Definitive Audiophile pressings

MikeH said:
I did a big purge back in July. I purchased someone's record collection a long time ago for $150 or something like that. It was about 700 LPs. A lot of junk (even though it was all in good condition) but also enough good stuff to more than make up for the price. I kept them all at my office/studio. I decided to move out of there back in July since I wasn't going in because of COVID, so I picked through and kept the must-haves. Then I called up my local, he came and gave me $250 for a bunch of them. The others went into a dumpster since I couldn't find anybody to buy them or even come take them. That got rid of about 550 or so LPs from my collection which actually felt good since a lot of it was just filler. But even now, I have a lot of stuff where I only like 2-3 songs on an album and don't feel the need to ever spin them. I need to go through my jazz section too since I went on a big jazz kick for a year or two and scoured eBay for any good deals I could find.

My problem is that I go through them every few months to pull out albums I don't think i NEED anymore, then spin them "one last time" and end up keeping them haha
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I have been doing this during the pandemic and have a few items put aside, but I need to go back to weed harder. I don't want to go the discogs route to sell so I just have to wait until I can actually trade them in at a record store. Some day.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I have been doing this during the pandemic and have a few items put aside, but I need to go back to weed harder. I don't want to go the discogs route to sell so I just have to wait until I can actually trade them in at a record store. Some day.
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Yea--I'm definitely weighing the selling on discogs + effort needed for that with just selling to my local. I'd make WAY more selling on discogs but not sure I can be bothered to...I might sell anything over $20 on discogs and everything else to my local.

Right before the pandemic I sold a bunch to my local and my fiancee was so proud of me. That sentiment quickly changed to disappointment when she found out that I got store credit instead of cash hahah
 
MikeH said:
I mostly did it because I don't have the space for them and realized I will never listen to them. I got my money's worth from buying it and selling off what I didn't listen to anymore. It was nice to downsize but I still have a ways to go!
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I have the same problem. Have no space. You are can inspiration, I'll work harder at it this year. See if I can at list sort a-z by the end of lockdown :)
 
MikeH said:
Yea--I'm definitely weighing the selling on discogs + effort needed for that with just selling to my local. I'd make WAY more selling on discogs but not sure I can be bothered to...I might sell anything over $20 on discogs and everything else to my local.

Right before the pandemic I sold a bunch to my local and my fiancee was so proud of me. That sentiment quickly changed to disappointment when she found out that I got store credit instead of cash hahah
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I brought mine to my local favorite and asked for store credit over cash. In fact, when the store re-opened I paid for new records rather than apply to my large credit balance. Support the locals and they will be loyal back!

The problem wth Discogs is that (a) it is a PITA to ship individual records, (b) you get a lot of nitpickers and scammer who complain about trivialities or try to get a refund/part refund for some perceived flaw, and (c) they can stay up on Discogs for a long time if not a really hot title.

I sold ones that were valued in the hundreds on Discogs only. The rest to my local guys.
 
RHANDMJ said:
I brought mine to my local favorite and asked for store credit over cash. In fact, when the store re-opened I paid for new records rather than apply to my large credit balance. Support the locals and they will be loyal back!

The problem wth Discogs is that (a) it is a PITA to ship individual records, (b) you get a lot of nitpickers and scammer who complain about trivialities or try to get a refund/part refund for some perceived flaw, and (c) they can stay up on Discogs for a long time if not a really hot title.

I sold ones that were valued in the hundreds on Discogs only. The rest to my local guys.
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I have been incredibly lucky with selling on discogs. Never had a complaint that wasn't deserved (and the only complaint I have gotten from selling dozens of records on discogs is when USPS royally destroyed a package). I wouldn't ever attempt to sell tons of records on discogs though and anything under $15 or $20 makes no sense for me to sell online.

My locals just don't give good rates at all for selling for the most part since I'm in NYC and I don't entirely blame them. They'll offer me $2 for a record that I can sell (and they can sell) easily for $20-$25. They usually give 1.5x for store credit. Sometimes I'll bring a small stack of stuff I just can't be bothered to sell online or that I have trouble moving. Other times I'll just bring stuff by when it feels like they need some new inventory. But it's always a balance I find figuring out when to sell there vs online.
 
MikeH said:
I have been incredibly lucky with selling on discogs. Never had a complaint that wasn't deserved (and the only complaint I have gotten from selling dozens of records on discogs is when USPS royally destroyed a package). I wouldn't ever attempt to sell tons of records on discogs though and anything under $15 or $20 makes no sense for me to sell online.

