“I owe just about everything in my life to music,” says Dillon Smith, founder of Noble Records in Matthews, North Carolina.

From buying his first records as a kid to selling vinyl online starting in 2010, Dillon Smith’s passion for collecting never stopped. He spent years rescuing forgotten collections from basements and storage units — until his own collection became too big to contain.

In 2018, he introduced himself to the YouTube vinyl community. One year later, he was laid off and took a leap of faith — selling off records and music gear to open a brick-and-mortar record store in.

Six years on, Noble Records is a must-visit for collectors, and Dillon’s YouTube channel has grown to 120K+ subscribers and 500+ videos, making it one of the most beloved vinyl channels on the platform.

This is the story of how one collector built a vinyl destination from the ground up, in both the analog and digital worlds.