Best of Toronto
The Best Used CD Stores in Toronto
Used CD stores once ruled the day in Toronto before the advent of Napster, MySpace and the iTunes store.
In my youth I spent a lot of my savings on music, either going to concerts or buying cassette tapes, records and compact discs. After I discovered stores that sold used CDs I was hooked. Now there's maybe a dozen or so decent used CD stores left in Toronto. A lot of them also sell vinyl. A few still sell tapes and one even has a box of 8-tracks.
Sonic Boom leads the pack and outnumbers almost all the other stores by sheer volume, having swallowed up several Annex-area stores in its wake. But each store has its own charm, character and regular clientele, offering a little something different from the rest.
A couple that aren't highlighted below are also worth mentioning, notably Sonic Temple (5165 Yonge St.) near Mel Lastman Square in North York and Dixie Records in the Dixie Outlet Mall (1250 South Service Road) in Mississauga. But closer to the Toronto core, here are a good solid dozen Toronto used CD stores that are still thriving, er... surviving in this second-hand music market.
Photos by Roger Cullman.
Sonic Boom
Sonic Boom (not to be confused with Sonic Temple and She Said Boom!) is a giant store located near The Bloor Cinema. Aside from their rows upon rows of used CDs and DVDs the store also offers in-store performances by local, indie and occasionally international musicians or bands, such as The Sadies, Sam Roberts and Aimee Mann. They're open from 10 a.m. to midnight 365 days a year. They buy and sell used CDs, DVDs, vinyl, video games, VHS and cassette tapes. Like many stores, they ask for government issued photo ID when buying your stuff. They'll buy just about any CD from you, although you may only get as little as a quarter. They get lots of stuff in daily. More »
Vortex Records
Fifteen stairs up from street level, this small store is jam-packed with used CDs, and still a considerable amount of vinyl, a growing section of DVDs and even two shelves' worth of Blu-ray Discs. They'll buy your used CDs for $3 - $8 if they think they can sell them. Knowledgeable staff and usually some good tunes playing while you browse. I made many musical discoveries at this store over the years. Be sure to look out for some of the boxed sets and unusual finds on the wall behind the counter. More »
Refried Beats
Previously known as CD Replay and before that Discovery Records (since '92) this little shop about the length of a TTC subway car has been around in its current incarnation for about seven years. This is of the few remaining stores in the strip of Yonge St. that sells used CDs. They also sell a fair amount of used DVDs and are starting to stock quite a few Blu-ray Discs now. The layout is pretty intuitive, with CDs well organized in bins that are just the right height for browsing. But on a busy day, it can be tricky navigating past your fellow shoppers in the narrow aisles. They'll pay you up to $7 a CD. When you buy, be sure to pick up their frequent buyer's card, which scores you a free CD (worth up to $12) after buying 10 used CDs (over $6.99). More »
Penguin Music
No longer located on McCaul St. just north of Queen St. W., Penguin Music is now quietly tucked away around the corner on Queen inside the Black Market store. They're still a hotbed of musical discovery. You'll find lots of staff picks with detailed handwritten descriptions above many CDs that line the shelves. Store owner Kim Au-Yeung urged me to check out their website and I'm glad I did. They list updated staff picks, along with their Top 10 list and new releases. They also stock a handful of DVDs as well as new vinyl. They offer $3 - $5 for used CDs, which sell for an average of $6 - $10. More »
Mike's Music
Your friendly neighbourhood record store in the Danforth and Broadview area, Mike's store used to be a Sam the Record Man franchise. You'll often find store proprietor Mike greet you with his long, white beard and friendly smile. This store has the most incredible lighting, most of them antique chandeliers. Since 2001 Mike runs a small antique store in the basement, open on weekends. The red-and-white checkered floor complements the lighting, making the browse for used CDs a pleasure. One of the chandeliers is a Casa Loma original (and sells for $5000). About half of the store is used CDs, with new CDs and DVDs for sale as well. They'll buy your used CDs for $1 - $6. They boast a wide selection of titles from B.B. King to King Crimson, King Sunny Ade to the Kings of Leon.
