METAVINYL

Small space full of carefully curated music and ephemera. You can feel safe buying used vinyl here as they only seem to stock top grade stuff. Sections of punk, metal, and soundtracks are always interesting. Prices are very good on new vinyl but a little ‘hit and miss’ on used. For the locals I’m certain the prices are awesome by comparison to Streetlight and LOGO’s but for those of us that travel I just have the attitude of «I’m gonna find that for $ 8 someday!» (and I can’t pull the trigger on $ 15) But I’ve bought plenty of stuff there and I always try to stop in while in Santa Cruz!
See ya again soon Metavinyl!

I was completely turned off by the conversation between the two workers, one of which I’m guessing was the owner. One of them was talking about jacking up the prices on some records that he bought from a customer, claiming that he’s trying to make up for the other stuff that didn’t sell.
What? You’re talking about overcharging customers while there’s a customer in the store? What’s wrong with you people?
I was totally turned off. I made a minimal purchase, just to be polite, then got the hell out of there.
Never again.

Great shop! Nicely curated, reasonably priced selection of new and used vinyl, and quality stereo gear. Clean, organized shop and friendly staff. No listening station, but Paul is more than happy to throw something on the shop deck for you to hear.

Vinyl selection is not bad a lil bit of everything for the size of the store, pricing was very fair. I bought a skinny puppy 12 inch single for 7 and a school Boyz album for 5. Staff was very nice.

This store was so fun to shop in. Gave a cool vibe & experience, and it’s extremely organized and looks really visually appealing inside. They have a nice mixture of new and used vinyl, but the best part is how great some of their deals are. Picked up a few albums I was pretty excited about and spent less than $ 20. Can’t beat it! The guy behind the counter was really friendly & polite, which you don’t find often in record stores like this anymore. One of the favorite small record shops I’ve been to. I definitely recommend!

Really enjoyed my visit to this store. Spent way more than I wanted to because they had a lot of records that interested me. I paid about $ 12 — $ 20 per record (or more), but they were all new for the most part. I could have done cheaper on Discogs, but I do like to support local shops and don’t mind paying a bit of a markup in that case.

I have nothing but great things to say about Metavinyl.
The selection is always new and fresh, plus the owner Paul is super helpful and informative. Ive have bought Tons and tons of records, sleeves and accessories there without any problems. Not to mention they carry a good selection of any genre your looking for AND have a killer dollar bin!
I dig at Streetlight, Logos, and Metavinyl daily and in my personal opinion Metavinyl blows the competition out of the water.

I can’t help but love an all vinyl record store! This place is clean, friendly & chill. If I have a record in mind to buy I always enjoy a stroll over to this place. It’s a good feeling walking out of a record store with some fresh vinyl.

Great selection of records. Good pricing also. New records are competitive around 18 to 20 dollars. Used ones vary on artist and condition picked up some good ones for 1 dollar each others were around 5 or 6 dollars. Nice little selection of turntables and used receivers and speakers. A fun place to shop.

This store may be tiny, but they pack a mean selection of records into their bins. Rock, metal, and electronic sections were the biggest, with a large $ 1 bin as well. The prices are slightly higher than you’d pay at a chain store, but that’s to be expected when you support a small business.

No listening stations here.

Great selection of records! Great location with plenty of parking!

For those of us who love vinyl and independent record stores, Santa Cruz is a pretty decent place to live. How many communities of any size can boast three record stores in a few block radius? Support them folks because they are a dying breed and we’ll miss them if they go away.
Anyway, I recently discovered Metavinyl after frequenting Logos for years. Now, I split my business between the two. I bought a fabulous record player at Metavinyl recently and just love it. Not a huge selection of records but enough to keep me coming back. They have new stuff and a decent $ 1 rack. They also sell accessories. Service is very friendly.

Metavinyl is fairly priced and by that I mean pretty much cheaper than any online option when you include the cost of the item and shipping costs.
They have an excellent selection from which to pick. Now, it’s tough to cover each and every corner for the range of customers vinyl stores have to deal with, (ie, DJs of different backgrounds, music aficionados seeking out exclusive releases etc). But speaking solely from my own impressions, I was ecstatic sifting through what they have.
Heavy punk, shoegazzy droney stuff, loads of classical rock, ambient/​minimal material, electronic and its many branches, techno, house, dnb. They have wonderful stuff.
Metavinyl has really affordable service costs on Technics 1200 mk2s which for me tops the cake as finding reliable turntable technicians is very difficult, I wouldn’t trust just anyone with my decks.
All in all good shop.

