It's 30 years since CDs swept the music world, but its the people who never experienced anything else who have led the trend back to vinyl, a Canberra record seller said.
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Dynomite Records owner Phil Place said appreciation of sound quality and having a tactile product to call your own were two reasons his vinyl sales had risen by about 25 per cent last year.
"Where it's really coming from is Gen Ys - 50 per cent of the people who walk through my door would be under 30," he said.
"It's the whole sense of ownership and collectability.
"Plus the artwork - I think it's a fairly subliminal thing, but people do respond to the artwork."
Mr Place's Kambah shopfront may have only opened in June 2013, but his sharp rise in record sales were far from unique last year.
The number of the bulky black discs bought in Australia jumped by 127 per cent, up to 277,767, after a 77 per cent rise the year before, Australian Recording Industry Association figures showed.
CDs remain king - there were more than 12.5 million sold in 2014 - but their sales fell by 12 per cent and music DVDs by 50 per cent.
Mr Place sells only second-hand records but said the ARIA figures reflected the rise of contemporary bands targeting the niche vinyl market.
"All the big bands certainly release a proportion of their big albums on vinyl," he said.
Most of Dynomite's records sell for between $10 and $20, with some as low as $3, but Mr Place said sound quality did require some investment.
"You get what you pay for it. But the audio quality that is inherent in most vinyl is superior to CDs," he said.
And while there's no way to skip a track on an average 17 minutes-a-side record, Mr Place says that's no bad thing.
"The thing I like about vinyl is you're forced to play the record the way the artist wanted it to be heard," he said.
The move to digital albums is yet to dominate the Australian industry, with CD album sales bringing in $115 million revenue last year compared with $67 million for downloaded albums.
Landspeed Records owner Blake Budak has has been selling vinyl in Civic for 20 years and said there had been a gradual increase in sales, with customer ages ranging from 15 to 65.
"In terms of the last year or so, vinyl sales have increased by 30 per cent and there's been a small decline in CD sales," he said.