Paradise Bound
Serving the Kensington Market neighbourhood since 2000, Paradise Bound offers affordable used CDs along with a moderate dose of vinyl, DVDs and books. Greeted by the friendly and knowledgeable Coyote, I easily got a few recommendations of some great off-the-beaten-path music. He shared with me a quote from local musician, Rich Underhill. "CD sales have started to plunge, just as we've gotten the audio quality right with CDs." Thankfully, we've got places like Paradise Bound to help keep the music flowing. They'll buy your used CDs for 25 cents up to $4 and boast there's no single used CD in the store that costs more than $10 (tax included). They've got a MySpace page and their own blog, which features new arrivals and tips like how to clean a record. More »
Deja Vu Discs
Boasting four suburban locations and originating in 1995, Deja Vu Discs has stores in Scarborough and North York as well as Oshawa and Ajax. Visiting the Scarborough location, I was pretty impressed with their Look-up Station, where you can browse a catalogue of titles that spans inventory from all their stores, updated regularly. Boasting "GTA's largest selection of CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and games," Deja Vu also allows you to browse their database from the comfort of your own home and pick up your order from the store in about a week. Check back often because combined, their stores purchase over 1,000 CDs a day and have a total inventory of over 60,000 CDs. They offer between $4 and $8 in trade for your used CDs. More »
Neurotica
Located on the busy strip of Queen St. W. near Bathurst, Neurotica buys, sells and trades used CDs, DVDs and all kinds of vinyl. They're also now dealing with Blu-ray Discs. They'll even transfer your old VHS tapes to DVD. The store's almost bursting with inventory, as the new arrivals section has CDs and DVDs stacked almost two feet high. They've got rather unusual categories for their used CDs, such as "exotica, instrumental and sleazy listening." Neurotica's currently on winter hours, which means 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and closed Tuesdays.
She Said Boom!
With two locations serving Toronto, She Said Boom offers not too large a selection of used CDs, but has a pretty decent amount of used books and vinyl. Admittedly, books are their most constant seller. But they'll still buy your used CDs for a buck or two and generally sell them for $5 to $10. Like most stores, they offer 20 percent more in trade. Initially two guys ran the store. They expanded and opened up a second shop on Roncesvalles, which is now run by the second partner. The College St. location has been around for 14 years. It's run by Randy Harnett, the book guy, who kept the CDs and records going. More »
Pandemonium
The sole store in The Junction area that sells used CDs, Pandemonium also stocks a variety of books and vinyl. Almost forgotten in a box at the back of the store, I even found a cache of 8-track tapes. The store has been around since 2000 and is quite fun to poke around in. On the walls I spotted framed 12" vinyl albums of Prince and Elvis Costello, among others. Among the books, they had a three-volume first edition (1840) print of Dickens, which went for $250. And Parasites of Heaven, a first edition collection of Leonard Cohen's poetry. They'll offer you between $2 and $5 for your used CDs and generally sell their CDs for $6 to $10. Open Monday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. More »
Around Again Records
Found in Baldwin Village, Around Again is located just north of the AGO. Predominantly dealing in quality used vinyl, the store will buy your used CDs for 50 cents up to $7. Most of their used CDs sell between $5 and $8. They've got only a handful of used DVDs. For the past five years they've offered to put your old 12" records into a frame for $18, making a timeless keepsake and ornamental alternative to keeping them in a milk crate. In the shop I spotted Lonesome Echo, an old Jackie Gleason album cover from 1955 painted by Salvador Dali. Time to dig out that old vinyl. Pity none of these shops offer a vinyl-to-CD copying service.
