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JON PRICE gently lowered the stylus, or needle, of his Grado Signature Jr. cartridge onto a mint British pressing of the Clash's ''London Calling'' LP that he had recently picked up at a garage sale for a dollar. As the title song's marchlike introduction exploded from his speakers, he smiled. ''Now that's what 'London Calling' is supposed to sound like, not what's on that tinny-sounding CD,'' he said, pointing to the digital version that he had been listening to but not enjoying since he became reacquainted with the sound of LP's.
He rediscovered vinyl literally by accident when he met an LP lover at the scene of a fender-bender. Since then, Mr. Price, a 56-year-old landscape specialist, who is an avid fan of 1960's psychedelic music and late 1970's punk rock, has been replacing his CD's with original vinyl LP's he buys at garage sales and record conventions. In three years, he has amassed more than 3,000 albums.
''The records -- even on my old turntable -- sound much better, much more like live music,'' said Mr. Price. ''With vinyl, you feel like the band's right in front of you sweating it out. And with CD's, it's like you're in a sterile scientific lab and there's no emotional connection to what you hear. And then there's the full-size album cover art.''
Mr. Price is not alone. Vinyl records are back in vogue, thanks to an odd alliance of veteran musicians, college-age alternative rockers, rap fans, dance club disk jockeys, recording engineers and audiophiles who have helped revive and strengthen a format all but given up for dead by the musical mainstream.
In the past few years, sales of new vinyl have grown as more LP's have become available. Fifty of the Top 200 albums in a recent issue of Billboard were available on vinyl.
Sales are also up for new turntables, as well as for phonograph cartridges and the tone arms in which they nestle. ''Don't tell anyone,'' a chain store manager in San Diego said, ''but a couple of hundred turntables are sold out of this one store every month with no advertising.'' His store sells inexpensive consumer electronics, including turntables (around $200), aimed at average consumers. But in the audiophile world, domestic sales of the moderately priced ($700 to $1,500) to high-end (up to $55,000) turntables began to rise two years ago.
Some of vinyl's resurgence is due to a backlash against digital recordings. ''Sure, some of the records have some surface noise,'' Mr. Price said, ''but I'll take that plus the real-sounding music over what CD's usually sound like: artificial, with a fake quiet that almost sounds like a vacuum instead of air.''
Mr. Price's criticism resonates with musicians. ''The mind has been tricked, but the heart is sad,'' Neil Young once said about CD's.
''I think vinyl has a human touch in sound,'' said Dan Hardy, a jazz bass player who owns 3,000 LP's. ''You can hear the human touch of the instruments, of the voice. CD's are digital, and they have ones and zeros.''
Not everyone is encouraged by the resurgence of interest in vinyl. In an article last year in Replication News, a trade publication, Dave Moyssiadis, a CD-mastering engineer, argued that the trend was just a serious case of misplaced nostalgia or, worse, a Luddite mentality.
But many sound professionals say vinyl is better at capturing the flavor of the original recordings. ''I get to hear master tapes played back under critical conditions every day,'' said Steve Albini, an engineer who has worked with Nirvana and P. J. Harvey. ''But I always feel that a good vinyl copy of a recording sounds more faithful to the master than a CD.''
Roy Halee, a recording engineer who has worked with Simon and Garfunkel and the Byrds, said that he found ''no comparison between vinyl and CD's.''
''The harmonic structure is more true to what is real on vinyl,'' he continued. ''When I record analog and have to transfer it to digital for editing purposes, the deterioration is very, very apparent.''
One musical genre that has always supported vinyl is dance and club music. Disk jockeys have long used turntables because of the ease with which they can manipulate and sample the sound.
''Vinyl has better bass and greater frequency range, and I prefer the hands-on quality,'' said a deejay known simply as Dara who plays at clubs across the country and owns Break Beat Science, a New York record store that stocks vinyl almost exclusively. When asked if people danced more when vinyl was playing, as some deejays have reported, Dara responded, ''I wouldn't know -- I don't play CD's.''
For the consumer longing to play some of those old records again, price is not a huge barrier. The more you spend on an analog system, the better your records will sound, but even an entry-level system will provide a fundamental level of musical pleasure and involvement.
You can start with an old turntable, preferably belt-driven. Durable turntables made by Dual are often found at thrift shops, flea markets or garage sales for as little as $10. Cleaned up, lubricated and fitted with an inexpensive Grado ZTE+1 cartridge (about $30), they can have you playing records for less than $50.
A more serious entry-level system would be a new Pro-Ject 1.2 ($395), Rega Planar 3 ($695) or VPI HW-19 Jr., which is frequently packaged with an Audioquest PT-6 arm ($1,000 total). You will need to add a good phonograph cartridge (needle), like the Grado Platinum Reference ($300) or the Shure V15xMR ($300). Of course, you can spend more than $4,000 on a cartridge.
The proper setup is critical. The tools needed to ''focus'' your turntable are a stylus pressure gauge (Shure, $15) and a cartridge alignment tool. Lyle Cartridges, in Valley Stream, sells one that is inexpensive ($15) and reasonably easy to use.
You will also need a record cleaning device. Allsop recently put a redesigned version of its classic Orbitrac ($34.95) back into production, and it has sold more than 5,000 of them with no promotion. Serious collectors may want a vacuum-operated machine from VPI ($495 to $1,100) or Nitty Gritty ( $259 to $800). You will also want a carbon-fiber brush for removing surface dirt ($20) and cleaning fluid for your stylus ($15).
Then you will want something to play. There are probably a billion LP's out there that will end up in used-record stores, thrift shops and garage sales. But the stream of new vinyl is what makes analog so exciting today. Indie labels like Drag City, Matador, 1/4 Stick, Thrill Jockey, Flydaddy, Grand Royal and Sub Pop release some of the best new music while charging as little as $8 per LP.
And then there are the mysterious major-label vinyl issues, which label publicists sometimes do not even know about, like Elvis Costello's ''All This Useless Beauty''; Bob Dylan's ''Time Out of Mind'' and the high-quality Jimi Hendrix reissues from MCA/Experience Hendrix. There are also exquisitely packaged and pressed Blue Note and Impulse jazz reissues and new vinyl from Epic, Columbia, Elektra, Warner Brothers, Capitol, Universal and others. Atlantic recently issued a two-LP Jewel set containing material not on her hit CD.
Are few of these treasures available at your local Tower, Virgin or HMV? Mail-order houses specializing in vinyl carry large stocks and keep up with new releases. Among the best are Acoustic Sounds (www.acousticsounds.com) and Quality Vinyl and CD Outlet (www.qvinyl.com).
Chances are you will find hundreds of records you would like to own. In today's information-overloaded world, isn't 20 minutes a side plenty?
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