Acoustic Sounds Founder Chad Kassem Brings the Vinyl Summit Home

Analog Planet's deeper dive on the Vinyl Summit is the right complement to the headline announcement. Founded in 1986 by Chad Kassem, Acoustic Sounds began as a one-man mail-order operation and has grown into a global analog powerhouse — running mastering, vinyl pressing, and one of the most-respected reissue catalogs in the audiophile world. The October 15–18, 2026 Vinyl Summit in Salina, Kansas, is essentially Acoustic Sounds bringing four decades of relationships home to its own backyard.

The Salina detail matters. Anyone who's spent time in audiophile circles knows that Acoustic Sounds being headquartered in a small Kansas town is part of the lore. The company didn't relocate to coastal hubs as it grew — instead, the mastering rooms, the pressing plant (QRP), and the warehouse all live within a few minutes of one another in the same town. That vertical setup is genuinely rare in the industry, and it's a meaningful part of why Acoustic Sounds reissues consistently rate well against the originals.

A summit hosted there is therefore a different beast than a coastal industry conference. Attendees can walk a working pressing plant, meet the engineers cutting their next reissue, and listen in rooms that aren't tradeshow demo booths. For the segment of the audience that takes analog playback seriously, that's an exceptionally hard agenda to compete with.

Kassem's four decades in this market also says something underrated about the audiophile economy. Vinyl is sometimes treated as a nostalgia trend; Acoustic Sounds is the proof point that a serious, technically-rigorous analog business has been a viable enterprise the entire time — across the format's actual decline, through its rebound, and into the current steady-state market. The summit is, in part, a thank-you to the listeners who made that possible.

[Read the full piece](https://www.analogplanet.com/content/inaugural-vinyl-summit-celebrating-40-years-acoustic-sounds-take-place-salina-kansas-october)