Retail Music Stores Gone

Sdatch, I'll bite on this one: I knew a fellow with $100K+ in Krell FPB monos, Wadia separates, Dunlavy SCV speakers, and 100" Stewart screen in a custom-built concrete bunker, who listened only to Roger Water's "Amused to Death" and Yes's "Fragile."

Right!
I never download as I believe the quality is simply " not there"

Addendum!
support your local CD shops, especially the Indie ones!!!

Will everybody dump their CDs at thrift stores, etc. when downloads take over the market? That's what happened to LPs when the CD took over. We could be in for a windfall opportunity one of these days if any of us are still playing CDs and we like the stuff that is discarded.

I really miss Tower also. In NY I frequented the uptown and downtown stores for decades (the one on L.I. never counted for me!). The thing I miss the most was going in and finding stuff I never knew existed or new stuff by artists I dig that I didn't know was out there. As a music lover 1st, and audiophile 2nd, part of the "high" is searching out NEW releases. My biggest problem are my musical tastes which range from one end of the spectrum to the other. It's difficult shopping online to find the fresh variety. I find myself going to a bunch of different online sources but no matter what I do I still feel like I'm missing out on a lot. Here's a tip for you guys that dig amazing Big Band - Wayne Bergeron's latest, 'Plays Well With Others', fantastic! The backstory's telling; I actually heard a cut on a audio only station offered by my cable tv service, I went to waynebergeron.com and bought it and his last CD, 'You Call This A Living? (Grammy-Winner that I missed when it was originally released in '04). What a treat when the discs arrived, it was like this amazing Big band double-album. THEN I checked Ebay and saw that I could've spent less but...This story illustrates what THIS music-lover's done and does nowadays, yeah, I miss Tower (even if they were still open when the 1st disc was released, I hope you get the point!).