A record collectors show is hardly the place to win an argument on the convenience of downloading a song from iTunes or the sound quality of a new CD. Audiophiles who rule the shows will school you on the virtues of spinning vinyl over downloaded digitized sound.

"Records have the cracks and the pops that CDs just don't have," said Anthony Perry, a collector from Smithfield. "It's just better than that other stuff."

There was plenty of that "other stuff" as well as vinyl at the biannual Record & CD Collectors Show at the Holiday Inn near Crabtree Valley Mall on Sunday, including some new CDs and a few rare ones from artists such as Prince and James Brown. Record collectors and dealers came from all over the region to buy, sell and trade anything from posters of classic album covers to a $600 Beatles album.

But as some collectors were quick to point out, the real soul in the room was coming from the crates and crates of vinyl.

"Show me a CD that plays after five years without skipping or stopping," said Bill Cox, a retired record collector from Hampton, Va., who was at the show selling albums he'd been collecting since his military days. "Vinyl is a different breed of passion."

Most of his albums were in pristine condition, well preserved for dozens of years in plastic covers. That's part of the reason he could charge $75 for an Isley Brothers album. There was no writing on the album cover. He took care to keep the original sleeve. And the grooves were still smooth without scratches.

"I've got thousands of records," he said. "This is my hobby. It's pure joy to me."

For others, the records -- from the album covers to the labels -- took them back to slower, less-complicated times.

"CDs are nice, but when you hear this, it reminds you of when you were a kid," said Bryon McKay of Clayton, who was stocking up on albums from his favorite band, Kiss. "It reminds me of when I first started listening to music."

One of his big scores Sunday: a Kiss album from Germany, which had the lightning bolt double S's of the Kiss logo reversed so that they didn't resemble the Nazi swastika. That made it worth the $10 for McKay.

Same with the $40 Kiss "Double Platinum" album that Cox was selling: It still had all the original accompanying stickers.

The thrill of the hunt had the show buzzing by mid-morning Sunday. With another record collector show in Carrboro the same day, hard-core collectors were making deals in Raleigh and heading to Carrboro for more.

Disc dealing

The art of the deal was part of the lure for Curtis Warden from Timberlake. He bought three albums for $20: a Dutch copy of Blue Oyster Cult's "Secret Treaties," Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery," and a white-label album from the "Live Yardbirds." He said it wasn't a deal he'd likely find at a big-box retailer.

Steve Eisenstadt of Raleigh is a regular at the show, not so much for the music, but for the album covers. He likes to frame and display some of his favorites. On Sunday, he took home Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True," Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" and Jimi Hendrix's "Smash Hits."

Jim Mettrey and Hope Turlington were there to make a little money by selling some of Mettrey's massive collection of 45s. Mettrey spent 16 years in the jukebox business. Now with about 20,000 singles that have been stacked in a warehouse since he quit the business in 1985, the timing seemed right to start selling.

"They're going to get aged out," said Mettrey. He was concerned younger listeners wouldn't see the value of the singles as the older crowd might.

On Sunday, his singles from the likes of The Carpenters, James Taylor, John Lennon, AC/DC and Neil Diamond were selling for $1 each, about the same price as an iTunes download.

"There's a certain nostalgia here that you can't find anywhere else," he said.

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