RETAIL PRICE RANGES

• Used vinyl albums: $3-$75

• New vinyl albums: $8.95-

$22.95 (list prices)

• Used CDs: $1.95-$5.95

• New CDs: $10.95-$19.95

(list prices)

"As long as I'm breathing, there's a market for records," said Willie Hines, who owns Replay Records, a Stockton store that specializes in selling new and used vinyl recordings.

Though the number of independent record stores continues to decline in the age of MP3s, iPhones, Internet sites and lower-priced big-box stores, sales of old-school vinyl albums have increased. According to a Recording Industry Association of America report, 36.6 percent more vinyl albums and extended-play (EP) discs were sold in 2007 than 2006, increasing sales revenue by 46.2 percent. Sales of CDs dropped 11.7 percent and revenue fell 20.5 percent in that same period.

That trend is playing out at two leading Stockton retail outlets: Hines' Replay store and Rasputin Music.

"I sell more vinyl than anything," said Hines, 53, who's owned Replay since 1994. "How long that will last, I don't know. Every day, there are major advances in technology. Business has definitely shrunk, period. But CDs are the biggest fatality."

"It's great," said Jennifer Murillo, 22, former general manager of Rasputin's Stockton outlet. "More people like the collectability of having records. LPs in general have boomed. They'll continue to boom, which is good. A lot of new issues are coming out on vinyl."

(Berkeley-based representatives of the nine-store Rasputin chain didn't respond to requests for comment.)

"I'm a big vinyl lover," said Dominic Casciato, a 21-year-old University of the Pacific senior majoring in music management. "Rasputin's selection is great. There's a lot of experimental stuff, jazz and all, like, the little niches you can dig into."

Consumers who buy vinyl recordings - many dance-club DJs and rappers always have - dig them for a variety of reasons, from sound quality to art, graphics and liner notes you can read without a magnifying glass.

"There's a certain ritual to it," said Michael Spencer, 64, a Stockton resident and weekly Replay customer. "You clean the record before you play it. And 15 or 20 minutes later, you get up out of your chair and turn it over. It's not just the mindless drifting of loading a CD player."

"With vinyl, it's a warmer sound," said Casciato, who's from San Diego and wasn't even born when CDs began replacing vinyl albums 24 years ago. "It's not all digitized and compressed. It's the real deep grooves."

"Vinyl still has a better sound to it," said Lloyd Dennis, 66, of Lodi, who recently purchased the vinyl version of Brian Wilson's new "That Lucky Old Sun" LP at Replay. "The CD is not as smooth as vinyl."

"So many people will buy a CD and say. 'God, it sounds like crap,'" Hines said.

Aesthetics count, too.

"People like the gatefold sleeves and they actually can read the liner notes," Hines said. "People definitely appreciate the artwork - the allure, as it were."

Increasing numbers of major artists such as Wilson are releasing high-grade vinyl versions of their new recordings. Often, they're accompanied by offers of free Internet downloads and other enticements, said Murillo, who helped open Stockton's Rasputin outlet in January 2007 and was its general manager for four months this year while completing her music management major at Pacific.

"When I was at Rasputin, (vinyl) was just, like, the way to go," said Murillo, who now works for Daisy Rock Guitars in Van Nuys. "Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' (album) sold tremendously when I was there. The sound is really spectacular."

Despite being more expensive in some cases, Hines said new vinyl albums - especially hip-hop records and jazz reissues by John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and Gil Scott-Heron, among others - outsell CDs.

Also, "Van Morrison, Radiohead and the new Coldplay ('Viva la Vida,' which includes the CD version, too)," said Hines. "Even if it's $22.95, they want it."

However, he sells even more used albums.

"Our old section's always empty," he said. "Stuff by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, the Doors and Jimi Hendrix is always just flying out."

Used LPs - many priced at less than $5 - certainly suit a college student's economic tune.

"It seems CDs are so expensive nowadays," said Casciato, who purchased his record-playing turntable for $30 at a garage sale. "I can buy five used records at Rasputin for the price of a new CD."

Hines said vinyl's downsides - hisses, scratches pops and warping - aren't a major issue at Replay.

"People think of 'used' as being like a thrift store or flea market or a record being beat up," he said. "What I have, they're all pristine. We clean them up. We guarantee them."

At least for now, his Replay store and independent outlets such as Rasputin are assuring that devotees of vinyl records still have a retail option.

"Willie is my connection," said Spencer, who's the pharmacy director at Memorial Hospital in Modesto. "My wife says it could be worse. I could be strung out on drugs. But I'm not. It is, probably, a minor obsession."

Spencer said he owns between 8,000 and 10,000 LPs and 800 CDs as well as vintage 78 rpm discs, Victrola records and historic Edison cylinders.

He's the kind of customer Hines values.

"I consider myself a record store, a music store, whatever," Hines said. "A record store. I mean literally."

Contact Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or tsauro@recordnet.com