RECORD STORES in LOS ANGELES & the Internet |
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BEST PLACE TO SELL YOUR MUSIC: Amoeba Music Hollywood. This is the best place to sell or trade in your CDs, LPs, TAPEs, and DVDs.
BEST LISTENING ROOM: The record stores that have the best "listening stations" are HI-FI Haven in Whittier, Brooks Berdan in Monrovia and Audio Element in Pasadena. They have a small selection of classical CDs and vinyl, but they have large listening rooms with expensive HiFi systems. Take a stack of your favorite CDs to audition them on their very expensive equipment. See below for address and phone number.
BEST RECORD SWAP: On the first Sunday of each month there is a record swap meet at Pasadena City College. On the last Sunday of each month there is a swap meet in Orange. Record Surplus and Rockaway have parking lot sales quarterly. See below for links to these stores and call them. Check out my audio hifi webpage for recommendations on the best equipment to hear your music to it's fullest potential.
BEST CITIES: Three cities seem to have high concentrations of record stores: Hollywood, Whittier, and Santa Monica. Many of the record stores in these cities are clustered within a few blocks. Before you go to one record store in one city, see this website for record stores that are close by on the way.
BEST INTERNET DEALERS: Amoeba, Best Buy, Amazon, eBay.com
Many of these are "specialty" record shops that sell releases by major labels, small independent labels, audiophile labels, used CDs/records/tapes, and otherwise hard to find records. The top section lists Southern California shops and the second section lists internet stores. Before you go to any store, call first to verify location, open hours, parking locations, and types of music they sell.
Be weary of Best Buy though; they are building up a monopoly - once they are a monopoly and have successfully driven chains like Tower Records out of business, you can sure bet they will raise their prices to list price. That's what monopolies do - underprice and drive out competition, then jack up the prices. You must remember that shipping can make the prices of internet ordering higher than buying from a store. Once one store dominates a market by underpricing and driving their competitors out of business, that one store will jack up their prices. Amoeba Music in Hollywood is a used CD superstore, but I've noticed they're already raising their prices. For the first month, Amoeba Music was charging $6-$7 for used CDs, now the prices have gradually creeped to $10+ for used CDs. Pay $1-2 more and support small business, mom & pop, local indie, community based stores. I do not want any one single store to dominate the entire market for indie music, used music, or mainstream pop music.
A lot of record labels are "remastering" their old catalog albums, repackaging them, and re-releasing them as if they were new albums at new full list prices. Their "remastering" does not usually mean the labels are using higher fidelity remastering technologies such as JVC-XRCD or HDCD, it usually means they are remastering their recordings to become "hotter" or sound louder. The "remastered" reissues sound louder, but they are more compressed and are decreased in dynamic range, as compared to the previous releases. It would be nice if the record labels would remaster their catalog releases with JVC-XRCD or HDCD technology, but right now they're ruining their catalogs by making them sound as "hot" as rap music albums. The labels are tricking their customers into re-buying albums by vaguely promising that the remastered reissues will have better sound quality.
Read these articles: Is dynamic range compression destroying music? and Loudness war.
RECORD SHOPS on INTERNET |
DOWNLOAD Music Websites |
Chico Hamilton Quintet featuring Buddy Collette (1958)
Chico Hamilton - drums
Buddy Collette - flute/clarinet/tenor and alto sax
Jim Hall - guitar
Fred Katz - cello
Carson Smith - bass
out of print
Various Artists
"Blue Guitar"
Jazz instrumental dept
out of print
Blue Note Records
96581
Marin Marais
"The Bells Of St, Genevieve And Other Baroque Delights"
Les Concerts du Monde / Keith Clark
another great album, everybody should listen to this
Telarc Records
Jennifer Warnes
"The Hunter" 1992
Elliot Scheiner was nominated for a Grammy award for "Best Engineering."
