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Believe it or not, it's still possible to buy LPs and even turntables to play them on-you just have to know where to go. For turntables, forget department stores, which no longer stock them, and visit your local audio outlet. Even there, you'll most likely find your choice limited to $90 cheapies or higher-end models, which start at $300 and can climb as high as five figures. If you're looking for LPs, you'll find that major chains like Tower and Musicland carry little if any vinyl. So you'll have to look up one of the surviving vinyl specialty stores that dot the country, such as Record Surplus in L.A., 2nd Hand Tunes in Chicago, Joe's Record Paradise in Washington, D.C., G&A Records in New York, and Waterloo in Austin, Tex. Don't count on finding all your favorites there, though. Any store's stock of new and used LPs depends on which records other customers traded in and which cut-outs-LPs deleted from a record company's catalog-a distributor unexpectedly discovered in a warehouse. But it's possible to stumble upon some real finds-recent Sting albums, that copy of Black Sabbath's Paranoid you've wanted for years, or out- of-print '50s and '60s LPs from the vaults of the pioneering Folkways label-for as little as $3 to $5 apiece. ''Who knows how long I'll be in business?'' says Jim Mayhercy, owner of 2nd Hand Tunes, which stocks 50,000 LPs and 45s in each of two Chicago-area stores. ''But right now I have a good, steady LP clientele.'' You can also mail-order used LPs via catalogs (such as Down House Music in El Cerrito, Calif.) and record-collector magazines like Goldmine and DISCoveries.
