• The Miami Herald/AP, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:15 AM

An employee for the Fred Meyer retail chain inadvertently entered the "LP" code for "Accelerate," R.E.M.'s latest release, this spring. Boxes of the big, vinyl discs showed up at several stores. Some were put on the shelves, and 20 LPs sold the first day.

Fred Meyer, owned by Kroger, is now testing vinyl sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, California, Washington and Alaska. Other mainstream retailers are giving vinyl a spin too. Best Buy is testing sales at some stores. And online music giant Amazon.com --which has sold vinyl for most of the 13 years it has been in business online -- created a special vinyl-only section last fall. The bestseller so far at Fred Meyer is The Beatles "Abbey Road" album.

The resurgence of vinyl centers on a long-standing debate over analog versus digital sound. But audiophiles say they also want the format's overall experience -- the sensory experience of putting the needle on the record, the feeling of side A and side B and the joy of lingering over the liner notes.

Read the whole story at The Miami Herald/AP »