Vinyl help

Got a retro record player for Christmas along with 3 records.
Dark Side Of The Moon
Wish You Were Here
Credence Greatest Hits

Now I’m getting the vinyl itch. There may be a decent sized vinyl collection taking form here.

What’s the best shop online to get them?

 

I’m getting the itch, too.

I have about an $800 system, so for me to bitch about original pressing vs. new pressing is pretty moot since my system probably can’t pick it up.

They are repressing albums now, so they are scratch free. It’s nice to find a clean, old album at an estate sale

Are there any used record places in your neck of the woods?

I have places close to me, so my collection is growing. I will say, getting a good record cleaner helps a ton and get a good power strip to protect what you have.

 

Amazon is pretty solid for records. Good prices, generally good about packaging them in proper mailers. (There are occasional horror stories of Amazon jut slapping a mailing label on the record and sending it out, but it's rare and they have an incredibly easy return policy.)

A lot of good, smaller stores do mail order. Amoeba Records has their stock online with free shipping. I've done well with Zia Records (Phoenix based) and Salzers Records (Ventura) as well. The In Groove in Phoenix is particularly great for audiophile recordings.

Also definitely check out Discogs. It serves as sort of an ebay for vinyl, and doubles as a great place to catalog your collection. A lot of the sellers are independent record stores. It's the go-to spot for anything remotely hard to find. (And I highly recommend cataloging your collection as you go. It has saved my ass through endless "do I have this already?" debates standing in record stores.

 

I've used eBay with success. Straight from artists too.

We also have a few local stores that I hit up from time to time, and have also been successful at on Record Store Day, which is a thing and since I have been following it has gotten almost stupid popular. Taylor Swift had one out for it last year, and it was crazy. But it also helped me find the ones I wanted pretty easily as the focus was off of them.

 

I knew I should have grabbed one of these when my local store closed.

 

Whaddya need?

I got Springsteen, the Who, the Kinks, James Taylor, Southside Johnny, Emmylou, Dave Edmunds/Rockpile, lot, lots more, all in pretty good condition. My Creedence was played to death.

 

Let’s see…..
Just off the top off my head….
AC/DC—Back In Black
Pink Floyd—-The Wall/Animals/Meddle
Springsteen——Born In The USA
Any Zeppelin
Any VH
Bon Jovi—-New Jersey/Slippery When Wet

 

I’m going to start and try to get the top two albums via reviews (all music?) from each iconic band.

 

Check out rateyourmusic.com for reviews. It’s my go-to for this sort of thing.

 

Vinyl Records, SACDs, DVD Audio, Audiophile Equipment|Acoustic Sounds

 

Come on over to my garage where I have my collection of 500 or so albums (and probably as many CDs -- oh, and don't forget a couple hundred cassettes) packed away in boxes: I haven't had my stereo set up since two moves and 20 years ago and I'm still planning to do it "someday."

Now I listen to stuff on flimsy earbuds on Amazon Music, on the cellphone sitting in my hand.

 

Somewhere back in my boxes of junk I had a hundred or so 45s I bought in my days as a budding young disc jockey in the early mid Seventies.

Oh, hey! I just remembered I have a long since crashed out old PC from right around the turn of the millennium, right after the Napster era, that I have a couple thousand mp3s on it -- maybe I'll sic my computer genius nephew on it to see if he can resurrect it and transfer the files.

At least I don't have any 8-track tapes. Or reel-to-reels. Good god.