My locals just don't give good rates at all for selling for the most part since I'm in NYC and I don't entirely blame them. They'll offer me $2 for a record that I can sell (and they can sell) easily for $20-$25. They usually give 1.5x for store credit. Sometimes I'll bring a small stack of stuff I just can't be bothered to sell online or that I have trouble moving. Other times I'll just bring stuff by when it feels like they need some new inventory. But it's always a balance I find figuring out when to sell there vs online.
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Wow, that's nothing! My local buys it for half of what they'll sell it for, so your $20-25 example would net me $10-12. What does NYC have to do with low ball offers you get on your records?
 
Splunders said:
Wow, that's nothing! My local buys it for half of what they'll sell it for, so your $20-25 example would net me $10-12. What does NYC have to do with low ball offers you get on your records?
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Yea — @JonnyH is right. cost of rent is extremely high. It often depends on who I get when I go into sell. One guy in particular is bad and I think he no longer works there. Sometimes they are fine and give okay value. The other side of it, and why I don’t feel too bad, is that their prices aren’t too crazy. I often get great used stuff from them for cheap. I also think they know what moves and what doesn’t, which is why some albums I can sell for $20 on discogs won’t move for $20 in their shop.
 
MikeH said:
Yea — @JonnyH is right. cost of rent is extremely high. It often depends on who I get when I go into sell. One guy in particular is bad and I think he no longer works there. Sometimes they are fine and give okay value. The other side of it, and why I don’t feel too bad, is that their prices aren’t too crazy. I often get great used stuff from them for cheap. I also think they know what moves and what doesn’t, which is why some albums I can sell for $20 on discogs won’t move for $20 in their shop.
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Yah knowing their customer base is huge. When I lived in Seattle I could go through my collection once a year and pull out stuff that u hadn't played in over a year that I felt I didn't need any more. The bigger shops on Seattle would literally take everything. Since I've been in Oly where I really have one store that I can sell to, theres been multiple times where I take a couple dozen records in to sell and they only take like half of them. Never cause of condition or anything like that, and sometimes for more valuable out of print stuff but they were just like, yah we'd have to give you too much for it to sit here for a year.
 
Here in Toronto, my regular gives typically 50% of Discogs median, lower for titles that don't move, higher for things that they can sell at Discogs high value. Fair and transparent.
Sonic Boom in Toronto rip off sellers horribly, taking advantage of students desperate to raise beer money and hipsters who are not bright enough to know better.Other stores are inbetween. The sadly departed Vortex was always fair - he tried to stay at around half his selling price, but had to go less on stuff that was too common.
Fair and transparent to me is always a better long term business strategy.
The rent excuse doesn't wash. Rental values are directly related to foot traffic and the demograhics \purchasing power of that traffic, and the commercial volumes that can be generated. If a store cant handle the rent, they are in the wrong location.
 
RHANDMJ said:
Here in Toronto, my regular gives typically 50% of Discogs median, lower for titles that don't move, higher for things that they can sell at Discogs high value. Fair and transparent.
Sonic Boom in Toronto rip off sellers horribly, taking advantage of students desperate to raise beer money and hipsters who are not bright enough to know better.Other stores are inbetween. The sadly departed Vortex was always fair - he tried to stay at around half his selling price, but had to go less on stuff that was too common.
Fair and transparent to me is always a better long term business strategy.
The rent excuse doesn't wash. Rental values are directly related to foot traffic and the demograhics \purchasing power of that traffic, and the commercial volumes that can be generated. If a store cant handle the rent, they are in the wrong location.
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What's your local?
 
RHANDMJ said:
Here in Toronto, my regular gives typically 50% of Discogs median, lower for titles that don't move, higher for things that they can sell at Discogs high value. Fair and transparent.
Sonic Boom in Toronto rip off sellers horribly, taking advantage of students desperate to raise beer money and hipsters who are not bright enough to know better.Other stores are inbetween. The sadly departed Vortex was always fair - he tried to stay at around half his selling price, but had to go less on stuff that was too common.
Fair and transparent to me is always a better long term business strategy.
The rent excuse doesn't wash. Rental values are directly related to foot traffic and the demograhics \purchasing power of that traffic, and the commercial volumes that can be generated. If a store cant handle the rent, they are in the wrong location.
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If you lived in NYC you would know that the whole "rental values tied to foot traffic" thing doesn't really matter for a lot of landlords. In theory it does, but I have rented enough commercial spaces to know that landlords don't really care. Rent is still high no matter where you are, especially if you're just selling records. Rent isn't entirely tied to foot traffic or commercial values here, especially in areas of Brooklyn like Williamsburg/Greenpoint. Commercial landlords are insane here and often delusional and prices are mostly unreasonable. My local has almost no foot traffic and I can assure you that their rent is high just due to it being in NY. And I'm not saying they can't handle the rent--the shop is doing fine. But the shop knows what sells and what doesn't, and just because an album sells for $25-$30 online doesn't mean they will be able to sell it for that in the store. They have to keep that in mind when purchasing used records.

