weapons and vehicles according to the requirements of specific missions and fights. If you are one of those people who like competitive gaming, you can join the team fights, vehicle fights, last-man-standing games, and PvP-based objective games. The developers have also confirmed that more arenas and multiplayer content will arrive in future updates.

Pre-Registration Rewards

Players who have already signed up for Gangstar Mirage City can participate in the Global Vault Heist campaign, scheduled prior to the game’s soft launch. This campaign offers rewards available only to early participants. More rewards will become available to those who are signed up for the event as more people sign up. Participants can also invite up to three friends to join the campaign. Each successful invitation unlocks extra bonuses, allowing groups to start the game with additional rewards when the soft launch begins.

The pre-registration campaign also lets players join one of four in-game factions before launch. Each group has its own background and role in the game’s world. The Family focuses on power and influence, while O-Rage represents a more rebellious approach. The Ghosts are known for underground street racing, whereas Jersey Boyz control the city’s supply chain. Choosing a faction also unlocks a unique avatar reward for launch.

Languages and Availability

Gangstar Mirage City will begin its soft launch on August 20, 2026, and will be available on Android and iOS. There will be nine language options in the game, allowing gamers from various regions to play in their preferred language. Those interested can already complete the pre-registration process through the official website.

from the make-up-your-mind dept

For a while there, you might remember how giant telecom monopolies, running out of new subscribers, all decided to get into the media business. But because terrible telecom monopoly executives can’t innovate and generally don’t know how competition works, it never really goes that well.

The various Yahoo/Tumblr/Verizon/AOL exploits were a legendary mess, only outshined by AT&T’s disastrous mergers with DirecTV and Warner Brothers. Then there’s the Comcast NBC Universal tie up (Peacock saw a $432 million loss in the first quarter), which now appears on the cusp of being unwound after seeing its stock drop 54% in the past five years.

Last week, Comcast execs stated they’re now formally unwinding NBC Universal from the Comcast telecom properties. Comcast CEO Mike Cavanagh says the company simply “changed its mind” about being a monolithic giant that dominates both media and physical internet access:

“We’ve simply now changed our mind. We’ve now concluded that future success for each of our businesses will depend on focus, speed and strategic flexibility that this separation will unlock. This is the right move to put each company in the strongest position to create value, fully monetize its assets, and aggressively pursue its own organic growth strategies.”

Yadda yadda yadda.

Comcast had already spun off its cable TV network portfolio (except for Bravo) into a new company named Versant Media earlier this year. Comcast executives insist that they’re “definitely not” looking to sell NBC Universal off as part of the broader U.S. media merger madness, but amusingly nobody inside or outside of Kabletown believes them:

“The collective eye roll [on management’s denial] was almost audible,” former NBC Studios president Tom Nunan told TheWrap. “I thought that their recent effort to go after Warner’s was a sign that there was still gas in the tank, that they really still wanted to be among the big media players left standing. When that didn’t work out, they suddenly go, in my view, from a buyer to a seller.”

Unsaid by the trade mag coverage is that telecom giants routinely demonstrate they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing when it comes to Hollywood and content. They’re endlessly just chasing their own tail and shuffling the cards around in the hunt for the next merger, tax break, or giant executive compensation package. None of these deals work out, because the kind of execs birthed in the bowels of telecom monopolization aren’t really competent or competitively/innovatively battle tested.

Normally Wall Street rewards this kind of mindless consolidation chasing by men out of original ideas, but both ends of Comcast’s business are facing headwinds. On one side traditional broadcast TV is dying and Peacock requires a ton of money to remain competitive; on the other Comcast’s steadily losing broadband subscribers due to increased competition from cheaper 5G wireless or community-owned fiber.

Selling the whole thing was likely too much for any suitor to chew. Splitting off NBC Universal makes it a more digestible target for Netflix, Amazon, Disney, or Apple, leaving traditional Comcast time to focus on its core agenda: buying up smaller telecom companies and dismantling U.S. broadband competition.

Comcast’s problem is NBC’s journalism has historically made our mad idiot king cry, so they’ll have to be extra fawning and subservient to gain favor from the administration’s fake antitrust regulators.

Filed Under: cable, consolidation, kabletown, media, mergers, monopoly, streaming, telecom, video

Companies: comcast, nbc, nbc universal

The organisation also announced it is actively expanding the robotics team and is looking to recruit talented research scientists and engineers.

France’s Mistral AI has announced the launch of a new robotics navigation model, as the company further expands in the physical AI space, following deals with a number of key players in Europe’s industrial and manufacturing sector, such as Airbus SE and BMW. 

