Andy Tullis/ The BulletinJesc Miller of Bend looks over the selection of records at Ranch Records in Bend on Nov. 13. "My interest in records has never gone away, my parent(s) were big into records, my mom used to work at a record store and I grew up listening to all sorts of music," Miller said.

Eric Lubow picked out one of the record sleeves from among the pile resting on a small table. Its title was emblazoned in sky blue and black letters across the top of the colorful, heavyweight cardboard: “Time Out” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Lubow reached into the sleeve and pulled out the jet-black, vinyl disc. He set the record on the turntable located toward the front of a converted attic in his Bend home.

The room could only be described as a record collector’s dream. Shelves backed against nearly every wall held stacks of classical, jazz, folk and rock records — more than 3,300 in all. Two tower speakers, nearly as tall as Lubow, sat toward the back of the room, poised to carry sound to every corner of the attic. Four chairs set up around the room offered prime listening vantage points, though the best seat in the house — right in front of the door, next to the turntable and facing the massive speakers — belonged to Lubow.

After switching on the turntable and wiping the vinyl LP with a record brush, Lubow settled into his chair and lowered the tone arm on the player, resting the needle on the gap before “Take Five.” He nodded along as Brubeck’s familiar, jaunty piano line filled the room, the bass notes vibrating the floor and walls.

“There’s something about the vinyl experience — between the artwork, having something that you can actually read on the back cover without a magnifying glass, the fact that you’ve gotta take the vinyl out, the whole process, the whole tactile process,” Lubow said. “It’s a ritual, taking it out, putting it on the (turntable). … The human mind does better with things that are palpable, tactile, rather than just pressing a button and really not listening or maybe fast-forwarding. When you put a vinyl record on, you sort of listen to the whole side usually — that’s the way we always did it — and your concentration is sort of devoted to that instead of doing a million other things. You really listen to the music.”

Apparently, a growing share of music lovers share Lubow’s feelings.

While streaming formats such as Spotify and Pandora continue to cut into physical and online music sales, vinyl’s share of the market is actually growing. According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s mid-year report on shipment and revenue statistics, physical music shipments totaled $748 million in the first half of 2015, a decrease of 17 percent from the first half of 2014. However, vinyl shipments increased by 52 percent compared to the first half of last year, accounting for 30 percent of all physical music shipments by value.

Lubow, 67, originally from eastern Long Island, New York, grew up with vinyl — his father had a large collection of 78 and 33 rpm records. However, he wasn’t much of a collector when he was younger.

“Even in college I pretty much did not have eclectic tastes,” he said. “I played show music while my friends were playing Bob Dylan and The Doors and things like that.”

When he finally began collecting music seriously in 1982, compact discs had just been introduced on the market. A piano player, he amassed a collection of a couple thousand CDs, mostly classical and jazz, to “educate” himself.

Lubow worked as a dentist on Long Island at the time. One day in the late ’90s, a patient invited Lubow to his house to listen to some records. That experience, and a few others, converted Lubow back to vinyl.

“I could immediately tell that there was a difference; there was a richness to the sound, an ambiance, a warmth, that I really hadn’t heard very much on CDs,” Lubow said.

Lubow has considered himself a serious record collector since 1999, at a time when physical music mediums were just starting to be overwhelmed by online file sharing. But in recent years, he’s been joined by a new generation of vinyl enthusiasts across the country searching for a more tactile music-listening experience.

“I just kind of fell in love with the novelty of it,” said Phil Sinclair, 28, who has been collecting since 2009 and has worked at Ranch Records in downtown Bend since 2011. “It’s so much more tangible and hands-on. I feel like it adds so much. With as easy as it is to download music, it adds a lot of quality; it makes it worth paying for.”

The two local music stores have noticed the shift in recent years. Keith Schuman, owner of Recycle Music in downtown Bend, said that since the store opened in 2013, vinyl has gone from 55 percent of Recycle Music’s total sales to 70 percent today.

“Every time I think that I’ve got a lot of the people in town that might collect vinyl, I meet more,” Schuman said.

