Where to dig for house & techno vinyl, mapped by the crew at SEVEN.
Berlin is one of the best cities in the world to dig for records. We are SEVEN, a DJ-owned house & techno record shop in Berlin-Mitte, and this is our honest map of where to go, with our place as the natural start or finish. Everywhere on this list is a friend of ours — we stock each other’s records, share artists and run our own labels, so you will find a real community behind these shelves, not a tourist trail.
SEVEN is a proper house & techno dig in its own right, not just the meeting point for this guide. Our DJ-owned record shop in Berlin-Mitte has a full wall of new house & techno curated by Jonny Mojo, four seated Technics listening stations, a rotating second-hand corner, DJ gear and free drinks while you dig. Run and staffed by working DJs, SEVEN is one of the record shops Berlin locals come back to every week. Whatever route you take, begin or end your day with us.
Plan your visit →The institution. Mark Ernestus’s temple of techno, dub and the whole Basic Channel lineage. No frills, no small talk, excellent selection. A pilgrimage for anyone serious about the low end.
◆ Berlin techno landmarkClose friends of ours in a Kreuzberg courtyard. Tightly curated house, techno and lots of second-hand gems, with listening stations to take your time. They stock SEVEN and A.2AUM, so look for us on their shelves too.
◆ Stocks SEVEN & A.2AUMDeep, eclectic digging from Castro Moore and Nemo Ripoll: obscure disco, Balearic, ambient and rare used records. They designed and built the custom listening speakers in our shop, so you have already heard their work if you have visited us.
◆ Built the speakers at SEVENThe smaller OYE, tucked between Kreuzberg and Neukölln. House, disco, soul and jazz from one of the warmest crews in the city, with staff who genuinely love to dig with you. Run by the wonderful Sabine.
◆ Stocks SEVENCinthie’s shop, and one of the most loved in the city. Berlin house royalty doing the curation and the wonderful Eva behind the counter. Quality classic house and dancefloor selection, and Cinthie’s own labels in the racks. Must be visited.
◆ Owned by CinthieMartin’s second-hand electronic haunt: house, techno, Italo and plenty of niche corners. Fresh records most weeks, and one of the favourites of Berlin DJs in the know.
💿 Second-hand electronicWell worth the trip east. Josef Riedl’s shop leans house, techno and jazz on fresh vinyl, with its own artists and label behind it. Good friends of ours: we stock their records at SEVEN and they stock ours.
◆ We stock each other’s recordsTurn on JavaScript to build a route to live opening hours for any day and start time.
Opening hours are pulled from each shop’s Google listing and refreshed every morning (last 2026-08-28), holidays included. It is always worth a quick check before a long trip east.
A rotating series: working DJs share a few records they bought, loved or recommend from the crates at SEVEN, our house & techno record shop in Berlin-Mitte, in their own words. Real picks, in stock, straight from the racks.
Andre is a house producer and DJ who has spent years building a quiet but steady presence in the underground scene. He runs his own label Big Trouble Records, with over 25 releases, and is a weekly regular at SEVEN.
More diggers coming soon.
Berlin DJs mostly dig in Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Friedrichshain and Mitte. The regular stops for house and techno include SEVEN in Mitte, Hard Wax and Bikini Waxx in Kreuzberg, OYE and Sound Metaphors around Kreuzkölln and Neukölln, Elevate and Audio-In in Friedrichshain, and black.round.twelve in Lichtenberg. Most sit a short ride from each other, so a single afternoon can cover three or four.
Most DJ gigs are at the weekend, so Berlin-based DJs tend to dig mid-week, with Thursday a popular day, leaving them fresh records for their weekend sets. DJs visiting Berlin for a gig often do the opposite, arriving a day or two early to dig on the Friday for records they cannot find at home. SEVEN’s collection is full of releases from local Berlin labels and artists that are hard to find elsewhere, so we regularly see visiting DJs come in on a Friday or Monday to pick up the sound of Berlin while they are here. It is also why SEVEN and many other shops stay open late, until 20:00, on Thursday and Friday.
For new and second-hand house and techno, the shops we send people to are SEVEN, Hard Wax, Bikini Waxx, Elevate, OYE, Sound Metaphors, Audio-In and black.round.twelve. Each has its own character: Hard Wax for the techno and dub lineage, Elevate for classic house, Sound Metaphors for disco and Balearic. SEVEN specialises in hard-to-find house and techno across minimal, dub techno and dub house, with many underground and local labels, plus comfy seated listening stations.
Elevate stocks Cinthie’s own labels such as 803 Crystal Grooves, and black.round.twelve carries the local labels it also distributes. SEVEN works closely with Berlin community collectives and holds exclusive releases from labels like Mitmischen, Layers, Dessert, Is Serving, Lethal Loops and Big Trouble Records, alongside a dedicated FLINTA* crate and a Friends and Family crate of the artists and labels SEVEN is closest to.
SEVEN has four seated Technics listening stations, so you can audition a whole stack before you buy, and Bikini Waxx has listening stations too. Hard Wax and Elevate have standing listening stations. Several other shops will happily cue a record up for you at the counter, so it is always worth asking in-store.
