Buying Records

I try to buy new whenever possible and have settled in on buying some series type stuff (The Lost Recordings and Tone Poet Society).  It’s to hit or miss with used records.  I like to support my local record store, but only buy his best stuff, but honestly with streaming I question myself sometimes.  I turned 60 this year and really trying to not have as much stuff overall.  

I buy from Acoustic sounds , Tonepoet society Tier1, verve record club, CD Japan

Discog, ebay, Etsy, universal Music and Amazon, Target etc

price range $31to $250

just check Bollywood Vinyl on ebay.

Im surprised no one mentioned Whatnot. Thats really the best place to buy used records and there some vendors that will sell new sealed very close to wholesale. 

I try to buy only used.  There are a couple of local record stores I rely on that have stuff in pretty good shape, at least "good", if not very good or mint.  I use ritualistic cleaning to bring them back to life as I've learned from the likes of Tom Port at Better Records that the music from the 70's and earlier more often than not will not be surpassed by anything produced today.

Prices for vinyl are insane and continue to go up. Recording quality is all over the map and more often than not, a disappointment. Many of the companies I've bought from have poor web sites, slow to very slow delivery times and are just difficult to deal with. I'd say that for every ten records I buy (180 gram) that have had rave reviews are average at best and have cost close to $40 each- absurd and frustrating. After investing 6k in a turntable and cartridge, $1000 in a phono pre amp, cables, cleaning products etc. I find it was a very expensive and frustrating walk down memory lane from 45 years ago. Streaming is 1000% better, endless variety, instant, flexible and the second I don't like a song or a recording I jump to something else with no frustration or sinking feeling of having just flushed $40 down the drain for a crappy recording. Oh, yeah, and between Roon, Quboz and Tidal I spend less than $450 a year. I stopped wasting my money on vinyl after buying about 75-100 records which cost about 4k, most of which are annoying to try to listen to. Other than that though...hah!