Hits and Misses
This mostly punk record store is somewhat an anomaly in the area of Bloor and Ossington. Pete Genest opened this store in May 2007 after relocating to Toronto from Portland, Oregon, where he had a store for the last five years. Prior to that he had a store in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, BC. Genest opened his first record store in September 1992, starting with his own collection. That slowly grew and evolved to what the store is now, consisting of a large selection of new and used punk, hard-core, oi, ska, metal, rockabilly, crust and garage genres. Half a dozen local bands sell their cassette tapes for $3 to $6. While used CDs amount to only a fraction of the store's inventory, it's worth the trip to see the walls of collectables, including buttons, patches, stickers and t-shirts. If punk or metal is your thing, you seriously got to check this place out. More »
Discussion
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Someone needs to take a closer look at the picture.
The last time I was there they seemed to carry a lot more DVDs than CDs. But it's worth a look. None of blogTO's readers voted for it when we held the poll.
In addition, they pay you fair prices for your goods. I was in there in the fall and some guy came in with four boxes of obscure and import Jazz and ambient. Vortex offered $2100 for it. The guy said he came from Sonic Boom and they'd only offered him $700, which he rightly turned down. This probably has to do with the staff as SB pays such shitty wages that they end up with a big turnover in staff and employees who could give a shit about the store's inventory. I think they pay just above minimum wage whereas Vortex has had some of the same staff for two decades. You don't get that by not treating your staff fairly. The "youngest" employee has been there three years and, before that, ran the owner's video store for five years.
Vortex would never offer you a quarter for a CD. That's a ridiculous insult and people who accept it are thieves or suckers or selling absolute dreck that, as a customer, I don't want to flip through every time I'm in the store. (How many copies of REM's Monster do you think they have?) The lowest I've been offered for a disc at Vortex is $3. $1 for a 3 track single.
Also, the reason for the confusion about SB's hours (they're closed Christmas, not open 365) is due to the fact that the owner, who is American, thought, his first year in business, that he could bully the staff into working whenever he wanted them to work. He was a little stunned to find out the Canadian government wasn't on his side for this one and he then changed the policy. I know this because my roommate worked there at the time.
And to the commenter saying Penguin sold him back his own cds... well, that's a bit complicated. Here's how you shoulda played it and how anyone who's robbed of CDs should have played it: fax a list of your stolen CDs to the used shops in your area and alert them to the thievery as well as the case # on the police report. The good shops will keep the list handy and if anyone comes in with your collection, they'll call the cops and hold the stock till they arrive. You'll get your shit back for free. However, you can't just walk in a store and say something's yours and expect to get them back after a store paid for them. Think about it: you could write your name on your discs, send your friend in there to sell them and show up the next day flashing your id. Without the police report, there's nothing they'll do as it's their financial loss.
You mention Sonic Temple in your intro... did they just not go out of business? If not, they'll be gone within a month or so.
I really wish someone would do an in-depth story on the stores by taking a solid, eclectic mix of great CDs to each store and report back one simple fact: what were you paid for them? How about it, BlogTO?
While Vortex is one of my favourite places to buy and sell used CDs, there's plenty room for others like Sonic Boom in this city. While I don't necessarily agree with all their business practices, they're obviously doing something right to have gotten so many votes in our poll.
The Toronto Star <a href="http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/235328"; target="_blank">did a piece on used CD stores</a> about a year and a half ago. They interviewed Jeff Lazarus, owner of Sonic Temple, who said used CD stores are "looking at a long, slow death." Perhaps he could foresee the destiny of his own store. This wouldn't surprise me at all.
<a href="http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070704_162826_12108";>Macleans</a> also did a piece on record stores last year.
Most of the journalism on retail shops in this city sucks and the record store articles are no exception. I don't think I've seen Vortex mentioned in NOW Magazine this decade, yet once or twice a month I spot their main music critic shopping there--same with their main film and DVD critics. Harkness used to buy lots there before he died. I never met the man but he'd talk the staff's ear off. Tim Perlich never mentions the place as, it seems to me, he doesn't want anyone grabbing up stuff that he'd write about in his column. I used to always see him at Soundscapes as well. Never seen him at Sonic Boom, though I'm sure he must shop there too.
