Visit "Boutique" Onyx Record Press In Arcadia, CA

watch a press being "fired up" and pressing the morning's first record

Note: This is a revised video necessitated because proprietary hardware and software was inadvertently presented. Both have now been either blurred or edited out.

At the beginning of December while in Los Angeles to attend the 30th anniversary Los Angeles and Orange County Audiophile Society GALA, where every year I "roast" the Founder's Award winner (this year it was AudioQuest's Bill Low), I received an invitation from a publicist to visit Gil Tamazyan at his new "boutique" pressing plant in Arcadia, California.

Photo of John Atkinson, Bill Low and Michael Fremer by Dr. David Robinson taken at the LA & OC board of director's dinner the evening before the "roast".

At first I hesitated. I've already visited pressing plants around the world (and posted videos here and at my previous endeavor's YouTube Channel) so what more was there to see? Well, I'm glad I went because as you'll see and hear Mr. Tamazyan has a fascinating story to tell about his decades' long involvement in record pressing. Onyx opened Spring of 2023 and by late summer began pressing records on its new Pheenix Alpha press. Onyx currently has but one press. However, a second is on the way. This turned into a unique opportunity to watch a man and his pressing machine from "waking it up" in the morning to pressing the day's first record—something you don't see during big pressing plant tours. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did!