Screw CDs. Collectors love vinyl.

As the owner of All Ears Record Store on 10th Street, Charlie Titche sells both CDs and traditional vinyl records. In fact, his store is split evenly into two rooms, one filled with compact discs, the other with LPs. And, he says, his sales are divided 50-50 between the old and the new format.\nBut as a music collector, Titche isn't divided at all. He knows which one he prefers.\n"I'm addicted to vinyl," he says. "It's a personal fixation I have."\nSome might call Titche a throwback. They might say he's stuck in the past. That might be so, but he's not alone in his love for the 12-inch black platters.\n"I grew up with The Who's Live at Leeds and Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, great vinyl like that," says Andy Walter, the manager of Tracks on Kirkwood Avenue. "It just sounds different off the stereo. The guitar sort of moves back and forth between the speakers. With CDs you don't have that. It's flat."\nLike Titche, Walter has stacks and stacks of old vinyl LPs for sale in an attempt to cater to the small but dedicated market of record collectors in Bloomington.\nJust how small is that market? According to numbers released by the Recording Industry Association of America, music companies shipped a total of 7 million units of LPs, EPs and vinyl singles in 2000. Total net revenue: $54 million. That's less than 1 percent of the industry's total sales for that year.\nWalter says sales of vinyl records are a "negligible" portion of his overall business; many of his LP buyers are international students studying at IU. In his mind, the vinyl business is "clearly on the backside" of the sales curve.\nStill, he says, there are still people out there who have a craving for LPs. He says he recently received new vinyl pressings of the Rolling Stones' ABKCO albums, as well as fresh copies of new Tom Waits platters. And, believe it or not, he's sold multiple vinyl copies of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the last month.\nTitche acknowledges that LPs have seen better days, but he believes the market has remained steady in recent years.\n"It's not the dominant format like it was throughout the '70s and early '80s," he says. "But compared to 10, five or two years ago, vinyl sales continue to rock."\nBut why? CDs are smaller, more portable and almost as cheap as vinyl, and to many collectors they have the best sound in the business. So why would someone prefer the clunky, scratchy, dusty LP?\nFor one thing, many vinyl collectors dispute the assertion that CDs sound better. For example, Walter says some classical, such as Mantovani, "just sounds incredible on vinyl. Some of that stuff is outstanding."\nAnd, Walter adds, many classic-rock bands like the Airplane recorded their albums on three- or four-track stereo systems, a sound that can only be brought out on vinyl.\n"The sound just moved around the room," he says.\nTitche agrees that LPs have a great, unique sound.\n"There is a marked difference in sound quality, and you don't have to have a ritzy stereo system to tell the difference," he says. "It might not be better, but there is a difference."\nAnother factor is price. Used LPs are frequently cheaper than used CDs, and many music stores have bargain bins of records costing a couple bucks each -- or less.\n"People can get 20 albums for $75," Titche says. "You can't get 20 CDs for $175, $200, $250. And we have lots of records that are $6 each, and they're in beautiful shape. There's a greater value there. People can pick up more for the same amount of money."\nMusic collector John McLaughlin says LPs' lower prices are attractive.\n"There's something kind of fun in finding a place that just has a rack of 25-cent or 50-cent albums of older stuff," McLaughlin says. "It can be pretty entertaining."\nAnother factor, Titche notes, is bigger, richer, more detailed album art and packaging. And, he says, there's still countless numbers of albums that can only be found on vinyl.\nThose are all qualities that help attract a fair amount of young buyers to vinyl. Titche says about two-thirds of the LP shoppers in his store are students under the age of 25.\nSophomore Tre Murillo and junior Dave Parker are both young converts.\n"I like the sound and the larger cover art," Murillo says. "There's something about putting on a record that's different than a CD."\nAnd as Parker says, "It's a nostalgia thing."\nBut for many vinyl enthusiasts, it's the intangibles that are too hard to ignore.\n"LPs appeal to a part of me that's off-kilter, out of the mainstream," Walter says. "There's a virtue to it, like emotional sustenance."\nAnd besides emotion, Titche enjoys the physical texture of the albums.\n"Sometimes when you flip through old records, you get that mildew smell, your fingers get a little dirty," he says. "You can flip through CDs all day and that won't happen. You flip through CDs and it's just click, click, click.\n"I've had friends who never collected vinyl before, then they tried it and were totally hooked in," he adds. "They didn't get it before, but they get it now."\nSo where do you go when you're jonesin' for some vinyl? While there might only be a handful of stores that still sell vinyl in Bloomington, other avenues of obtaining the stuff exist. There's usually a monthly record show in Indianapolis (the next one, organized by Alpha Records and Music, is scheduled for April 14 at the Quality Inn on Shadeland Avenue).\nAnd, if all else fails, collectors can head online. General auction sites like eBay constantly feature hundreds of LPs, while www.gemm.com is a nationwide music clearinghouse that features volumes and volumes of vinyl. There's also www.recordcollecting.com and a record collecting-webring at www.r.c.webring.8m.com.\nThe bottom line: it's there if you look hard enough. And Titche says collectors should be proud of their obsession. He definitely is.\n"Vinyl is not dead," he says. "Far from it"