If you had any doubts about the future of LP recordings just walk around your local hifi store and see the bins full of LP reissues and even some new titles. And they’re not cheap either, with prices frequently level with and sometimes above new CDs.

Maybe you want to wrap your tone arm around the Buddy Holly LP, "pressed on 180 grams of virgin vinyl, remastered from the original tapes without compression!" Just $48 for a singe disc.

Of course, the happy hunting grounds for vinyl platters with a bit of age on them are the charity shops, garage sales and school/church fetes.

Plenty of people these days are spending the odd hour or spare day converting their vinyl to CD or MPS tracks for use in iPods and similar. With the right software you can bring analog recordings back to original quality: no clicks, bumps, pops.

You need a turntable. There are a few options: you may have no desire to mix it with eBay to grab a preloved turntable from a seller that probably matches the age of your LP collection. If you’re in need of some turntables or other components of a ‘certain age’ you will be surprised at how easy and economical they are to acquire these days. Aside from checking around with friends (especially the spouses or partners thereof!) to prise some unwanted hardware from their hesitant fingers, the next stop should be the used section of hifi retailers. But you may find the occasional absence of manuals with used equipment a bit of a bind!

I regularly haunt Len Wallis’ premises in Sydney; the pre-owned amps, turntables and tape machines are a joy to behold, in excellent working order and very fairly priced. Other cities have similar businesses you can scour.

But if you prefer not to mess with gear of an indeterminate age and go the new route, there is a virtual forest of new models out there from prestige manufacturers, as well as the majors like Sony and Panasonic.

New turntables can vary enormously in price, comparable in the range from a second hand Datsun 120Y to a new Merc 200; I’m talking in a range from $400 to $68,000!

This turntable listing includes units priced below $2000.

There are others ... but if you’re spending in the tens of thousands of dollars for a turntable to retrieve the sonic glories of yesterday you either need your head read — or you should get out more!

(BTW: the abbreviation MM in the listing stands for moving magnet cartridge.)