Ranch Records owner John Schroeder said he’s noticed interest in vinyl at his store increasing over the last three years. The store, located on Oregon Avenue since January, is the oldest record store still in Bend, having first opened at the corner of Wall Street and Franklin Avenue 19 years ago. Vinyl today makes up a third of the store’s total sales, but Schroeder remembers when vinyl was at “rock bottom” not long before that.

“At one point it was not being manufactured and you couldn’t buy any new (vinyl) unless it was a super specialty thing, and quite expensive,” Schroeder said. “And then it gradually came back as the awareness went up. People still recognize it as being more interactive; you can look at the vinyl or you can look at the liner notes. And it sounds better; on the right equipment, it sounds better.”

The medium’s popularity has even spawned a holiday of sorts, Record Store Day, which celebrates independently owned record stores. Since 2007 the event, held on the third Saturday in April, has featured a number of limited edition vinyl releases each year.

Bend’s two record stores are also gearing up for Black Friday, another day when they will feature limited vinyl releases. “It seems like the early, early stuff, like The Beatles, the Stones, those collectors have got it all already, so probably the newer collectors are into limited edition like colored vinyl,” Schuman said. “… We have people lined up around the block for Record Store Day, and those are the collectors.”

Vinyl converts often bring up the medium’s alleged higher sound quality as a reason for collecting. The analog sound is supposed to be warmer than compressed digital files on a CD or computer. Schuman said he and his employees have compared vinyl albums to their CD counterparts in store, and have noticed the difference.

“I got an Italian import of Nirvana, ‘Nevermind,’ on vinyl. And the person (who bought it) took it home, and everybody should know that music by now, but she said it just wasn’t — she didn’t want it,” he said. “So that was my first chance to have one open without kind of violating what I’m supposed to be doing around here. And I played it and it sounded fantastic. … The sound compared to the CD for that one to me was clearly superior.”

Sinclair, who grew up in Madras, has always considered himself a “music fanatic.” He was introduced to bands such as Built to Spill, Modest Mouse and the Flaming Lips by his older classmates, but he was content to listen to downloads on his computer until he was turned on to vinyl by his former boss at Soba.

“To me it’s almost as much of a feeling as it is a sound, and I think that’s why it’s really hard to argue,” he said. “It feels warmer and rounder and just kind of more — it’s almost more comforting, like putting a blanket on is kind of the same as listening to an album. Digital compressed files just seem kind of naked and soulless.”

For many collectors, including Lubow, what you play your vinyl on is just as important as the vinyl itself. Lubow has invested more than $10,000 in his current setup, including speakers, amplifier and turntable, as well as an additional $1,000-plus for a record cleaning machine.

“It is everything. If I had a CD player here, I’m sure you’d like the sound too, but to me I just happen to like it better with vinyl,” Lubow said. “But obviously it is everything.”

Ryan Kraten, 36, began collecting records mostly out of an interest in analog equipment and other old technology. He has a budding record collection — only about 50 or 60 LPs — but has been experimenting with sending digital tracks through his receiver to a reel-to-reel machine lately.

“Once I really started upping the quality of my equipment, I was able to really hear a difference between the stuff that I listened to on MP3, even at high bit rates, and then the way things sounded through the older equipment,” Kraten said. “I had the turntable and it was running through a modern receiver, and I thought, this sounds good. But then it was really when I got a receiver from the ’70s, hooked it up to the turntable, then hooked that up to the speakers, and then I was like, wow, there’s something really to this.”

Of course, for many collectors it’s just about the music, in any format. James Gossard, 50, another Ranch Records employee, has been collecting vinyl since he was 5 and has amassed a collection of more than 5,000 LPs. However, he listens to music on CDs and his computer as well.

“We usually listen to music now on our computer; I bought some really good computer speakers, and my wife bought me a … USB turntable, so I can put records on the computer,” he said. “So yeah, any way to listen to music is fine. Vinyl is what it is, CDs are what they are, MP3s are what they are. It’s more about just the music. However you can listen to it is fine; vinyl is just the first and most special thing to me.”

—  Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com