great album, great songs, great voice, great production values, one of the most popular amoung audiophiles
out of print, a must have for any collection
Jennifer Warnes - Vocals, Producer;
Elliot Scheiner - Producer, Engineer, Mixing;
Jorge Calderon - producer;
Tom Winslow - Assistant Engineer;
Rob Meurer - Producer;
Stephen Barber - Arranger;
C. Roscoe Beck - Arranger, Producer;
Joel Derouin - String Arrangements;
Paul Dieter - Assistant Engineer;
David Michael Dill - Assistant Engineer;
Steve Forman - Rhythm Arrangements;
Mark Harder - Assistant Engineer;
Chet Himes - Engineer;
Sarah Jarman - Assistant Engineer;
Walter New - Associate Producer;
Charles Paakkari - Assistant Engineer;
Novi Novog - String Arrangements;
Suzie Katayama - String Arrangements;
Steven Strassman - Engineer;
Chris Bellman - Digital Editing
Private Music
Jennifer Warnes
"Famous Blue Raincoat"
another great album
out of print
ONE OF LAST LAST RECORDINGS WITH STEVIE RAY VAUGHN.
Private Music
Repercussion Unit
"In Need Again"
another great album
hard to find
John Bergamo and Ed Mann make amazing percussion music.
CMP Records
Pet Sounds Sucks: The Story vs. The Songs
by: Michael Barclay
RIP: Laser Library
RIP: Origami Vinyl
RIP: Pepperland Music
RIP: Wombleton Records, 5123 York Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90042
RIP: Laser Blazer, 10587 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310)475-4788
RIP: Records LA
RIP: La Canada Video
RIP: Beats Vinyl & Life
Beats Vinyl & Life
918 W Lincoln Ave #3, Anaheim, CA 92805 (BETWEEN HARBOR AND THE 5 FREEWAY- GRAY 2 STORY BUILDING), (714)774-7780
Orange County's only record store catering to Hip-Hop and Reggae. New and used Independent/ Major label Hip-Hop (12", EP's, LP's), Dancehall-Reggae 7", Comps, CD's, DVD's, Clothing, Accessories. Beats Vinyl & Life
RIP: Vinyl Fetish, Vinyl Fetish, 7305 Melrose, Hollywood, (213)935-1300
RIP: Music Man Murray, 5055 Exposition Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016, (323)734-9146, Murray Gershenz passed away on August 29, 2013, he sold his massive collection before then, Music Man Murray video
RIP: Exodus Records & Compact Discs, 8163 Arroyo Dr, Rosemead, CA 91770, (626)573-8818
RIP: Don's Music, 4873 Eagle Rock Blvd, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, (323)255-3551
RIP: 2 Catz Clothing, 337 W. 6th St., San Pedro, CA, 90731, (310)521-9965
RIP: 40 Sad Portraits Of Closed Record Stores
RIP: Music Baron, 1244 S Magnolia Ave, Anaheim, CA 92804, (714)527-7770
RIP: Auditory Odyssey., 6338 Laurel Canyon Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91606, (818)762-0266
RIP: Ken Crane's
RIP: Sea Level Records, 1716 W Sunset Blvd, Echo Park/Los Angeles, CA
RIP: Virgin Megastores
RIP: Hear Music, 1429 3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica, CA 90401, (310)319-9527
RIP: Circuit City
RIP: Amp Records, 6747 Greenleaf Ave # A, Whittier, CA 90601, (562) 464-0271
RIP: Aron's Records, 4/8/06
RIP: Rhino Records Westwood, last sale: 1/21-1/22/06
RIP: Wenzel's Music Town, 13117 Lakewood Blvd, Downey, CA 90242, (562)634-2928, went out of business and closed on September 16'th. This place had lots of rare vinyl.
RIP: Joey Jetson Music, went out of business in 2001
RIP: Starlight Roof John Cooper's obscure video store went out of business at end of August 2001
RIP: Opus Music, closed 7/01, founded by Japanese entrepreneur Tatsuya Hayashi. Tatsuya also had a massive JBL Paragon speaker he bought in Japan, ask for a demo.
RIP: Dave's Video, closed 12/02, 12144 Ventura Blvd, Studio City, CA 91604 (818)760-3472, this place had a huge selection to choose from.
RIP: DB Coopers
, closed 3/24/06
DB Coopers
DB Coopers
RIP: Destroy All Music, 3818 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, (213)663-9300
RIP: JDC's Record Shop - The Music Stop, 440 Pacific Coast Hwy, Hermosa Beach, (310)937-4455
RIP: GoBoy Records - 12/26/06, 1310 South Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach , CA 90277, (310)316.1957
RIP: Benway Records - 9/1/07, 306 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405, (310)396-8898