The new 8B model, Robostral Navigate, allows robots to autonomously move around in complex environments via a single RGB camera and basic language prompts. Combining pointing-based navigation with continuous learning elements, the hardware is also agnostic meaning it can be deployed across any robotics fleet. 

Mistral claims that the model, prompted by a single instruction, can complete the entire task on its own, moving through a live space full of people and obstacles it was never shown, adapting to any setting. Spaces in which it can be used includes offices, residential and commercial buildings and outdoor settings.

In a post announcing the launch, Mistral said, “We leverage our knowledge of post-training LLMs at scale, using online reinforcement learning, to boost the performance of Robostral Navigate. After the supervised training stage, we further improve the model’s performance using CISPO, an online reinforcement learning algorithm. 

“This enables the model to learn from trial and error, recover from failures, and acquire exploratory behaviours, effectively mitigating the distribution shift issue of vanilla behaviour cloning. This alone improved the success rate by 3.2pc. We are not seeing any plateauing, so we are confident that more training and more experiments will continue to push this number up.”

A leader in Europe’s AI space, Mistral is also positioned as a key rival for US counterparts, such as Anthropic and OpenAI. In March of this year, the company raised $830m in its first debt financing, with the intention of funding a new data centre near Paris.

It was announced that the deal, which was supported by a consortium of seven global banks, would pay for Nvidia Grace Blackwell infrastructure with 13,800 Nvidia GB300 GPUs at the “cutting-edge” centre, bringing powered capacity to 44MW.

Previously commenting, Arthur Mensch, the CEO of Mistral AI, said, “Scaling our infrastructure in Europe is critical to empower our customers and to ensure AI innovation and autonomy remain at the heart of Europe.”

Mistral is also looking to recruit, with plans to expand the robotics team. Currently it is aiming to hire additional research scientists and engineers.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Early talks have already taken place between the BBC and Channel 4.

In the brief history of AI security, the prompt injection has quickly become the top threat. Large language models are inherently unable to distinguish between legitimate instructions provided by users and malicious ones sneaked into emails, source code, and other third-party content the models are processing. This makes it trivial to surreptitiously inject malicious commands that the LLM readily follows.

With no way to enforce this crucial boundary between trusted and untrusted sources, AI engine developers are left to erect elaborate guardrails designed to mitigate the damage rather than solve the root cause.

To date, most prompt injections have fallen into a class known as push, in which each potential victim is targeted. For example, the adversary injects malicious instructions into an individual email or calendar invitation. Because the injection must then be sent (or pushed) to each specific target, the scale of the attack is limited, hampering mass exploits that hit the Internet at large.

Meanwhile, pull-based attacks, in which an LLM actively seeks out the adversarial prompts planted on websites, remain limited. With no way to lure large numbers of LLMs to a malicious site, these sorts of attacks don’t scale either.

Enter HalluSquatting

Now, researchers have devised a pull-based attack that changes all that. A new attack the researchers have named HalluSquatting has the potential to assemble massive botnets, perform large-scale DDoSes, and infect devices at scale, a first for prompt-injection attacks. The attack works against AI coding assistants and agents, including Cursor, Cursor CLI, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Cline, OpenClaw, ZeroClaw, and NanoClaw, which are all susceptible. In the normal course of performing day-to-day activities, these assistants and agents routinely pull code and other resources from repositories and registries.

The HalluSquatting threat model.

Credit:
Spira et al.

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Short for adversarial hallucination squatting, HalluSquatting is built on an LLM’s inherent tendency to hallucinate the resource identifiers hosted in repositories and registries. It works against coding agents and assistants, which commonly access high-privilege command lines to run code from third-party resources. By predicting the identifiers LLMs are most likely to hallucinate and then registering and seeding them with instructions to install reverse shells or other malicious wares, the attack can indiscriminately infect massive numbers of devices without having to target each one.

Nostalgia is fuelling Singapore’s vinyl boom & record stores are reaping the rewards

When people think of vinyl records today, they often think of a niche hobby making a comeback. But Singapore’s relationship with vinyl runs much deeper.

Long before collectors were flipping through crates in neighbourhood record stores, Singapore was one of Southeast Asia’s biggest record-manufacturing hubs. By 1970, at least four major pressing plants were operating here, producing up to a million records a month before changing technologies and shifting consumer habits pushed the industry into decline.

But today, vinyl has returned—not as a manufacturing powerhouse, but as a thriving culture.