With used records, my local prices below discogs median for nearly everything. They know what sells and how they can move stock easily. They aren't a store that is charging $20+ for a used copy of Rumours like a lot of other stores nearby would. They keep people coming in because their prices are still really fair and the new arrival bins are constantly restocked. I grabbed an early VG+/VG+ copy of Violent Femmes self-titled last time I was in there for $8. The cheapest copy currently on discogs is $57. Despite the often low prices when I bring in certain things to sell, they are transparent to me about why they can't pay a lot for some. They don't move a lot of used records from the 2000's unless they are rare. They also don't move a ton of hip hop. So if I bring them, to use a Toronto example, a Drake album that I could easily sell for $20-25 on reddit or discogs, they aren't going to offer me $10-$15 because they won't even be able to sell it for that in the store. It'll sit there for months/years.

I'm not mad at their practices at all. I completely understand where they are coming from. If I bring in a rare album, they'll give me decent value for it. Less than I can sell it for on discogs obviously, but still decent value. It just so happens that a lot of the things I end up wanting to sell are not rare, are easy to find and aren't really what they are looking to buy/sell. And they sell so many records because the prices are fair, so that works out in my favor more times than not. I often find records cheaper there than in record stores in tiny towns that have way less overhead.
 
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MikeH said:
Yea--I'm definitely weighing the selling on discogs + effort needed for that with just selling to my local. I'd make WAY more selling on discogs but not sure I can be bothered to...I might sell anything over $20 on discogs and everything else to my local.

Right before the pandemic I sold a bunch to my local and my fiancee was so proud of me. That sentiment quickly changed to disappointment when she found out that I got store credit instead of cash hahah
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I’ll typically list on Discogs and if it doesn’t move in a couple months, I’ll sell it to the store.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I have been doing this during the pandemic and have a few items put aside, but I need to go back to weed harder. I don't want to go the discogs route to sell so I just have to wait until I can actually trade them in at a record store. Some day.
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That's exactly what I'm doing. I basically have a crate right now filled with either doubles from upgrades and various LPs I don't listen to much. I've been keeping some mailers so I think I'll finally offer some up on here as PIFs but the main plan is to head to the local in Ottawa when the pandemic wanes and sell or do some trade-in. Summer, most likely. Hopefully, I don't have a second crate by then LOL.
 
I grabbed a copy of the 2003 KG Dark Side of the Moon AAA remaster from discogs the other week. I've been searching for that one for awhile and the price has been going up and up lately so finally pulled the trigger. Managed to find a copy in Canada that was somehow $80 shipped to the US. next cheapest US copy is $155 right now.

Spinning it now and man....this thing sounds good. If anybody ever comes across a copy for a good price, I'd definitely recommend picking it up. The 50th anniversary is coming up too in the next few years so maybe they will do another solid reissue of it but for now, this is the best I have ever heard this album sound. I have a 1975 copy in really great condition (it's the Wally cut which sounds good but not nearly as good as this) and this one is a massive upgrade.
 
MikeH said:
I grabbed a copy of the 2003 KG Dark Side of the Moon AAA remaster from discogs the other week. I've been searching for that one for awhile and the price has been going up and up lately so finally pulled the trigger. Managed to find a copy in Canada that was somehow $80 shipped to the US. next cheapest US copy is $155 right now.

Spinning it now and man....this thing sounds good. If anybody ever comes across a copy for a good price, I'd definitely recommend picking it up. The 50th anniversary is coming up too in the next few years so maybe they will do another solid reissue of it but for now, this is the best I have ever heard this album sound. I have a 1975 copy in really great condition (it's the Wally cut which sounds good but not nearly as good as this) and this one is a massive upgrade.
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Man, I got mine for a great deal. I agree it sounds great, but mine is pretty noisy 😭.
 
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