Great shop. Jonathan, the owner, is a very nice person and a straight shooter. As well as an excellent record selection he has a small selection of very reasonably priced, if not outright steals, stereo equipment. One example: He had a pair of Kliptsch G2 speakers for $ 65. The other used stereo shop in town has the very same speakers for $ 389. Which shop would you choose? Most of his equipment is under $ 100 for brands like Onkyo, Sansuii, Pioneer, Yamaha, etc. He comes up with great speakers as well and once again very reasonable prices. How about $ 100 for a pair of vintage Dynaco A-​35s which sell for as much as 3 times that price at the other used stereo shop in town. Why go anywhere else? Or a very good turntable for $ 85 that was priced at $ 289 at the other stereo shop. I bought a GREAT pair of AR bookshelf speakers for $ 65 that originally sold for $ 550 new. I was quite surprised at how great they sounded and he could have got three times that for them if he wanted to. Can’t beat that with a stick.
Bottom line, best shop in town for quality records and bargain prices on used stereo equipment. Small selection on the stereo gear but that is not his main focus. It pays to check in often as the high end gear goes fast.

I’ve been going here for the past 6 months or so, since I got my vinyl setup. This is my favorite record store and also my favorite store in town. They have a great selection of new records here, not as broad as Streetlight, but at Metavinyl they really only stock records that are worthwhile. Also you can ask the owner Jonathon, who is there during the week, or one of his lackeys who I found out get paid in records! Hah! Regardless of what another review said, Jonathon and his employees are not pretentious at all! I think people assume that a record store like that in SC must be a little stuck up, but I found it to be quite the opposite. Everybody who works there is down to earth, friendly and really into great music. If you are the same way you will love this store as much as I do.
Also, I’ve sold records and equipment to Jonathon before, and he actually looked it up on eBay to decide what he could buy it from me for. He also informed me that I got ripped off by the guy at Recycled Stereo Plus on Front St. Thanks Jonathon!

This record store along with logos does a great job at covering the spectrum of items that a vinyl fanatic would need while hunting around town. Metavinyl has a lot of NEW vinyl at reasonable priced. They do not bother putting shipping tape and a bunch of useless stickers all over the record you are purchasing. It’s nice to be able to pop off the price tag and not feel like your purchased had been marred in some vein attempt to stop the shop lifting of a large item like a vinyl lp.
They are friendly, have a good selection and knowledge of music. There are also players that are available for sale along with needles and other various gear that can be hard to track down around town.
The only thing that prevents me from giving Metavinyl 5 stars is the fact that they don’t really have any higher end collector pieces for purchase. There is occasionally a great find in the new arrivals bin but you won’t be finding anything that would be sold for anything above 50 online.

This has become my favorite record store. A great selection of new and used LP’s. You can also get a cartridge, stylus or entire turntable there. Great prices. I don’t know the owners name, but he’s super nice and I asked him to pick out a German electronic record for me, and I ended up really digging it.
He always has great music playing on a really nice turntable and speakers with fantastic sound. I wish he’d setup a little stand to put album covers on that says «NOW PLAYING», so I could check out what awesome music choices he’s playing for the store, without bugging him.
A+
Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Always my first stop when I go shopping for vinyl in Santa Cruz. They don’t have the biggest selection of used vinyl, but they have an excellent selection of new vinyl. They’re probably the least pretentious and most helpful people you’ll ever encounter at a record store. I’ve gone in many times and asked for opinions on genres I don’t know much about and they’ve always been super helpful guiding me to a great record. They even take used vinyl out and play it for me to see if I like it! It’s the only place I go for needles. They have shows too!
I’m not sure what happened to Unilocaler Maggie when she went there, but I’ve had the exact opposite experience as her. I’ve even seen records going for $ 20 — $ 30 at Logos for sale here for $ 5. Ya know Maggie, it’s possible for 2 different records to have scratches in them right? It also makes a lot of sense to me, that if you find a rare or valuable record underpriced somewhere else, buy it and sell it for what it’s worth!

As a former Santa Cruz record shop employee, I can say with some authority that there has not been a record store this good in this town for 15+ years. Owner knows his stuff, has great suggestions, makes music himself (which he is happy to talk about), and has the best collection of high-​quality vinyl I’ve seen in a while. No flea market/​thrift store/​garage sale junk here. Prices are reasonable (a signed, circa-​1998 Stone’s Throw double LP of Madlib beats for $ 15; recording of Alan Shepard’s 1961 space flight for $ 5; Klatuu record for $ 5) and selection is fantastic.
If you’re looking for a place to name drop or pose, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for something to push the limits of your music tastes and want to chat with people seek the same, you’ve come to the right place.