Around the world, sales have grown for 19 consecutive years, surpassing US$1 billion in the United States alone. And in Singapore, a new generation of collectors, independent record stores, and curious first-time buyers are rediscovering what streaming can’t offer: the experience of owning music.

Singapore’s vinyl revival

Singapore’s vinyl scene reflects the broader resurgence across Asia-Pacific, where the market was worth an estimated US$518 million in 2024.

But while the numbers tell one story, the revival is perhaps best seen on the ground.

Spend a weekend afternoon in Haji Lane or Joo Chiat, browse a flea market, or wander into one of the country’s independent record stores, and you’ll find people happily flipping through crates of vinyl, admiring album artwork, and chatting with fellow collectors.

Singapore has quietly become, as Curated Records founder Tremon Lim puts it, “one of the vinyl-hunting stop-bys for travellers.”

We speak to Tremon, 42, who founded the business in 2014, and Warren Choo, 31, who started Cherry Lane Records on Carousell before opening a brick-and-mortar store in Joo Chiat in 2024, about how Singapore’s vinyl scene has evolved—and why records continue to resonate in the streaming age.

More people, more stores, more noise

Tremon left a six-year career in publishing to fulfil his dream of opening a record store, launching Curated Records in a small Tiong Bahru space in 2014 before relocating to its current North Bridge Road premises in 2021. Today, the two-storey shop carries more than 2,000 records.

Warren’s path into vinyl retail was more gradual. He began by selling records from his personal collection before setting up stalls at the Katong Flea Market. After falling in love with Joo Chiat’s “vintage and warm” atmosphere, he opened Cherry Lane Records there in 2024.

Despite their different journeys, both owners have witnessed the same shift: more people are walking through their doors than ever before.

For Tremon, the biggest sign of vinyl’s resurgence is how records have moved beyond specialist stores. Cafés, electronics retailers and even musical instrument shops now stock vinyl, whether as décor or merchandise. He also believes nostalgia has played a role, as more people seek out physical objects in an increasingly digital world.

Warren, meanwhile, has watched a new generation discover older music through pop culture.

“Queen or Michael Jackson become entry points for younger listeners who may not have grown up with that music directly,” he said. “And younger collectors are not only buying old pressings from the ’70s to the ’90s, but many are also interested in new releases from current artists.”

That crossover between contemporary pop culture and vintage collecting is something both owners recognise.

Cherry Lane specialises in Southeast Asian heritage releases, jazz and classic rock, though it also carries selected new releases. Warren acknowledges that the recent boom in vinyl sales—driven in part by artists like Taylor Swift—has benefited independent record stores too.

Someone buys their first record because of a current artist, then they start digging deeper, and eventually they end up for hours in a shop like ours.

Warren Choo, founder of Cherry Lane

Tremon agrees. Having spent more than a decade in the business, he has watched vinyl evolve from what was once a fringe hobby into what he calls a “mature niche,” with enthusiasm today surpassing even the resurgence of the late 2000s.

Singapore has also become a destination for collectors from overseas.

“Singapore is one of the vinyl-hunting stop-bys for travellers,” he noted. The city’s mix of local pressings, Southeast Asian records, and well-curated vintage stock has made it worth a detour for collectors passing through.

But why buy a record when everything is on Spotify?

On paper, the economics of vinyl can be difficult to justify.

A brand-new record typically starts at around S$38 in Singapore, with limited editions costing even more. Add an entry-level turntable—starting at around S$110—and it’s easy to argue that a S$12 monthly Spotify subscription offers far better value, giving listeners access to millions of songs at their fingertips.

But for most collectors, it isn’t a choice between vinyl and streaming. Instead, they’re embracing both.

Tremon notes that most vinyl collectors still subscribe to a streaming service. Streaming is where they discover new music and listen on the go, but vinyl is what they buy after deciding an album deserves a permanent place on their shelf

Streaming offers convenience. Vinyl offers an experience.

For Warren, that experience begins long before the music starts. Playing a record requires choosing an album, removing it from its sleeve, placing it on the turntable and lowering the needle. That ritual encourages listeners to slow down and give an album their full attention in a way streaming rarely does.

He believes part of the appeal also lies in the thrill of discovery.

Once a record walks out the door, there is no guarantee you will ever see that same copy again. Part of the appeal is that each record feels like something you have actually found. It is not just a file or a link. It has a history.

Warren Choo, founder of Cherry Lane

There’s also the question of ownership.

