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I drove up to Baltimore (from the DC area) last night to have dinner with a friend in the Fells Point area, which has become quite stylish in the last decade or so. After dinner, we walked back to his hotel near the inner harbor, and we passed a large store that sells new and used LPs, among many other things related to music. It's called "Sound Garden", on Thames Street. They have quite a large stock of jazz, R&B, and pop LPs, new re-issues and used in good condition. The good news is that the new re-issues are considerably less expensive than prices seen at typical mail order businesses. I saw nothing priced higher than $19 and by far most stuff is less than $15. These were OJCs, Blue Note re-issues, Riverside, etc. They also sell Audio Technica turntables, one of which that I saw bears a startling resemblance to a Technics SL1200. Needless to say, I dropped a quick hundred bucks.
Follow Ups:
Sound Garden is great, and often wins "Best Record Store" in various local polls. By the way, here in Baltimore "Thames" rhymes with "James", not with "Hems".
My favorite place for used vinyl is The True Vine in the Hampden neighborhood, another rapidly changing commercial district.
The place mentioned by EdAinWestOC, Trax on Wax, is also highly recommended.
Happy listening,
Jim
"The passage of my life is measured out in shirts."
- Brian Eno
"Finding" Sound Garden so serendipitously then led me to investigate for other LP stores in the B'more area, and there do seem to be one or two others of merit. The DC area is now relatively barren, except for Joe's Record Paradise and a few others in the Silver Spring area. (No doubt this will prompt someone to remind me of a few more good stores closer to my home with which I am either not familiar or have forgotten about.)
CD Cellar, they have stores in Arlington and Falls Church. The Falls Church store has grown to two seperate tennents in the same building, the main level is all vinyl and the basement level is all digital.
Try Trax On Wax on Fredrick Road in Catonsville. I have had some luck there and there is a large selection to choose from.
It tends to be mostly Rock but I have seen R&B and many other genres represented.
Ed
We don't shush around here!
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof
Hi Lew,
I have not checked within the past year or so but one local high end dealer (Stereo Unlimited - San Diego) has an entire room for LPs, new and used. The last time I looked there at new (reissued) OJCs they were priced about $10-12. I'm looking to reduce my collection so have not been buying recently. But the next time I'm near that store I'll check prices.
I must admit with so many companies reissuing LPs now I would feel cautious about buying without checking with the store. Bruce is a very up front guy so I'll ask him about their OJCs.
"You can't know what the "best" is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn't any such thing." HP
There are quite a few '180-gram' reissues that are semi-legal, and mastered from the CD. This is likely to be true if the LP is from Italy, where they have a 25-year copyright law. The Scorpio reissues are legal, owing to a highly favorable contract the Scorpio guy signed in the 90s when vinyl was on the way out, but the sound on them is poor.
Genuine high-quality, all-analog reissues from reputable outfits like Acoustic Sounds, Music Matters, ORG, and Speaker's Corner are not going to be cheap; in fact, the retailers make very little money on them.
none of the 3-4 new re-issues that I bought look any different from re-issues I have purchased from the companies you named. However, I will let you and others know if I detect any evidence of bootlegging or other types of fraud. Although less costly than the mail order houses, the prices are not THAT much less than standard so as to make one suspicious.
Lew, check the number in the dead wax of the re-issues. If it starts with the letter "S" it's a Scorpio.
The dead wax shows "OJC" followed by a 5-6 digit number. If it were a Scorpio, would the "S" also be followed by a number? Or just the letter "S"? This LP is nominally on "Riverside". The other two are "Blue Note".
The "S" would be followed by a dash and a number. On the Freddie Redd album I mentioned, Side 1 is S-56242 and Side 2 is S-56243. There are other numbers and symbols, but the "S" stuff is on all the ones I have.Problem is once these things are sold, it would be very easy to re-sell them as "originals" to someone who doesn't know from Scorpio.
Edits: 07/31/15
I did some Googling on Scorpio Records. The worst I could find, in terms of a comment on the sound quality, was "spotty". The name seems associated with the Record Exchange in Princeton, NJ. So far as I know, that business is reputable. There was a poorly substantiated story also that organized crime in NJ and NYC had tried to buy in to the record business via MCA and maybe they used Scorpio as the name of their business interests and maybe this was also somehow tied in with the Record Exchange. But it's more rumor than fact, probably enough evidence for Roger Goodell to indict them, however.
The same Scorpio that was the cutout king and perhaps linked to OC in NJ in the 70's? Joe's bought from them back then and had odd things to say about them.
E
T
Yeah, probably. All I really know about Scorpio is from the dozen or so that I bought from Dusty Groove America some years ago. Quite obscure or semi-obscure jazz records (example: Freddie Redd's "Shades of Redd" on Blue Note). The ones i have look great, are well-centered, flat, and quiet. How do they sound? In cases where I have originals or re-issues from one of the better known companies, not so great. They seem to be okay as placeholders where the originals command high prices. I personally would not knowingly buy any more of them.EDIT: For what it's worth, I paid $9.95 for each of mine.
Edits: 07/30/15
....with that kind of equipment, you should certainly be able to hear the mastering quality, or lack thereof, on these reissues. However, without an original or a $50 45-RPM reissue to compare them to, you might not know how good they can be.
Having read complaints about these sorts of reissues on other forums, I can assure you that the worst ones are very obviously inferior.
I was only trying to help the business in question (on Thames Street in Baltimore) and anyone here who might wish to augment his or her collection, by citing this store. No matter what is the provenance of the new re-issues I bought (and I will let you guys know once I start listening to them), they do also have a good selection of good quality used LPs, original pressings and what-not. And their grading system for condition of used LPs seems quite conservative and fair.Oddly enough, I consider myself to be not in the market for LPs; I "inherited" 800 jazz and R&B LPs from the collection of a dear friend who recently passed away. He was as anal as any of us regarding his collection (which totaled more than 6000 LPs), and every one of these LPs is perfect. Added to my own collection of about 1500 LPs, I have more than enough right now to keep me occupied, not to mention the combination of his and my own CDs and SACDs. BUT, when you've had a little wine with dinner and you are walking right by an apparently interesting record store, and it's hot outside and cool inside, who can resist?
Vinyl1, Where did you see a listing of my system? It's probably not up to date.
EDIT: So I just checked out my system listing. It was indeed way out of date. I updated it.
Edits: 07/30/15
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