Bill McKinley, the 72-year-old owner of Chestnut Hill Audio, doesn't mind being told he is "old school."

Furthermore, he says, he's not the only one.

"Turntables have made a comeback and are now bigger than ever," he told the Local. "Vinyl and records are making people listeners again."

McKinley's been running the shop on Germantown Avenue between West Abington and Willow Grove Avenues since 2016 when he bought it from former owner John Adams, who started what was then called Community Audio by selling electronic equipment out of his house in Mt. Airy in 1982.

In 1987, Adams moved the business to the building next door, at 8020 Germantown Ave., where it remained until he retired in 2016. He now lives in the West Chester area with his wife, Elena Maria Aldrete, a talented artist who was born in Peru.

McKinley, who still uses a cane and has a visible limp because of a head-on collision on I-95 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, while driving his Volkswagen bus on July 17, 1977, funded his start in the business with the proceeds of that accident's insurance settlement.

"The other guy was in the passing lane going the wrong way," said McKinley. "I was laid up for two years and had three operations. I was in the hospital three times for two weeks each time. I was in a body cast and have had this limp ever since."

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, McKinley also lived in New York state, New Jersey and Illinois while growing up because his father, owner of a publishing company, often moved around. After graduating from Swarthmore High School in 1970, McKinley attended Allegheny College, 27 miles south of Erie, as an English major and spent the 1970s in that area. He worked his way through college by cleaning dishes.

"I was already into audio stuff," he said last week. "My brother left me a great audio system when he moved to Switzerland. I got a grant from CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) to learn sound reinforcement, and I built a soundproof room for an orchestra."

Then in 1980, McKinley used his insurance settlement to buy TPR Sound in Wallingford, where he sold audio equipment until 1984.

"I eventually got sick of dealing with club owners, venues and banks," he said. "There was always something wrong."

So he moved to Mt. Airy and went to work for Sound Works in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where he stayed until 1991.

Then he decided to take up the gardening business, during which years he lived in Chestnut Hill and Wyndmoor. But by 1995, he was back in sound, and working for Adams.

"John Adams had a really burgeoning business in the 1990s installing audio and video systems – Samsung, 2G and Sony – in big houses," McKinley said. "We even put a $30,000 projector in a horse barn."

McKinley, who had been working for Adams since 1995, bought the business when Adams retired and moved it next door six months later.

And business is still going strong.

"Video is really a good deal for consumers now. They are funded by Netflix and Amazon Prime and sold relatively cheaply. You put a speaker in the kitchen and a disc player in the basement," he said. "Now, with streaming it is easier than ever. These things talk to each other. You can put an amplifier up in the soffit. You don't have to have wires everywhere."

Most of his customers are local to the area, he said, and come in to update their system about every five years or so. All told, he said, he's got about 2,000 names in his database, almost all within a nine-mile radius.

And all of them are serious audiophiles, he said. His shop is not for dilettantes.

"Some people will say, 'I've walked by this place for 15 years and never came in,'" he said.

As for the 'kids,' he said, "they don't even know what this stuff is." According to McKinley, young people nowadays want to make their music on a computer.

"I had a Texas Instruments computer in 1980," he said, "but they have really gone downhill since then. We were designing a computer mixing board. Now you just have to know what app to download. No wonder nobody's learning anything. And AI is even worse. I always experimented and tried to see things from an engineering point of view."

Eric Corson, a longtime customer and Germantown resident, described McKinley as "a rare breed from the old school."

"Bill even makes house calls," Corson said. "He came to my house to troubleshoot my stereo system. The CD player I bought from him is top of the line, fabulous. Bill is. It's stores like his that make Chestnut Hill unique."

For more information, call 215-242-4080. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.