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Mail
order and buying on-line have become as big a part of our
record buying methods as popping into a record shop.
We
now take it for granted that not only can we go into a record
shop to buy our CDs, but we can order them from home in
the comfort of the favourite armchair browsing through a
catalogue, or from the ergonomically designed upright computer
chair and still get them in delivered in a few days.
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Convenient
though shopping from home may be, it does have some distinct disadvantages.
For the avid record buyer/collector there is something strangely
attractive about browsing through hundreds of slightly dusty CDs,
hearing snippets of conversation about what may be the best version
of the second revision of a certain posthumously published second
symphony, listening to something playing in the shop that you
end up impulse buying and, best of all, taking away your purchase
there and then. Not to mention the invaluable advice of the seasoned
shop manager or assistant. (I was one of those once!) A rarefied
atmosphere does pervade the specialist classical record shop,
which can't be created at home.
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The
attraction of the internet and mail order is that they can
offer you a wider selection from the label than any shop
as no shop is big enough to stock all of each label's wares
anymore.
So
while the dealer may be the more exciting place to buy discs,
at home is certainly more comfortable and enables one to
be more objective and less impulsive.
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The
increased emphasis on, and popularity of, home/internet purchasing
for the pop world, especially with EMI now to releasing a significant
part of its catalogue to this type of distribution, and interestingly
including some classical works/artists, there may be some movement
away from the larger chain stores who deal primarily with pop
catalogues. I cannot see that it will greatly affect the classical
world whose different purchasing methods should be able to live
in relative harmony with each other, but I'm sure the specialist
dealer will remain 'top of the pile' for preferred place of purchase
for a good time to come.
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