Nashville's United Record Pressing says "Vinyl Rules," which may be true on some level but the bottom line is that vinyl isn't very durable: not nearly as durable as CDs or DVDs or any other digital content delivery system because the process of playing vinyl is mechanical. Every time the needle touches the record it wears off some of the vinyl, eventually literally wearing it out - not to mention scratches, dings, warpage, etc. Because digital playing processes involves only light, in theory CDs don't wear out.

Sure, I buy the analog "warmth" and "breathing" factors and a perfect vinyl record on a perfect system is a better listening experience than a comparable CD experience, but records are only perfect the first time you play them (if then) and who can afford that kind of system?

For live DJing purposes (having to start that up again for economic purposes - hire me for a party in Northeast Ohio, will travle for more $$), records are preferable because of the tactile aspect: there the "handling" that causes records to wear out is handy for the purposes of mixing, scratching and other "tricks," playing "drop the needle," and real time immediate access to any point on the record (i.e. not having to fast forward to get to a given spot on a song).

Having editorialized at some length, back to the original story from the Tennessean:

For United Record, phonograph records certainly haven't faded into extinction. It presses thousands of them each day and has seen business grow in the face of the digital recording age.

Cris Ashworth, United Record's owner, knows, however, that vinyl probably won't dominate the way it did before cassettes and compact discs took hold, or usurp the growing use of digital downloads from the Internet.

''But there's a market there,'' he said.

Since 1999, when he bought the operation on Chestnut Street near Greer Stadium, Ashworth has increased United Record's revenues from $1.4 million to $4 million by expanding the business to include the pressing of 12-inch, 33.3-rpm records. The number of employees has increased from 10 to 40.

Vinyl sales plummeted in the 1980s. After bottoming out, demand has been steady for LPs — slang for 12-inch, ''long playing'' albums — over the past decade. Last year, 2.3 million LPs were shipped to U.S. markets, an increase of 3.7% over the 2.2 million shipped in 2000, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. That's a drop in the bucket compared with the 882 million CDs shipped.

Distribution of vinyl 45-rpm singles has dipped dramatically over the past decade, from 19.8 million shipped in 1992 to 5.5 million last year, RIAA figures show. The 2001 sales showed promise with a 19% increase over the previous year. Singles and LPs were the only categories with sales increases for 2001.

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