I remember 10 or so years ago NOW did an article on how used shops were a haven for thieves selling product. I don't recall who wrote the article but it mentioned Vortex and Monster Records (this was before SB opened). I remember being pissed about it as I've seen Bert throw more than one person out the door who he suspected of trying to sell him hot merchandise. The last one he booted down the stairs carved "Fuck you" into the glass on their front door with a key or something. It's still there.
At the time that NOW published that article, HMV was a huge advertiser in their rag and got great praise in print as a result. This is even though they were killing the music retail business in this city. HMV used to have an open return policy--you could bring back anything, opened or not, with or without a receipt. HMV would then reseal the merch and sell it to the next patron as new at new prices. Their management denied it so me and friends bought some imports, opened them, and put in notes that said, "You just purchased used product at new prices." A week after returning them, we'd buy them again, open them at the counter, and show the notes. Management would get all Claude Rains on our asses: "I'm shocked! Shocked to find out that resealing is going on here." Such horseshit. Two outta ten cds you bought there already had fingerprints on them when you opened them. This practice fucked up Sam's real good as their policy was the opposite: you couldn't get cash back on anything once you'd bought it, even if you had the receipt and hadn't opened the product. Sam liked this policy because he also owned the distributor: Roblan's. (So, taking back opened product hurt him twice as much.)
I wrote to NOW about this business practice shortly after they'd hyped the store yet again. Of course, they didn't publish the letter.
I mean, I work around the corner from Criminal Records, and I'm often in there three or four times a week, and most likely buy something each time. I am, one of the poeple directly responsible for the vinyl sales numbers Neilson Sound Scan report as being the highest in 2008 over any year they're crunched data.
Still, a special order in there, to their sign claiming 'if it's in print, we can order it for you', took them (and my $5 deposit) over 8 weeks to get. It wasn't something particularly obscure either, but in the end I got so bored waiting I ordered it from the label direct and had it in a week. It was so much cheaper that I actually saved money, even if i counted the lost $5 deposit.
it's a boastful claim that I'm the audience with the kind of taste and money that's keeping shops like Criminal / Rotate etc afloat - but i'm pretty sure it's true - so again to Sonic Temple's claim that they can get anything I want, screw ordering, if it's in print and I want it, you should have it on your shelves already.
I pop into Sonic Boom whenever I'm around Bloor and Bathurst but rarely do I spend any money there. Some of the staff are very cool (Justin--not sure if he's there any more; Erin (though I think she's long gone), Brad, Matt (though he's also now gone)), but the majority of them seem pretty aloof and stereotypical "record store jerks". (Vortex used to have one of those as well--Frank--but he's been gone a few years.) Jeff, the owner, is quite a nice guy, truth be told, but I can't stomach his business practices and the atmosphere at the store sorta squicks me out. I don't like feeling like I'm in a Wal-Mart or Zellers and that's how I feel when there. I also get really annoyed at how little they pay. Buying for a quarter and selling for $5.50 with a "scuff" sticker on it is fucking lame.
I used to shop a lot at Penguin and Driftwood as they've always had cool staff (Katherine at Penguin in the 90s was very helpful as was the owner... Kim I think his name is), but DW is long gone and, for the same reason I don't like the atmosphere at SB, I don't really go into Penguin any more either.
I should probably have also mentioned that I used to work at a used shop that's no longer around--this is how I know so many of the staff at the different places and why I think I have such strong opinions about this nonsense.
This is a ridiculous comment and reveals your ignorance at how the record business works. What you're suggesting is not just laughable but impossible with any business model with any life expectancy.
