Apparently, LP sales still accounts for 0.5% of all music sales despite the majority of retail and online stores only selling CDs and music downloads only. The reason is that club DJ's, older generation of audiophiles and interestingly, some college students still insist on sticking with the vinyl, even though many also buy CDs and use online music download services.

Some argue that vinyl records sound better, that with the right equipment they produce a warmer, richer tone than their computerized counterparts. Just listen to that baritone voice of Johnny Cash on one of those early Columbia LPs, Rhoden suggests: "That's a natural sound. The CD just sounds thin in comparison."

Loyal Lawrence of Audio Service Co., a store specializing in refurbished turntables in North Asheville, agrees: "I can't say exactly what it is. Perhaps an engineer could say it better, but some of the harmonics are lost, resulting in a lack of warmth." This may have to do with the basic differences between analog and digital recording technology.

A digital recording like a compact disc or an audio file on your iPod is a computerized approximation of the analog sound wave that has been converted into a stream of numbers (ones and zeros). Although the technology is improving - especially with the advancement of DVD audio - a digital recording cannot completely capture the full sound wave. There is a loss of data in the process, sort of like the loss of detail when a photograph is displayed on a computer monitor.