Upstairs at the shop
A workshop, a listening room and forty thousand records.
- 40,000
- records in the shop
- 1979
- year the counter opened
- 3 weeks
- to restore a vintage deck
Who we are
Put the needle down.
Downstairs, the records: about 40,000, new and pre-owned, sorted by people who play them. Upstairs, the workshop where we build and restore decks and amplifiers, and a quiet room with good chairs where you can hear them first.
New and pre-owned records, restored decks and our own valve amplifiers, heard first in our listening room. Book the listening room for an hour, bring your own records or choose ours, and try decks, amplifiers and speakers side by side. ₹500, adjusted against anything you buy.
— The Kalo Chaka Records team, Kolkata
What we stand for
Three things we will not change
Played before sold
Every pre-owned record is cleaned and played end to end before it gets a grade and a price.
Repairable
We build amplifiers with parts you can still buy, and we keep spares for everything we sell.
Hear it first
Nothing over ₹20,000 leaves the shop until you have heard it, in our room or yours.
Hear it before you buy it.
Book the listening room for an hour, bring your own records or choose ours, and try decks, amplifiers and speakers side by side. ₹500, adjusted against anything you buy.
Visit or call usOur story so far
Kalo Chaka Records, year by year
- 1979
A repair counter on Lindsay Street
Tapan Das opens a counter two metres wide, repairing valve radios and gramophones, and sells the records customers never come back for.
- 1996
Records in the back room
As CDs take over, Tapan keeps buying LPs by the kilo from house clearances in north Kolkata, until the back room holds ten thousand.
- 2012
The first deck built upstairs
His son Arijit builds a belt-drive turntable on a plinth of old teak from a demolished Bowbazar house. It sells in a week.
- Today
A listening room and 40,000 records
The shop now builds amplifiers and speakers, restores decks, and opens a listening room upstairs, Tuesday to Sunday.
Listen
Book the room or ask us on WhatsApp.
Choose
We help match deck, amplifier and speakers.
Set up
Delivered and set up in your room in Kolkata.
Reviews
What customers say
Sample reviews, written for this demo. Real customer reviews replace them on your store.
I brought my father’s old records to the listening room. Arijit set up a deck and we played them for an hour. I left with the deck.
They delivered the speakers to our flat in Behala, moved them three times until the bass sat right, and would not take tea until it did.
Bought two VG+ records by post. Both were exactly as graded, packed between boards, and arrived in five days.
New arrivals every Friday.
A short WhatsApp list of the week’s crate finds and new pressings, with photos.