Perhaps have a chat with the owner and establish a method that works better for the both of you? Something like providing the store with a list of titles you want in anticipation of their release date and putting down a deposit to ensure they'll be purchased upon their imminent arrival. Just a thought....
In my research for this Best Of list, I made the trek to <a href="http://www.sonictemple.ca/"; target="_blank">Sonic Temple</a> (5165 Yonge St.) near Mel Lastman Square in North York at 4 p.m. I discovered they were closed for no apparent reason. No note on the door.
Their answering machine's little girl voice confirmed they were supposed to be open until 8 p.m., so I waited half an hour. Nothing. I called the next day and was told it was a quiet afternoon, so they decided to go home early. I thought at the time that it will be a lot quieter for a lot longer if they keep this up.
THANKS.
love life!!!
Incredible selection...from current and popular to eclectic and obscure, with great prices.
Amazing staff...polite, professional, knowledgeable, yet very approachable and easy to talk to.
They treated me with respect and decency; treated what I had to sell and they could buy incredibly fairly.
At first I was very nervous about selling my dvds and cds, but Vortex Records made it a surprisingly enjoyable experience.
They are listed in the Top Ten...but based on the other stores I tried Vortex Records should be listed as Number One in the Best Used Cd Store category!
Thank you Vortex Records :)
Last time I had a look at Sonic Temple (from the rear parking lot)
they were a gone thing...too bad.
Another store that didn't get didn't get mentioned was Wild East at Broadview & Danforth - slightly east and upstairs.
Havent' been there in a few years, so don't know if they survived.
Vortex.....I remember them during the last classic days of vinyl (mid-eightys) and they've always been a class establishment to me.
Wish I had more time to spend there. Wish they had more stores!
(but then, maybe that waters down the quality)
cheers,
jp
After carrying my load around town, here are my results:
Refried Beats only took 3 CDs and gave me $4 total.
BMV shop across from it didn't take anything.
Vortex took 5 items (1 DVD and 4 CDs) and gave me $21 total.
The BMV a couple of shops over didn't take anything.
Sonic Boom didn't take any of the CDs, but gave me $5 total for 5 DVDs.
Meanwhile, the big BMV nearby gave me $6 total for 2 DVDs.
Based on this experience, my feedback for selling is as follows:
Vortex should be your first place to sell CDs and DVDs. The staff were polite. They thanked you for coming by and even apologized for not accepting everything.
BMV seems to want only the new releases when it comes to CDs and DVDs. I don't know if the one at Eglinton was lecturing me or just advising me of such. All the BMVs seem to be more interested in books, again only the more current and new releases, but the one on Bloor would be my second choice to sell to.
Third place would be Refried Beats, but don't put to much into it.
Lastly would be Sonic Boom. It's a good place to buy but should be your last resort for selling. I realized after the fact that one of the staff forgot to give me back everything that he declined to take.
I had no luck with the books but I will try the BMV next door to The World's Biggest Bookstore.
Afterwards, I may try to sell the lot on craigslist before I eventually donate it to the Salvation Army.
What I realized from all this is just how little value my possessions hold.
Vortex
Mike's Music
Refried Beats
Vortex by far and away gives you the best value for used cds. I think they gave me $7.50 for one of my Slint albums. Sonic Boom is an absolute disgrace and their only purpose is to rip you off for next to nothing. However, I understand why they are number one on the list because they literally sell anything and everything when it comes to used cds as they have the best selection by a mile and a half. They are just the last store to go to if you want to SELL. Mike from Mike's Music is the most personable store owner and is very nice and knowledgeable when it comes to music. I don't like going to Pandemonium--they're a bunch of classic rock knuckleheads.
Which brings me the question: I have a few used 90s rock cds that no one cares about anymore that I've been trying to sell for years. I refuse to give them away to Sonic Boom for 25 cents each--I'm more looking for a dollar each. Any ideas? If only there were a Beat Goes On in Toronto...
Thanks N
thanks