Vinyl Lovers

@bigtwin: The Amazon packing you are seeing in Canada (a thin cardboard mailing sleeve inside a 4" thick carton filled with bubble wrap) is the same I have been seeing for quite some time here in the US.

That's certainly preferable to the mailing envelope they were using a few years back, but I'm still seeing damage in another way: While the double-boxing guards against shipping damage, what I'm regularly receiving are LP covers which have been bent/creased, a result of pulling them from the storage racks in the Amazon LP warehouse by the corner of the cover, rather the center. Duh.

I return, like others, maybe about 25% of my LP's for new copies. Most of the second copies arrive undamaged, but I've had two titles where the second copy is damaged in exactly the same manner as the first. Double duh.

Analogue Productions/Acoustic Sounds, on the other hand, packs with extreme care. Elusive Disc is real good too. Almost all Discogs and ebay sellers ship LP's in those pathetic thin cardboard mailing sleeves, which do little to protect the corners of the LP covers.

Just a different perspective on Zerostat. I have owned several over the decades… especially when I used to live in Tucson and static was a really big problem. They have never done a bit of good. I desperately wanted them to, I bought the newest… patiently took my time squeezing the stupid lever… and they never did a thing… zippo. I asked my dealer friend who has been a dealer for over 20 years… he has had the same experience. 

I prefer discogs to eBay for the simple reason that you can select the exact pressing you desire.  Santa Monica pressings apparently bypassed the inferior vinyl issue of the 70's.  I did use eBay for several years, but no longer.  Another caveat is to select a seller with a stellar track record and only choose NM or higher. On the rare occasion where the vinyl isn't to standard, most sellers are eager to please and are incentivized to make the transaction a positive one. 

Regarding static on records, as per Neil Antin, I've been using a Ronxs lighter held above the rotating vinyl and tiger cloth instead of a brush-a huge improvement.

To vinyl record lovers:

I think most of the vinyl lovers tend to like original music sound WITH a little distorted sound by record playing and some noise also by record playing. CD playing is much better in terms of high fidelity of original music sound.

Both theoretically and practically, any vinyl playing can not be better than that of CD playing unless mediocre CD system is used.

I do play many vinyl records but, only because I do not have CD versions of the vinyl records. I just like to listen music itself from best formats (CD is much better format than vinyl). If you like to enjoy turntable's turning look while listening, then I don't have any argument. But, I would like to say you are not genuine music lover!

In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is. 

-- The Philosopher Berra.

Until you hear the Nagra turntable, you do not know what vinyl playback is capable of. What I used to think was the sound of residual dirt in the groove after record cleaning turns out to be residual noise from vinyl playback which the Nagra turntable eliminates.