Warren recalled a friend once telling him that owning a vinyl record feels permanent in a way streaming never can. Digital libraries can change as licensing agreements expire or platforms evolve, but a record on your shelf remains yours.

For many collectors, especially those buying newer releases, the appeal extends beyond the music itself. Coloured and transparent vinyl, limited editions and artist-exclusive pressings have turned records into collectible objects as much as listening formats.

Tremon noted that many of these releases are produced in limited quantities, making them highly sought-after by collectors. For some buyers, the artwork, packaging and rarity are just as much a part of the experience as the album itself.

“A permanent niche”

Both owners see vinyl as part of a broader wave of nostalgia that has also revived interest in film cameras, mechanical watches and printed books.

Warren believes what ties these hobbies together is that they demand participation. “You cannot be passive with a record the way you can with a digital playlist.”

That sense of intentionality, he believes, is increasingly valued in a world optimised for speed and convenience.

Far from being a passing trend, both owners believe vinyl has found its place in the modern music landscape.

Tremon, in particular, argues that vinyl is no longer experiencing a revival but has matured into a permanent niche. “Unless another music format comes along that’s even more fun than playing and collecting vinyl,” he reflected.

History has repeatedly declared vinyl obsolete—when the LaserDisc arrived, when CDs took over and when streaming appeared to remove the last reason to own physical music. Yet it has survived every technological shift.

“There must indeed be something special about it that humans just collectively, and implicitly, agree on,” Tremon said.

For now, in many homes and shops, the needle drops, and the music plays.

• Read other articles about Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Cherry Lane Records/ Curated Records

In this economy, it only makes sense to preserve surplus food, whether it’s seasonal produce (grown yourself, foraged, or bought on sale), wild game, or even fish. You can always can or freeze your extras, but these methods require a lot of time and space. Quick to use and compact to store, a food dehydrator can also broaden your food-preservation horizons, setting you up with vacuum-sealed beans, herbs, vegetables, fruit leathers, and even entire dehydrated meals for backpacking.

I’ve always loved having a food dehydrator on hand to make bags of my own apple and kale chips, beef jerky, and dried citrus rounds for cocktail garnishes. (A mandoline slicer is a must-have if you’re getting into dehydrating.) WIRED contributing reviewer Lisa Wood Shapiro, meanwhile, is into dehydrating sweet potatoes to make natural, organic dog treats. Between the two of us, we dried, crisped, and jerked our way through dozens of pounds of produce and meats to bring you the best food dehydrators for every space and budget.

For more self-sufficiency, check out our head-to-head comparison of gravity-fed water filtration systems and guides to the Best Indoor Gardening Systems and Best Portable Power Stations.

Best Overall

Excalibur

DH08SCSS13 Select Digital Food Dehydrator

Excalibur is the OG name in food dehydrators, known for its commercial and professional units. But the company also makes a series of consumer dehydrators that offer large-tray capacities at low prices. This eight-tray, 7.2-cubic-foot model has all the modern features you’d expect: stainless steel trays (note that they’re not dishwasher-safe), a light to monitor the process, mesh and fruit-roll (which are solid) sheets, French doors, and a digital timer. You can also pause the time to add minutes if need be, and there’s a free digital recipe book (“Preserve It Naturally”) accessible via a QR code on the side of the unit.

I tested the Excalibur with fruit, tomatoes, beef, and marinated salmon, and the machine dried everything in nearly half the time as my old bargain-basement round Nesco Snackmaster (see Others Tested) did with plastic trays. Best of all? The 700-watt motor is strong but not loud. I ran it in an open-concept kitchen/living room and clocked it at 40 decibels, which didn’t even require turning up the TV. I wish the warranty were a bit longer than one year, but this is still an extremely user-friendly dehydrator that just about any casual user would be happy with.

Best Budget

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

Cosori

Pioneer 5-Tray Food Dehydrator

This old-school style Cosori dehydrator features stackable plastic rings and a fan in the base. WIRED contributing reviewer Lisa Wood Shapiro thought it produced consistent results for the price. She especially loved Cosori’s library of dehydrated food recipes, which were among the best she’s ever tried. (I had to peruse them myself upon this recommendation, and I’m still thinking about the recipe for dehydrating an entire batch of chili.) Drawbacks include its primarily plastic construction—though the plastic is BPA-free—and the fact that the dishwasher-safe trays don’t easily fit in the dishwasher. The cylindrical shape is harder to fit on an already full countertop, but given that it’s not the best-looking model, you’re likely storing it in the garage or basement anyway.