Vinyl analysis - sales performanceof vinyl long playing albums

Men's Fitness, Oct, 1998

Sometimes it takes an accountant to spot a trend: Back in 1988, the recording industry launched a study to gauge sales of different music formats everything from CDs to cassettes to singles to music videos. During the next nine years, volume doubled industrywide - healthy for any industry - but vinyl LP sales alone more than doubled between 1995 and 1997.

Hardcore audiophiles (including our audiophiliac editor in chief) have always maintained that vinyl, if painstakingly maintained, reproduces music better than CD. Vinyl seems to have more warmth and presence than digital formats; it's as if the musicians are actually performing in your listening room.

In recent years, numerous performers have produced well-engineered vinyl simultaneously with their CD releases: everyone from Paul McCartney to the Foo Fighters to the Beastie Boys (in addition to the million or so Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty CDs, some 20,000 12-inch vinyl discs have also hit the stores). And we're not just talking about a few titles here: Billboard magazine reports that 25 percent of the 200 most popular compact discs released last year also landed on record shelves in vinyl format.

Concurrent with the major recording labels keeping their fingers in the vinyl pie (EMI is releasing a series of records to celebrate its centennial, while Capitol's Blue Note label has been issuing - and reissuing - jazz records for years), numerous smaller companies have fueled the LP revival by producing material from original analog tapes. Chesky Records, Classic Records and Music Direct offer everything from rock to jazz to blues to classical. In addition, small record shops reselling used vinyl for as little as $3 to $10 can be found in virtually all major cities, while places like Goodwill Industries often peddle pristine LPs for mere pennies.

All it takes to explore the LP's benefits is a turntable - just excavate yours from that box in the garage, hook it up to your stereo, and make Frampton come alive again. Buying a new 'table will run you anywhere from the sensible ($250 or less) to the seemingly insane ($40,000). The Thorens turntable pictured here, for example, may seem pricey at $999 plus cartridge, but the lifelike sound it reproduces adds up to a nirvanalike experience that CDs just can't duplicate. (Thorens, like Rotel, Sony and Creek, makes wallet-friendlier entry-level models, too.) Bottom line: Properly set up turntables and newly cleaned records can be played virtually pop- and static-free.

To be sure, CDs are here to stay; they play music without muss and fuss, which is good for anyone. But it's also certain that the LP, like a good man, just can't be kept down.

Finding it

Turntables: Creek, 516-487-3663; Rotel, 978-664-3820; Sony, 800-222-7669; Thorens, 718-847-4289.

LPs: Chesky Records, 800-331-1437 (www.chesky.com); Classic Records, 800-457-2577 (www.classicrecs.com); Music Direct, 800-449-8333 (www.amusicdirect.com).