Retail Music Stores Gone

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!).

I shopped at a "mom and pop" music shop in my teens...and I try to shop at the local shop now...but sometimes, out of convenience, I go to Best Buy...its just up the road. And they are normally cheaper...not that a $3 difference is enough for me to shun my local store. I think there will always be a market, albeit a shrinking one, for brick and mortar music shops.

regarding downloading:

a friend downloaded a bunch of stuff and then "created" cds using software and high quality blanks.

the cds were brought to another friend's stereo system. the result was as good or better than commercially available cds.