There is no limit, as long as there is no queue for the listening station. If a station is free for the next customer, take your time; if a queue is forming, listen to a few and then let the next person have a turn. Some diggers, especially DJs, listen to dozens of records over a couple of hours before choosing just a few. Digging is meant to be an enjoyable journey rather than a rush, so use it to find music you do not already know.
Don’t worry, everyone has a first time and the good shops are welcoming to newcomers, so just be friendly and ask if you are unsure about something. There are no complicated rules, only common sense and kindness. Shops with listening stations, like SEVEN, OYE, Bikini Waxx and Elevate, expect you to listen before buying, and DJs often listen to dozens before choosing a few, so there is no need to rush. Seated stations, like those at OYE and SEVEN, signal that you can sit down and take your time, while standing stations, like Hard Wax and Elevate, suggest being a little quicker. If a queue forms, share the space; if not, stay as long as you like. When handling vinyl, hold records by the edges to keep fingerprints off the grooves, use the lever on the tonearm to raise and lower it, and take care sliding records in and out of sleeves. When you are done with anything you are not buying, use the shop’s return bins rather than re-filing it yourself, as shops prefer to re-crate vinyl so it goes back in exactly the right place.
Generally, very much so. Berlin is a hugely international city that welcomes thousands of visitors and touring DJs every weekend, and almost all record shop staff speak both English and German. They are used to helping visitors find their way around the city, recommending events and nightlife, and pointing people towards Berlin labels and collectives they might not know yet. The smaller shops like OYE, Elevate and SEVEN stand out as the most tourist-friendly in their Google reviews, and SEVEN’s team has three native German speakers and three native English speakers.
Plenty of them. Berlin’s music scene is so dense that its house and techno record shops are staffed largely by working DJs who spend their days behind the counter. OYE in Kreuzkölln is managed by DJ Sabine Hoffman, SHED works at Hard Wax, and Berlin house legend Cinthie owns Elevate. At SEVEN the team includes DJs CRYME, Rachel Noon, ogtrues and Jonny (Mojo), so the advice you get across the counter comes from people who are out playing most weekends.
Cards are fine everywhere. It used to be true that Berlin strongly preferred cash, but the pandemic changed that and card payments are now completely normal. Every record shop you are likely to visit on a trip takes cards as well as cash, and none of them will mind how you pay.
Most Berlin record shops open around midday and close in the early evening, and many are shut on Sundays (some on Mondays too), so weekday afternoons and Saturdays are safest. Some shops like Hard Wax get busy, while others like OYE and SEVEN are more relaxed, and plenty of diggers happily stay for a couple of hours. Opening hours do change, so it is worth checking on Google Maps before a long trip, as most shops keep those up to date: our build-a-day planner above uses each shop’s live Google hours.
For used house, techno and electronic vinyl, OYE has the biggest collection, with Audio-In and Bikini Waxx close behind, and Sound Metaphors carries rare used records. SEVEN specialises in hard-to-get second-hand vinyl and generally buys whole collections from DJs, which makes its second-hand corner especially club and DJ focused. Fresh stock actually arrives daily rather than in a weekly Friday drop, and shops put it out as fast as they can, so any weekday is worth a look.
Yes, most Berlin shops buy second-hand vinyl, though generally they will want a look at your collection first. The most record-store-friendly way to do this is to build a list of what you want to sell on Discogs. All record stores use Discogs as a main source for understanding and organising vinyl; it is the Wikipedia of recorded music. Emailing the store or the buyer with a Discogs link to your collection shows you are a serious and organised seller, and it lets the store easily value the collection and see how well it fits their genres and focus. OYE, Sound Metaphors and Audio-In all deal heavily in used records, and most shops focus on the genres they know best, so house and techno collections are easiest to place. SEVEN specialises in club-focused second-hand vinyl and regularly buys whole collections from DJs, so if you are clearing out house, techno or electronic records it is a good first port of call, and the buyer at SEVEN is Jonny, who curated the whole store and is the person to speak to or email.
Yes. Most Berlin record shops will happily wrap and post records, and many diggers travel with a soft record bag or a small flightcase for hand luggage so their vinyl stays with them. Shops that sell online, like SEVEN, HHV, OYE and Elevate, ship internationally as standard, so if you buy in-store and would rather not carry a heavy stack, ask staff to post it home for you. SEVEN ships to more than 40 countries worldwide and can send your in-store finds on to you, which is handy if you are flying with hand luggage only or want to keep digging without lugging records around the city.
Yes. Berlin record shops vary online: some, like Bikini Waxx, sell through Discogs rather than their own site, while OYE and Elevate list part of their catalogue on their own websites. The two biggest for Berlin DJ music online are HHV and SEVEN, who both put their whole collection online with track previews and a browsing experience built for diggers. SEVEN’s site adds extensive human curation by DJ Jonny Mojo, plus an analysed BPM for every track and a BPM and genre search.
We are biased, but honestly: SEVEN is a DJ-owned house and techno record shop in Berlin-Mitte with a strong focus on DJs, club music and hard-to-find vinyl, four seated listening stations, DJ gear and a second-hand corner. It is run and staffed by working DJs, and its Google reviews consistently praise the service, atmosphere, selection and the advice from staff. It makes an easy start or finish to a digging day because it is central, two minutes from Rosenthaler Platz.
